current world population: 6,374,137,440 here is a timetable from http://www.futuresedge.org/World_Population_Issues/Historical_World_Population.html 1 AD 170 million 1000 254 million 1850 1.128 Billion 1930 2.070 Billion 1960 3.039 Billion 1980 4.456 Billion 1990 5.283 Billion 2000 6.080 Billion the growth in the last 150 years is amazing!
Population growth is actually leveling off: IMO the most likely scenario for the end of our civilization would be a super volcano (ie) Yellowstone. ...or an asteroid impact anyone read about this:
Well, I've heard of there being a "super volcano" under Yellowstone, but that's the first time I've read such a detailed account of what might happen if it goes off. ( ) The near miss by the asteroid (and I should have used that word in my previous post, but you can't edit) is an example of what we face... the idea of even seeing what strikes us in advance may be wishful thinking. Huge numbers of them are out there that haven't been spotted. People have this fantasy, driven in part by Hollywood, that we can find them in time to have a chance of stopping them from striking the planet. That is very likely not going to be the case. If we spent the money we are spending on B-2 bombers and aircraft carriers like the Reagan on finding and developing the means to stop these things we might stand a chance. And this is coming from someone in favor of a strong defense. (although I would like to see the money spent differently, but that's another topic)
Well if the super volcano drops temps 21 degrees, I'm relieved that we've been raising them with ozone depeleting chemicals.
yikes... Subterranean volcano stews in Yellowstone By JIM ROBBINS, The New York Times - 10/07/03 YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. — The rolling pine forests, snowcapped mountains and crisp fall evenings here tend to make people forget the fact that the park sits atop a huge simmering underground volcano, but new geologic events have served up reminders. In a few days in July, acidic ground water dissolved parts of the unpaved trails in the Norris Geyser Basin, and the ground temperature of the trails shot up to 200 degrees from the usual maximum of 80. Park officials closed nearly half of the basin's trails, and they remain shut. On Aug. 21, a magnitude 4.4 earthquake shook the southern boundary of the park and startled residents. Yellowstone is one of the most seismically active places on the planet, with hundreds of shakes and shimmers throughout the year. They reach magnitude 4 usually only every other year. In the park, such events are no great surprise. ‘‘Change is what we expect in Yellowstone,'' said the park geologist, Hank Heasler. Although there is no indication that any of the changes suggest an impending eruption, even that would not be so surprising. Over the last 630,000 years, Yellowstone has experienced 29 eruptions the size of the one on Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991. The average interval here has been 20,000 years, and 70,000 have passed since its last eruption. But the volcano, with a caldera 45 by 28 miles, has the potential for far more catastrophic explosions. The last major eruption, estimated at a magnitude 1,000 times as great as the Mount St. Helens explosion of 1980, was 627,000 years ago. The ancient blast blew up miles of mountain range, and ash from it has been uncovered in 22 Western states. It was so thick 1,000 miles away in Kansas that it was mined in the 1930s and used to make a cleanser. Whether the caldera erupts or not, the stew of partly molten rock 5 to 10 miles below the park exerts a powerful and constant influence. ‘‘The whole of the Yellowstone Plateau is going up and down from the magma,'' averaging one and a half centimeters a year, said Dr. Robert B. Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah and a member of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. ‘‘It's like a living, breathing thing.'' In light of the new activity, safety is a growing concern, and officials are writing a hazard plan in case the region grows more active. The ground warming could mean that heat is increasing water pressure, a possible cause of eruptions. In 1989, Porkchop Geyser in Norris Basin became clogged with silica. It exploded and created a 12-foot-wide crater now called Porkchop Hot Spring. A hydrothermal explosion at Mary Bay in Yellowstone Lake some 13,000 years ago blew out a crater more than three miles across. Serious earthquakes are always a possibility. Even though the temblor on Aug. 21 caused no damage, it was widely felt. The largest quake recorded in the West, 7.5 on the old Richter scale, was centered just outside the park in 1959. It dislodged a huge slice of a mountain west of the park, buried 25 campers as they slept in a national forest campground and dammed the Madison River to create Quake Lake. One question that occupies geologists is how the caldera affects fault lines and vice versa. Five major faults terminate in the molten caldera, and even far-flung events can shake the earth here. In November 2002, a magnitude 7.9 quake in Denali National Park in Alaska rippled through the region, leading to more than 500 other quakes that Smith watched simultaneously on a computer in Utah. ‘‘The whole of Yellowstone lit up like a Christmas tree,'' he said. ‘‘It was exciting. I had a ranger call me and say, ‘I've called you before about earthquakes, but these are coming at us from all