Human race after 50000 years.

[jbw]

I love the notion that hippies try to force on everyone that we are all going to die because of our technology.

Antartica used to have rainforests on it at its present polar location for gods sake. This planet can get a heck of alot hotter than it is. So what if our fossil fuels speed it up or add 2-3 degrees over a hundred years. People need to stop looking for a cause to make themselves feel important and focus on their own lives.

Seriously, we are all going to die eventually anyways. The natural progression of the planet is going to make the atmosphere unbreathable to us eventually. The sun is going to get bigger and hotter and kill us all. The ocean life are going to change and ruin the global food chain. We. are. all. gonna. die. Being snooty and pretending that youre better than people driving suv's because u bought a hybrid car is absurd. Any effect these hippies are having on the enviroment is negligable to the entire history of the earth.

And frankly i run 2 airconditoners, drive a gas guzzler and throw my mcdonalds wrappers out the car window to spite the tree huggers. No one makes a difference on a scale this big in history, thinking any of us matters is naieve.

Its more of the fact that when the ice melts, that water is going to have to go somewhere. Most likely, flooding the coastal areas, and killing millions, if not billions.

[Demerzel]

The human race is 200,000 years old, 50k isnt much time relatively speaking. The previous form of man, homo erectus died out what... 1 million years ago give or take. And their first fossils show up 3 million years ago.

Civilization wise Sheppard travelled a long way, species wise he covered only a drop in the ocean, a fraction of our species likely history.

Crazy unproven theories aside, the first trace of human civilization are around 10,000 BCE if you are not very religious. If you are, then the bible points out that Adam was the first human and was created around 4600 BCE.

I don't believe in evolution at all, so yeah. Fifty thousand years would be quite a change, we probably couldn't even imagine how it is.

[ACharmedAsgard]

Its more of the fact that when the ice melts, that water is going to have to go somewhere. Most likely, flooding the coastal areas, and killing millions, if not billions.

Not necessarily - it's not a case of the ice melting so quickly that massive typoons hit the coast and we are so unexpecting we die.

These things take years to happen ad I'm very sure we will notice the tides rising enough to move away from the coasts. We aren't just gunna stay where we are.

[KindlyKeller]

Crazy unproven theories aside, the first trace of human civilization are around 10,000 BCE if you are not very religious. If you are, then the bible points out that Adam was the first human and was created around 4600 BCE.

I don't believe in evolution at all, so yeah. Fifty thousand years would be quite a change, we probably couldn't even imagine how it is.

With respect, how is one's notion of the history of the human race being informed by one's religious beliefs any less "unproven" than evolution? I don't want to get into a debate here (I consider evolution fact essentially), but it's more than a little bit hyperbolic to call it "crazy," in the same way it would be hyperbolic for me to talk about the Afterlife and refer to the Christian Heaven as "a crazy unproven theory."

[JSPuddlejumper]

<snip....state your opinion, just state it without calling others names or disrespecting their opinions>

Human race have been evolving more close to 200,000 years.

As for 50,000 years, if it is natural evolution, we would have not evovled much at all.

However, tech can change the pace of evolution.

As for the universe, planets=grains of sands, there could be actually be trillions of intelligent species out there, if not way more.

[jds1982]

1) Biofuels. Doesn't work unless you want to starve the population to feed your cars. It's already driven food prices up dramatically.

There's actually companies working on making biodiesel out of algae, and of cousre you can make it out of leftover grease from fast food joints, so unless you're into eating sludge those wouldn't affect food prices. People are also working on ways to break down cellulose so that they can make things like wood chips and corn stalks into ethanol, which again should cut down on any food price increases. While things do suck now, I have hope that within the next ten years they'll start to turn around. I think we may be surprised at how quickly market demand changes our situation. Green is becoming big business.

[wraith_ownage]

on the contrary, unlimited energy would collapse the economy and lead to war.

and what about all the other resources?
did you know before this century is over we're going to run out of metals like indium platinum tantalum gallium zinc and more
these things are used in all our technologies: computer chips, electronics, lcd screens, lasers, catalysts, fertilizers and many more.

when these things start to run out, you can bet there'll be wars

dude the human race in the stargate universe had all these resources and when not plus advanced tech from asgard and ancients plus having hyper space capable ships and the stargate if we were to runout humans would simple colonize other planets like the alpha site remember plus if we needed metals we could just mine resources from other planets duh

[1138]

There's actually companies working on making biodiesel out of algae, and of cousre you can make it out of leftover grease from fast food joints, so unless you're into eating sludge those wouldn't affect food prices. People are also working on ways to break down cellulose so that they can make things like wood chips and corn stalks into ethanol, which again should cut down on any food price increases. While things do suck now, I have hope that within the next ten years they'll start to turn around. I think we may be surprised at how quickly market demand changes our situation. Green is becoming big business.

