Climate Change(d)?

[bilby]

Is mere survival our only relevant concern? I don't think people aree nearly as worried about non-existence as they are of living while greatly suffering. At least, I am not.

No, it's not.

But someone who is claiming that humanity is shortly going to go extinct due to their own actions is wrong, even if there are other bad consequences of our actions.

Disagree--in terms of direct actions extinction is unlikely. However, humans have quite an ability to locate where there might be distant resources and fight over them. Population crashes in nature aren't extinction events because while a local population may be wiped out others in more favorable locations will still survive.

However, humans have two big problems in this sort of scenario:

1) The humans in the area that can't survive won't just starve, they will attempt to go to the more favorable areas and take resources. We have already seen that humans can strip an area to the point nobody can survive.

2) Humans rely heavily on the slow production of resources--farming. In an area well beyond it's carrying capacity the takers will end up killing the producers--by the time the population is down to it's carrying capacity there will be only very unskilled producers and thus the carrying capacity is far lower. Such resource production also takes longer than the survival time without food--you can't farm without having a store of food to live on while you're doing it. That food gets eaten, everyone starves before the crops come in.

None of that is sufficient to cause human extinction. You are assuming that the ability to detect food across oceans, and to rapidly transport large numbers of people (or large volumes of food) across those oceans, will persist longer than the ability to subsistence farm. Which is insane.

The world is fucking huge, and humans are fucking everywhere. The timing required to ensure an extinction event such as you describe is incompatible with the collapse of civilisation required to initiate such an event.

And we have a VAST amount of food in long-term storage.

A small town of 100,000 people contains about enough tinned food to last over a week, so say crudely a million person days of food. That's enough to feed a hundred survivors for more than twenty five years.

A larger city can feed ten thousand people for a decade just on scavenging supermarkets and warehouses, even if half of that tinned food is destroyed - and there is no other food source at all.

When you have billions of people storing stuff, and then most of them die, that's a vast per capita resource for a minimum viable population of survivors.

 

[steve_bank]

With the widespread electronic and paper storage of science and engineering even with large scale collapse knowledge will likely survive, unless there is some kind of reaction against science and technology. Analogous to Mao's Cultural Revolution that turned on academics and intellectuals. Given a breakdown in order in the USA who knows where the conservative religious right will take it.

The capitol riot as an example. Civil order and rule of law is fragile. It broke down in Seattle during the riots.

At this point basic energy production is not 'rocket science'.

Here in the PNW we have an ongoing problem with foreign insects that manage to get here, probably through shipping. No ntural predators. It is not just a virus pandemic, there s also the risk of crop failures from a number of causes, one being mono culture. The breeding of crops for high yield and consumer desirability discarding old genes. I think it is Norway where there is a repository for heritage seeds in case a mono crop falls dueu to insects or diseases.

 

[bilby]

There are also plenty of isolated groups of humans who would be unlikely to be eliminated by any human caused global die-back.

The removal of the bulk of humanity would likely be a boon to remote Amazonian tribes, and to people such as the Sentinelese, the New Guinea highlanders, etc., for whom the largest current threat is the rest of us.

Despite our ingenuity, we probably couldn't kill off everyone. Even a deliberate attempt to go extinct, such as a global nuclear war, would almost certainly fail to eliminate all of these remote groups, and given a few tens of thousands of years, there's no particular reason not to expect world population to get back into the billions.

Disaster we can manage. The end of civilisation is perhaps achievable. Extinction is a much more difficult objective. The universe could impose it on us without the slightest difficulty, but we aren't powerful enough to do it to ourselves.

 

[Elixir]

When you have billions of people storing stuff, and then most of them die, that's a vast per capita resource for a minimum viable population of survivors

… as long as you like your vittles well done.

 

[Bomb#20]

And we will all bake together when we bake
There'll be nobody present at the wake
With complete participation in that grand incineration
Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.