directions.''' Except for the quake two months ago, Yellowstone has had far fewer quakes in recent years. ‘‘Seismically, its been deathly quiet,'' Smith said. ‘‘We average a half-dozen to 20 quakes'' a day. ‘‘The last two years, we see a couple a day.'' The energy of the quakes has been harnessed to shed light on the volcano. A measuring method, seismic tomography, which is similar to C.T. scanning, uses the shock waves that the quakes generate to map structures deep in the earth. Figures from 12,000 quakes gave Smith a picture of the size and shape of the magma chamber. The magma also fuels geothermal features. All the geyser basins are similar, in that they sit over porous channelized rock layers that contain water under pressure. The water seeps toward the magma zone, where it is superheated. As the water is forced back toward the surface, the pressure is relieved and volume expands, causing geysers to erupt. Even among the steaming, hissing and bubbling landscapes here, Norris Basin stands out. Steamboat Geyser is the tallest one in the park, at 380 feet, more than twice as high as Old Faithful. Test drilling in 1929 measured water temperatures 265 feet down at 400 degrees, and drilling equipment had to be withdrawn. ‘‘The geothermal features of Norris are equally amazing to scientists who have been here for 30 years or someone on their first visit,'' said Heasler, the geologist. Each year, a disturbance at Norris alters features and muddies the water. This year, the disturbance, on July 11, was more severe than usual. Because the ‘‘plumbing'' is underground, the more precise mechanics of geyser basins are not well understood, and why Norris Basin has changed so markedly and suddenly is guesswork. ‘‘The most common hypothesis is that snowmelt wanes and the water table lowers and weight on the system decreases and, as a result, the water boils more aggressively,'' said Dr. Jake Lowenstern, a geologist at the U.S.. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., who is in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. Many features took longer than usual to return to base line, although some have not returned. Echinus Geyser once erupted frequently, every 35 to 75 minutes. In 1998 it switched to an irregular pattern. It had been erupting every two to nine hours before this season's disturbance, which somehow made it blow on a schedule again, every 3 hours 30 minutes to 3 hours 40 minutes. The geyser has now reverted to irregularity. Pearl Geyser, an erupting pool named for its opalescent blue color, usually has two-meter eruptions. After the disturbance, it changed color to crystal clear, then became a steam vent and later returned to an opalescent pool with one-meter eruptions. At the northern end of the basin, a series of vents, or fumaroles, appeared and mud pots cropped up on the trail, splattering hot acidic mud, though it later disappeared. ‘‘Norris,'' Heasler said, ‘‘is showing us something, and whether we can figure it out, we'll see.''
Also, let's not forget about the magnetic poles shifting as they done in the past. IIRC, that was a concern by Einstein. Sun's rays to roast Earth as poles flip Robin McKie, science editor Sunday November 10, 2002 The Observer Earth's magnetic field - the force that protects us from deadly radiation bursts from outer space - is weakening dramatically. Scientists have discovered that its strength has dropped precipitously over the past two centuries and could disappear over the next 1,000 years. The effects could be catastrophic. Powerful radiation bursts, which normally never touch the atmosphere, would heat up its upper layers, triggering climatic disruption. Navigation and communication satellites, Earth's eyes and ears, would be destroyed and migrating animals left unable to navigate. 'Earth's magnetic field has disappeared many times before - as a prelude to our magnetic poles flipping over, when north becomes south and vice versa,' said Dr Alan Thomson of the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh. 'Reversals happen every 250,000 years or so, and as there has not been one for almost a million years, we are due one soon.' For more than 100 years, scientists have noted the strength of Earth's magnetic field has been declining, but have disagreed about interpretations. Some said its drop was a precursor to reversal, others argued it merely indicated some temporary variation in field strength has been occurring. But now Gauthier Hulot of the Paris Geophysical Institute has discovered Earth's magnetic field seems to be disappearing most alarmingly near the poles, a clear sign that a flip may soon take place. Using satellite measurements of field variations over the past 20 years, Hulot plotted the currents of molten iron that generate Earth's magnetism deep underground and spotted huge whorls near the poles. Hulot believes these vortices rotate in a direction that reinforces a reverse magnetic field, and as they grow and proliferate these eddies will weaken the dominant field: the first steps toward a new polarity, he says. And as Scientific American reports this week, this interpretation has now been backed up by computer simulation studies. How long a reversal might last is a matter of scientific controversy, however. Records of past events, embedded in iron minerals in ancient lava beds, show some can last for thousands of years - during which time the planet will have been exposed to batterings from solar