Two issues:

1) It's a matter of scalability. Algal biodiesel hasn't been proven to work in the scales required to completely replace oil. It needs much more work. The only biofuels that have been commercialized on a large scale in the US so far are those which affect the food supply. You can only evaluate possible futures based on technology that you know exist, not things that don't exist.

2) Which leads us to the problem of putting all of our hopes on scientific breakthroughs that may or may not happen. There is a finite amount of time until oil supply cannot keep up with demand and if the alternatives aren't ready to make a meaningful contribution by then, we'll have big problems.

The way it's going to play out, assuming nothing goes wrong is this:

1) Everyone must cut back dramatically on their use of fossil fuels and energy in general as peak oil hits. Conservation will be key. This isn't about protecting the environment; it's about survival. When peak oil hits, supply will not be able to meet demand and the only way to ensure that we maintain some semblance of society is to minimize our dependence on oil. That will leave at least some oil for the farmers, for maintaining infrastructure and keeping basic order.
2) After this, ALL energy alternatives will need to be brought online. This includes nuclear, wind, solar, biomass / biofuels and yes, coal (which will last a bit longer than oil). But they won't be nearly enough to stop economic problems or allow us to continue business as usual since they won't be brought online until after peak oil which leaves us with no spare energy at all. But just hopefully, they'll be enough to prevent societal collapse.
3) Eventually, we build enough nuclear plants and change enough of our infrastructure over to rely on electricity rather than fossil fuels. At that stage, wind and solar will be a healthy mix of the energy solution and fusion is finally ready to be used.

1) will occur in the 2015 to 2025 time frame. The less oil we use now, the more time we have until this happens, which will give time to hopefully flesh out viable alternatives before we get the rug pulled from right under us.
2) 2025 to 2050.
3) 2050 and onwards.

The sad thing is that if we had prepared to switch away from oil in the 70s, we'd avoid all the problems we're going to face. And the whole reason that we didn't do this in the 70s was because people didn't think far ahead enough and only acted on their stupid impulses.

[jds1982]

The sad thing is that if we had prepared to switch away from oil in the 70s, we'd avoid all the problems we're going to face. And the whole reason that we didn't do this in the 70s was because people didn't think far ahead enough and only acted on their stupid impulses.

I'll agree with you there. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see some massive government action taken to get us off of fossil fuels. On the other hand I think market forces are powerful engines of change, and clean fuels will win out, because oil will become so expensive that consumers will demand change (which to a certain extent I think is starting to happen), but mostly because companies will realise that they can sell them indefinitely. I really hope that algal biodiesel works out. I read that it could produce 100,000 gallons of oil from a single acre, and it's not like it's hard to grow. That being said car exhaust is hardly the biggest problem, pollution from industry and power generation are the big problems.

[1138]

I'll agree with you there. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see some massive government action taken to get us off of fossil fuels. On the other hand I think market forces are powerful engines of change, and clean fuels will win out, because oil will become so expensive that consumers will demand change (which to a certain extent I think is starting to happen), but mostly because companies will realise that they can sell them indefinitely. I really hope that algal biodiesel works out. I read that it could produce 100,000 gallons of oil from a single acre, and it's not like it's hard to grow. That being said car exhaust is hardly the biggest problem, pollution from industry and power generation are the big problems.

This is why I say that high oil prices are actually a good thing if it'll kick people into looking at alternatives and conservation. The worst thing that can happen from a long term societal viewpoint is for oil prices to collapse in the near future. Back in the 70s, oil consumption dropped dramatically as a result of the oil shocks and people were much more efficient. But as the oil price collapsed, that efficiency was lost, which is why we find ourselves still dependent on oil. I just hope that we can move fast enough before we run into resource constraints.

For the record, I'm not nay-saying algal biodiesel or cellulosic ethanol. I just think that they're not guaranteed slam dunks, which is why a mindset of conservation is what I advocate. If it turns out biofuels work, then great but we need to prepare for the situation where they don't work out. In other words, hope for the best but plan for the worst.

[jds1982]

In other words, hope for the best but plan for the worst.

Always a good idea.