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New Scientist calls time
Posted: 27 Feb 2009, 15:10
by biffvernon
Have you seen this week's New Scientist.
Front covers says:
Earth 2099
Population crashes
Mass migration
Vast new deserts
Cities abandoned
The editorial starts:
DESPITE the numerous warnings about extreme weather, rising sea levels and mass extinctions, one message seems to have got lost in the debate about the impact of climate change. A warmer world won't just be inconvenient. Huge swathes of it, including most of Europe, the US and Australia as well as all of Africa and China will actually be uninhabitable - too hot, dry or stormy to sustain a human population.
This is no mirage. It could materialise if the world warms by an average of just 4 °C, which some scientists fear could happen as soon as 2050. This is the world our children and grandchildren are going to have to live in. So what are we going to do about it?
And Gaia Vince's article (what were her parents thinking) make dieoff.com sound like a walk in the park.
Posted: 27 Feb 2009, 15:14
by DominicJ
I prepared a long rebuttle, then realised it was 2099, not 2009.
I thought they were predicting a lot in the next 306 days
Posted: 27 Feb 2009, 15:30
by happychicken
The good news is that the survival of humankind itself is not at stake: the species could continue if only a couple of hundred individuals remained
I like the way she thinks this is
good news
Posted: 27 Feb 2009, 17:29
by Adam1
happychicken wrote:The good news is that the survival of humankind itself is not at stake: the species could continue if only a couple of hundred individuals remained
Is that true? We would need more than 200 people to continue the species, wouldn't we? Genetic diversity and all that?
Posted: 27 Feb 2009, 17:31
by Andy Hunt
Adam1 wrote:happychicken wrote:The good news is that the survival of humankind itself is not at stake: the species could continue if only a couple of hundred individuals remained
Is that true? We would need more than 200 people to continue the species, wouldn't we? Genetic diversity and all that?
Allegedly evolution works much faster in small populations, so it may actually be a new species which ends up continuing, one with a bit more common sense with any luck.
Posted: 27 Feb 2009, 17:53
by biffvernon
Adam1 wrote:We would need more than 200 people to continue the species, wouldn't we? Genetic diversity and all that?
We manage all right in Lincolnshire.
Posted: 27 Feb 2009, 17:59
by kenneal - lagger
biffvernon wrote:Adam1 wrote:We would need more than 200 people to continue the species, wouldn't we? Genetic diversity and all that?
We manage all right in Lincolnshire.
Is that why Chris moved away?
Posted: 27 Feb 2009, 18:01
by biffvernon
Posted: 27 Feb 2009, 18:36
by dotty
Somebody I know who is a geneticist reckons you need more like 10,000 people to ensure a healthy gene pool...
Not what I believe not what I know just what I was told by someone cleverer than me
The new scientist article was good though...sort of explains why we're up poo creek without a paddle...the creek being the 'way things are going' the paddle being the need for planetary wide cooperation...could happen I suppose
Posted: 27 Feb 2009, 18:42
by ziggy12345
I cancelled my subscription to New Scientist as it was getting to sound like a religious doctrine. There are other things than global warming to report about..... Blah Blah Blah. Give it a rest
Posted: 27 Feb 2009, 18:56
by biffvernon
Just had a count up. In this week's issue of NS there are 37 articles and 10 letters that have nothing to do with global warming and 7 articles that are related to that subject. There is one article entitled, 'Hidden religious agendas and how to spot them', so readers are well armed in case Ziggy's warning is valid.
Posted: 27 Feb 2009, 19:08
by Neily at the peak
I had to cross with devon to create a bit of diversity!!
Neil
Yellow Belly born & bred
Posted: 27 Feb 2009, 23:08
by biffvernon
Turns out the author of the NS article, Gaia Vince, has a rather worthwhile blog:
http://wanderinggaia.com/ at which I learn that the NS article has been picked up by the SUN!
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/fe ... 273556.ece
And do look at this, the comments on the Sun's version of the story
http://www.thesun.co.uk/mysun/comment/v ... nId=732797
Posted: 28 Feb 2009, 12:17
by biffvernon
There's a picture in Gaia Vince's article that I thought particularly disturbing:
In geological terms I guess it shows the realtime formation of the Upper Anthropocene Unconformity, the layer that marks TEOTWAWKI and the start of the Post Anthropocene Desert Sandstone Formation.
I've found the exact same spot on Google Maps, which a little zooming out shows the town of Dunhuang located in an inlier within a rather inhospitable landscape. It's not going to be long before this place becomes uninhabitable.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ie=UTF8&h ... 9&t=h&z=14
Posted: 28 Feb 2009, 14:27
by skeptik
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/955008
Weird. Never seen anything like that before. Lush foreground, giant dunes in the background.