- Tom Lehrer

 

[Loren Pechtel]

None of that is sufficient to cause human extinction. You are assuming that the ability to detect food across oceans, and to rapidly transport large numbers of people (or large volumes of food) across those oceans, will persist longer than the ability to subsistence farm. Which is insane.

No detection needed, people will proceed to where they think food is.

The world is fucking huge, and humans are fucking everywhere. The timing required to ensure an extinction event such as you describe is incompatible with the collapse of civilisation required to initiate such an event.

And we have a VAST amount of food in long-term storage.

A small town of 100,000 people contains about enough tinned food to last over a week, so say crudely a million person days of food. That's enough to feed a hundred survivors for more than twenty five years.

If you had a disease event that killed 99.9% of the population you would be at least close to right. However, most apocalyptic scenarios will not kill most people. You might have 50,000 fighting over that food, two weeks of survival. There's also the issue of fire--with no meaningful firefighting capability do not expect that food to be there in 25 years.

And what good is that food, anyway? Your 100 survivors will not be able to maintain the grid, thus they won't have water unless there's a local source--and most places don't have such sources.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

With the widespread electronic and paper storage of science and engineering even with large scale collapse knowledge will likely survive, unless there is some kind of reaction against science and technology. Analogous to Mao's Cultural Revolution that turned on academics and intellectuals. Given a breakdown in order in the USA who knows where the conservative religious right will take it.

Electronic storage? A while back I was going through some old hard drives to get rid of. Spin them up, wipe them and put them in a box to give away. Half wouldn't spin up. None of them were more than 20 years old, most of them substantially less.

My wife has a bunch of Chinese dramas on VCD and DVD. Many wouldn't mount after only some years of storage.

And there's less and less of the paper storage.

 

[bilby]

None of that is sufficient to cause human extinction. You are assuming that the ability to detect food across oceans, and to rapidly transport large numbers of people (or large volumes of food) across those oceans, will persist longer than the ability to subsistence farm. Which is insane.

No detection needed, people will proceed to where they think food is.

Seriously?

Civilisation has collapsed; The USA is devastated. Hundreds of millions have died just in the US alone.

You hear a rumour that food is still available in Tibet.

How are you getting there?

The world is fucking huge, and humans are fucking everywhere. The timing required to ensure an extinction event such as you describe is incompatible with the collapse of civilisation required to initiate such an event.

And we have a VAST amount of food in long-term storage.

A small town of 100,000 people contains about enough tinned food to last over a week, so say crudely a million person days of food. That's enough to feed a hundred survivors for more than twenty five years.

If you had a disease event that killed 99.9% of the population you would be at least close to right. However, most apocalyptic scenarios will not kill most people.

A scenario that doesn't kill most people isn't much of an extinction event, is it?

You might have 50,000 fighting over that food, two weeks of survival. There's also the issue of fire--with no meaningful firefighting capability do not expect that food to be there in 25 years.

And what good is that food, anyway? Your 100 survivors will not be able to maintain the grid, thus they won't have water unless there's a local source--and most places don't have such sources.

With a handful of exceptions, all human settlements have a local source of fresh water.

 

[DBT]

Numerous possibilities lie between 'business as usual' and our extinction, which is highly unlikely.

 

[steve_bank]

We are not likey to go extinct, but the vast majority of Americans seem to have a faith it will always be buiness as usual. That faith comes from the short post war period of economic growth and ricing standards of living. Generl wodespead physical comfort that crtes a sense of security.

Here in Seattle the east west mountain passes have been closed for several days due to snow and is affecting supplies. Snoqualamie Pass is the main interstate going east. The north south I5 was temporarily closed for 20 mile stretch due to flooding. There is widespread regional flooding. Snow closures are usually short term, this is unusual.

It is just a taste of what may be coming.

You can find time line estimates online of how long the Earth will be habitable. The Sun cycle. Astronomy gives us an upper bound assuming we do not destroy ourselves first.

 

[steve_bank]

With the widespread electronic and paper storage of science and engineering even with large scale collapse knowledge will likely survive, unless there is some kind of reaction against science and technology. Analogous to Mao's Cultural Revolution that turned on academics and intellectuals. Given a breakdown in order in the USA who knows where the conservative religious right will take it.

