seems very depressing and fatalistic.

Perhaps 10,000 yrs of toxic nuclear waste wasn’t such a bad idea or the 1 child policy in china! Getting the catholic church to accept birth control might help.

Oh,let’s not be too hasty now.

As you were.

“Can’t have a groovy post-apocalyptic dystopia without breaking a few eggs” as my Gran never ever said.

Some might say he has a bit of an agenda.

Population growth will peak soon enough, already shrinking in Europe if you discount migration.

Reliance on fossil fuels is a matter of time too.  Solar and batteries are the next big thing.

There are methods to halt or even reverse global warming, a nuclear winter?  Well something similar like releasing paticals into the atmosphere.  Or giant space mirrors?

I think he is correct.

Sadly most people prefer nice outcomes and fail to take responsibility for difficult things.  The other problem is we all live for a short time.  If we lived for a few hundred years we may take our impact more seriously.

I shall be making the most of my remaining 30 odd years by riding my bike in the rapidly disappearing countryside.  Ironically I shall also make the most of it by driving my sports (midlife crisis) car while petrol is still legal.  And therein lies the problem.  We are all selfish.

I shall be making the most of my remaining 30 odd years by riding my bike in the rapidly disappearing countryside

Over 98% of Great Britain is not built on.

I wouldn’t worry much about our “rapidly disappearing countryside”

👍

I met Mayer Hilman about 15 years ago, he was very interesting – did ask me what I though my bike helmet was going to achieve cycling in London. I said it made it more obvious when I was turning my head to look at surrounding traffic. He liked that answer.

It is concerning the sudden changes that are clearly happening – the collapse of insect populations, the weather, polar ice, the massive increase in air traffic, the constant detritus everywhere,

Over 98% of Great Britain is not built on.

I wouldn’t worry much about our “rapidly disappearing countryside”

They way that some of our countryside is abused, it may as well be built on.

They way that some of our countryside is abused, it may as well be built on.

Middle aged IT contractors doing skids in big BMX’s with gears ?

I’ve started studying Environmental Science with the OU. First module was mainly about CO2 and global warming, it left me utterly depressed about humankind doing our best to destroy our home, we’re doing too little too late

The other problem is we all live for a short time.

Puts down long book I was about to start.

Universal one child policy.

Compulsory euthanasia at 50.

Nice big conventional war.

Should buy us a few years ’till the flu kicks in again.

Yay! Happy thread. Everything goes in cycles and we, as a species, will die out at some point and the earth will recover and carry on like we were never here. Either that or our ancestors will get to play Fallout for realz.

His point is that irrespective of what we do now, (including population reduction and immediate adoption of a zero carbon economy) we’ve passed the point of no return for some of the macro global feedback systems.

Notably this includes melting permafrost greenhouse gases, which makes anthropogenic global warming inputs look like a drop in the ocean.

I don’t fully share his completely apocalyptic view, but I suspect in a few hundred years time competition for diminishing/ unavailable resources will make the earth a pretty unrecognisable place if we were to look at it from our current viewpoint. Perhaps we’ll see a genetic bottleneck of our own making in the future?

Planet will be fine of course, and life will most certainly find a way, but it might not be our life.

Ran out of books to read on holiday so I read my daughters book on climate change written in 2008 – it really does make you think of the legacy we are leaving behind for future generations.