radiation. On the other hand, other researchers say some flips may have lasted only a few weeks. Exactly what will happen when Earth's magnetic field disappears prior to its re-emergence in a reversed orientation is also difficult to assess. Compasses would point to the wrong pole - a minor inconvenience. More importantly, low-orbiting satellites would be exposed to electromagnetic batterings, wrecking them. In addition, many species of migrating animals and birds - from swallows to wildebeests - rely on innate abilities to track Earth's magnetic field. Their fates are impossible to gauge. As to humans, our greatest risk would come from intense solar radiation bursts. Normally these are contained by the planet's magnetic field in space. However, if it disappears, particle storms will start to batter the atmosphere. 'These solar particles can have profound effects,' said Dr Paul Murdin, of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. 'On Mars, when its magnetic field failed permanently billions of years ago, it led to its atmosphere being boiled off. On Earth, it will heat up the upper atmosphere and send ripples round the world with enormous, unpredictable effects on the climate.' It is unlikely that humans could do much. Burrowing thousands of miles into solid rock to set things right would stretch the technological prowess of our descendants to bursting point, though such limitations do not worry film scriptwriters. Paramount's latest sci-fi thriller, The Core - directed by Englishman Jon Amiel, and starring Hilary Swank and Aaron Eckhart - depicts a world beset by just such a polar reversal, with radiation sweeping the planet. The solution, according to the film, to be released next year, involves scientists drilling into Earth's mantle to set off a nuclear blast that will halt the reversal. Given that temperatures at such depths rival those of the Sun's surface, such a task would seem impossible - except, of course, in Hollywood. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,837058,00.html And Lil Pun, until we colonize the solar system (at least), the End of the Earth = End of Humanity/Civilization as we know it ... for optimists of human nature.
simple answer People ain't dying like they use too. Medical Science may not be curing us. . .but i'll be d*mned if they ain't making us live longer and healthier sh*t .. the guy from the odd couple had a kid at age 72 that simply was not happening in 1803 Rocket River
I was waiting for this answer. Medical technology has all but eliminated the theory of "survival of the fittest." I believe this is one of the biggest reason for over-population.
Over population is only occurring in 3rd world countries without the benefits of most modern medical techniques and medicines.
Cobra will never defeat GI Joe. Blasphemy!!!!! So what have we learned from this thread? Dont drill on the moon, it will lead to some scary stuff in 200,000 years. Jesus is coming, probably right before the meteor slams into us and the sun explodes. Wait, no....first there is the rapture, where the slow driving a-hole in front of me vanishes and his car smashes into some other people, and then Kirk Cameron helps us survive in the aftermath, cause it sucks to be "Left Behind" Someone else shares my lack of faith in my poor Commodores.
By the time the sun is about to engulf us, we will have learned how to either stabilize the sun's growth/decay/reactionary forces, or we will have found a way to move the planet. Or we will have either been exterminated somehow, or have moved on to somewhere else. 4.5 billion years is a long time.
Maybe we will evolve into something like the Borg on Star Trek and lose our individuality, thus ceasing to exist except as a collective bunch of linked automatons. Now that would truly be the end of the world. But if that was to happen, I'd want to be the guy to say:
When the moon finally drifts out of orbit, and the earth starts whirling and twirling out of control.
when the game report of the rockets says: Bostjan Nachbar and Moochie Norris contributed 15 points each in the Rocket's win. sign of the apocalypse...
Quote: Originally posted by underoverup OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO K --- that is some weird/scary cult like stuff to be teaching "followers". quote by ty77: See man thats what's dangerous about taking parts of the bible out of context or without researching them. That is the symbolic language that the apocolyptic writers of the time were using. Each symbol meant something completely different to the people of the time, and when we read it as symbols, we comlpletely misunderstand it. __________________ The book of Revelation is the interpretation of what God revealed to John (I believe it was John....rusty....) about what was the future, what would come to pass.. John was shown these things in a DREAM, and the language is written so as to interpret that dream-it's not literal. The mention of a beast for example, could be used to represent a city, or a people, a country. The same can be said of Prophecy throughout the Old Testament, some of the language isn't literal, it's representative. Anyway, I believe that our civilization will end in fire. God flooded the world once to rid the world of evil doers, and promised to never again flood the earth. The promise is represented as the rainbow that we often see. IMO, the world will be burned...by what means, who knows? Volcano? Sun crashing into earth?