Electronic storage? A while back I was going through some old hard drives to get rid of. Spin them up, wipe them and put them in a box to give away. Half wouldn't spin up. None of them were more than 20 years old, most of them substantially less.

My wife has a bunch of Chinese dramas on VCD and DVD. Many wouldn't mount after only some years of storage.

And there's less and less of the paper storage.

Servers are maintained and redundant. Electronic media will survive, if for nothing else but economic interest. Engineering and scientific and mediacl knowledge will survive.

Plato and Aristotle were carried forward. As was math and science.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

None of that is sufficient to cause human extinction. You are assuming that the ability to detect food across oceans, and to rapidly transport large numbers of people (or large volumes of food) across those oceans, will persist longer than the ability to subsistence farm. Which is insane.

No detection needed, people will proceed to where they think food is.

Seriously?

Civilisation has collapsed; The USA is devastated. Hundreds of millions have died just in the US alone.

You hear a rumour that food is still available in Tibet.

How are you getting there?

They're not going to Tibet. They're heading for locations where food would be expected to be--any center of habitation. Thus all food in centers of habitation will be quickly consumed, then the mob spreads out from them, devouring anything remotely edible it finds. For a store of food to survive it must be remote enough the mob dies before it reaches it and it must be secret so nobody specifically heads for it.

If you had a disease event that killed 99.9% of the population you would be at least close to right. However, most apocalyptic scenarios will not kill most people.

A scenario that doesn't kill most people isn't much of an extinction event, is it?

Take the standard extinction scenario: nuclear war. If you're not near a big city nor an important military facility you're not likely to die in the war. Depending on how dirty it was you might die of the fallout but people in colder climates will be able to shelter against that. Thus you'll have a lot of people out there looking for the food that isn't around anymore.

Or how about something like the dinosaur killer? If you're on the other side of the Earth you'll probably survive the impact. (Anywhere could be hit by a large bit of splash, but that's not going to kill all that many overall.) Again, lots of survivors.

You might have 50,000 fighting over that food, two weeks of survival. There's also the issue of fire--with no meaningful firefighting capability do not expect that food to be there in 25 years.

And what good is that food, anyway? Your 100 survivors will not be able to maintain the grid, thus they won't have water unless there's a local source--and most places don't have such sources.

With a handful of exceptions, all human settlements have a local source of fresh water.

Huh? An awful lot of human settlements rely on wells for water. No power = no water. And the existence of water doesn't mean you can get to it--it would be like a waterhole in Africa--staked out by the predators. Don't use your country as representative of population distribution!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Servers are maintained and redundant. Electronic media will survive, if for nothing else but economic interest. Engineering and scientific and mediacl knowledge will survive.

Plato and Aristotle were carried forward. As was math and science.

The point is what happens when that maintenance stops. There is a huge amount of industry required to maintain those servers, it won't be possible in a collapse situation.

 

[bilby]

None of that is sufficient to cause human extinction. You are assuming that the ability to detect food across oceans, and to rapidly transport large numbers of people (or large volumes of food) across those oceans, will persist longer than the ability to subsistence farm. Which is insane.

No detection needed, people will proceed to where they think food is.

Seriously?

Civilisation has collapsed; The USA is devastated. Hundreds of millions have died just in the US alone.

You hear a rumour that food is still available in Tibet.

How are you getting there?

They're not going to Tibet. They're heading for locations where food would be expected to be--any center of habitation. Thus all food in centers of habitation will be quickly consumed, then the mob spreads out from them, devouring anything remotely edible it finds. For a store of food to survive it must be remote enough the mob dies before it reaches it and it must be secret so nobody specifically heads for it.

Or it just needs to be somewhere remote and inaccessible.

Like Tibet. They have food there, you know.

Or any of hundreds of island nations.

If you want your marauding mob to eat everyone's food, you're going to need to give them some serious transportation capabilities.

If you had a disease event that killed 99.9% of the population you would be at least close to right. However, most apocalyptic scenarios will not kill most people.

A scenario that doesn't kill most people isn't much of an extinction event, is it?

Take the standard extinction scenario: nuclear war. If you're not near a big city nor an important military facility you're not likely to die in the war. Depending on how dirty it was you might die of the fallout but people in colder climates will be able to shelter against that. Thus you'll have a lot of people out there looking for the food that isn't around anymore.

Or how about something like the dinosaur killer? If you're on the other side of the Earth you'll probably survive the impact. (Anywhere could be hit by a large bit of splash, but that's not going to kill all that many overall.) Again, lots of survivors.

You might have 50,000 fighting over that food, two weeks of survival. There's also the issue of fire--with no meaningful firefighting capability do not expect that food to be there in 25 years.

And what good is that food, anyway? Your 100 survivors will not be able to maintain the grid, thus they won't have water unless there's a local source--and most places don't have such sources.

With a handful of exceptions, all human settlements have a local source of fresh water.

Huh? An awful lot of human settlements rely on wells for water. No power = no water. And the existence of water doesn't mean you can get to it--it would be like a waterhole in Africa--staked out by the predators. Don't use your country as representative of population distribution!

Mate, my country is one of the few where water probably would be a problem.

Power isn't needed for a well to supply water; People used wells for water in the Neolithic, and they didn't have pumps.

You can get water from a well with a rope and a bucket.

And the VAST majority of people live near rivers. Permanent rivers, with plenty of fresh water.

Filter, boil, cool, and drink. Not difficult.

 

[steve_bank]

Servers are maintained and redundant. Electronic media will survive, if for nothing else but economic interest. Engineering and scientific and mediacl knowledge will survive.

Plato and Aristotle were carried forward. As was math and science.

The point is what happens when that maintenance stops. There is a huge amount of industry required to maintain those servers, it won't be possible in a collapse situation.

There is are still printing presses. Science, math, and engineering books existed before electronics and electricity. Romans had written empircal construction materials test data.

Worse case the Vatican will have an army of monks copying books by candle light until we come out of the Dark Ages.

Greed and the survival instinct will keep knowledge and technology going.

There are underground commercial bunkers where you can store data. Manufacturing processes and documentation sufficient to rebuild manufacturing from scratch are stored in multiple sites by large companies.

Small companies use the net or local hard storage backed up periodicaly. In some small companies I wored at somebody carried a tape of the daily backup home just in case there was a fire.

Project Gutenberg. All books who's copyright has expired are being digitized. You wll find Plato along with a book written by Einstien,

Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is a library of free eBooks.

www.gutenberg.org

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Or it just needs to be somewhere remote and inaccessible.

Like Tibet. They have food there, you know.

But how much do they produce there?

Or any of hundreds of island nations.

If you want your marauding mob to eat everyone's food, you're going to need to give them some serious transportation capabilities.

And bad guys can't take ships??

Mate, my country is one of the few where water probably would be a problem.

Power isn't needed for a well to supply water; People used wells for water in the Neolithic, and they didn't have pumps.

You can get water from a well with a rope and a bucket.

And the VAST majority of people live near rivers. Permanent rivers, with plenty of fresh water.

Filter, boil, cool, and drink. Not difficult.

Let's pretend this house had a well. I'll use the average well depth around here. There's a big pump down there and 900' of pipe and the power wires from the pump above it. Think I have anything around that can pull the pump?? Nor do I have 900' of rope lying around. And I don't think even a 1 gallon bucket will go down the bore even with the plumbing out of the way.

As for filter, boil, cool, and drink--boil it with what? Grid down--there's no electricity, there's no gas.

 

[bilby]

Or it just needs to be somewhere remote and inaccessible.

Like Tibet. They have food there, you know.

But how much do they produce there?

As a minimum bound, enough to feed the entire pre-industrial population of the region. Most likely significantly more than that.

Or any of hundreds of island nations.

If you want your marauding mob to eat everyone's food, you're going to need to give them some serious transportation capabilities.

And bad guys can't take ships??

The proportion of the population who can manage a modern ocean-going ship is minuscule, so as a first pass 'most plausibly' response, I am going to go with "no".

Mate, my country is one of the few where water probably would be a problem.

Power isn't needed for a well to supply water; People used wells for water in the Neolithic, and they didn't have pumps.

You can get water from a well with a rope and a bucket.

And the VAST majority of people live near rivers. Permanent rivers, with plenty of fresh water.

Filter, boil, cool, and drink. Not difficult.

Let's pretend this house had a well. I'll use the average well depth around here. There's a big pump down there and 900' of pipe and the power wires from the pump above it. Think I have anything around that can pull the pump?? Nor do I have 900' of rope lying around. And I don't think even a 1 gallon bucket will go down the bore even with the plumbing out of the way.

As for filter, boil, cool, and drink--boil it with what? Grid down--there's no electricity, there's no gas.

You can make a 'bucket' to fit any bore, out of a piece of pipe of smaller diameter, with a flap valve cap on the bottom and a rope secured to the top. Drop it down, wait for it to sink, then haul it up. Even a small bore pipe holds lots of water if it's long enough.

Most people live within a short distance of a permanent above ground stream or river, but even if a bore is your only option, it doesn't require much technology to rig up a manual lifring system.

I understand that a gallon is around four and a half litres, but have no clue how far a ' is; This is the Internet, not America.

Regardless, a rope, cable, wire or similar of arbitrary length is easy to scavenge. Ordinary household electrical cable is plenty strong enough for the job, and ubiquitous.

And making fire to boil water is a technology the pre-dates the wheel. It certainly pre-dates the widespread supply of electricity and gas.

 

[steve_bank]

In the region we eilways have seasonal flooding and landslides. It is way above normal

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You can make a 'bucket' to fit any bore, out of a piece of pipe of smaller diameter, with a flap valve cap on the bottom and a rope secured to the top. Drop it down, wait for it to sink, then haul it up. Even a small bore pipe holds lots of water if it's long enough.

Of course you can, given access to parts. You're assuming access that likely doesn't exist.

Most people live within a short distance of a permanent above ground stream or river, but even if a bore is your only option, it doesn't require much technology to rig up a manual lifring system.

I understand that a gallon is around four and a half litres, but have no clue how far a ' is; This is the Internet, not America.

Regardless, a rope, cable, wire or similar of arbitrary length is easy to scavenge. Ordinary household electrical cable is plenty strong enough for the job, and ubiquitous.

A ' is a foot. Thus, about 300m. I don't have anything around long enough.

And making fire to boil water is a technology the pre-dates the wheel. It certainly pre-dates the widespread supply of electricity and gas.

Making a fire with what? What's the fuel?

 

[bilby]

You can make a 'bucket' to fit any bore, out of a piece of pipe of smaller diameter, with a flap valve cap on the bottom and a rope secured to the top. Drop it down, wait for it to sink, then haul it up. Even a small bore pipe holds lots of water if it's long enough.

Of course you can, given access to parts. You're assuming access that likely doesn't exist.

You do know that hardware stores and their stock don't cease to exist if their staff die, right?

Most people live within a short distance of a permanent above ground stream or river, but even if a bore is your only option, it doesn't require much technology to rig up a manual lifring system.

I understand that a gallon is around four and a half litres, but have no clue how far a ' is; This is the Internet, not America.

Regardless, a rope, cable, wire or similar of arbitrary length is easy to scavenge. Ordinary household electrical cable is plenty strong enough for the job, and ubiquitous.

A ' is a foot. Thus, about 300m. I don't have anything around long enough.

But the local hardware store does; And the staff are dead, so there's a 100% off final closing down sale in progress.

And making fire to boil water is a technology the pre-dates the wheel. It certainly pre-dates the widespread supply of electricity and gas.

Making a fire with what? What's the fuel?

Gee, I don't know. It's not like fuel grows on trees.

Oh, wait...