Earth's Annual Resources Used Up Today, Group Says

[:eek:]

http://www.livescience.com/16251-earth-overshoot-day-2011.html

 

[THE MR. TERRIFIC]

WOW! I wonder if my kids kids will have a planet?

 

[SuperFerret]

They will.

 

[THE MR. TERRIFIC]

Won't be much of one.

 

[SuperFerret]

Says who? What's the standard for a planet anyway?

 

[November Rain]

bah, until human kind is literally on the brink of extinction, no change will come to anything.

case in point, look what happened to the ozone, a potential end to life as we knew it and within 4 years of the original paper coming out cfcs were completely banned.

the technology to change our lifestyles are all out there, they are just too expensive to run because greedy researchers like myself want a massive cut to pay for my fantabulous lifestyle during the unfruitful times of crappy dead end research.

simply put, until saving the world becomes economically viable, it won't be done.

but anyone thinking that there won't be a world for our kids i think is quite mistaken, human kind has survived far more perioulous times, our children will be fine and if not just as irresponsible as we are eventually.

So is the circle of life.

 

[The Squirrel]

Seems suspect.

 

[THE MR. TERRIFIC]

Says who? What's the standard for a planet anyway?

One you can breath on without using a mask.

 

[SuperFerret]

So.... what? It's a one in nine chance?

 

[THE MR. TERRIFIC]

I guess we'll have to wait and see. Oh, we'll be dead by then. LOL!

 

[Lencho01]

Only two people can fix this...

Spoiler

 

[THE MR. TERRIFIC]

Only two people can fix this...

Spoiler

He's gonna turn us into trees!

 

[Rocketman]

Everything we need to save the planet is right in front of us, but society seems to want to focus on Jersey Shore, Wal-Mart, and McDonalds, instead of making sure that future generations won't live Beyond Thunderdome. It's no exaggeration. I don't understand people who have this "Everything will be fine" attitude because the planet has handled similar situations in the past.

I'm sorry, but I don't remember the planet ever having this many people on it (which is still increasing, mind you - regardless of what you see on Wikipedia), and I don't remember any point in history where this many natural resources are being consumed in such a short period of time. And I don't remember a time Pre-Human or even a time since humans have been around that we have been trashing the environment on this scale. Everything after the Industrial Revolution is an era that has never happened before in Earth's environmental history. After 100+ years, we really have no clue what the Earth can handle, or if it even can.

The next 40 or 50 years cannot be predicted, because we have no clue what future humans are capable of, technologically or environmentally. The society of 1960 is much different than the people of 2010, and the people of 2060 will be much different from us. We can't just assume that everything will be just dandy. Things could get much better, or things could get really, really bad. Logically, I'm going with the latter.

The biggest thing we need to get rid of is the car. Just do away with it completely. Force people into a different lifestyle where we have mass transportation. We as a people are obsessed with going places, but we're really not going anywhere. I'm on the road and I see a hundred cars all going in the same direction, and I all can think of is how logical it would be to just have those hundred people in one vehicle as opposed to a hundred vehicles with one person in each one. It's stupid. And the problem is that people want to be independent and go wherever they want, but it's not a necessity in the grand scheme of things.

Before you call me a moron, or that I'm smoking a liberal blunt, I'm not the only one who thinks that drastic changes are needed (and soon). There are classes at Dartmouth that focus specifically on how the automobile is single-handedly destroying the planet, and how the Industrial Revolution was the "beginning of the end of the world." Before the invention of the car, everything you needed was in walking distance: food, clothing, and your job. People now drive an hour to get to work, and an hour back, and they go grocery shopping on the edge of town.

I personally live in a small town in Ohio where everything is literally within walking distance. My job is 4 minutes from my house. I rarely need a car, and only really drive if I'm visiting family. I fill up my gas tank probably once a month. I know people who fill up their tank twice a week. That's crazy.

 

[The Question]

That kind of legislation would be impossible to pass. The only practical way to go about it would to be to put greater emphasis on A) Creating better and cheaper public transportation in areas that lack it, and B) Creating more fuel efficient cars. Make cars less necessary and minimize the damage they do as best as you can.

Because the fact is there is no way any first world country will be able to ban cars outright in the next 100 years. It's an unrealistic goal.

 

[Ultra Lantern]

Captain Planet has a lot of work to do.

 

[SuperFerret]

This situation will only get worse before it can get better. The only things that will solve this are a major drop in human population and time.


Also, let's stop lying that this is about the planet.

 

[Hotwire]

"The planet's not going anywhere. WE ARE!"
-George Carlin

 

[Marx]

This isn't good...

 

[Aesop Rocks]

This isn't Kansas.

Or Sparta.

 

[SuperFerret]

"The planet's not going anywhere. WE ARE!"
-George Carlin

He was a wise man.

This isn't good...

It was inevitable. Nothing is permanent Marx, and humanity has been living well beyond its means for a very long time now. There are billions of us when there probably shouldn't be millions, but it looks like equilibrium will start to take effect.

 

[SuperSoldier985]

http://www.livescience.com/16251-earth-overshoot-day-2011.html

 

[Rocketman]

This situation will only get worse before it can get better. The only things that will solve this are a major drop in human population and time.

Also, let's stop lying that this is about the planet.

My best friend had to do a semester-long project for a class about how humans consume natural resources, and he pretty much calculated (to the confirmation of the professor and others in class) that his conclusion was correct: If we were to continue doing exactly what we're doing over the next 60 years, in terms of using natural resources, 80% of the world's population would have to die. It sounds completely absurd and stupid, but it's actually true. Pleeease don't ask me how or where that percentage makes sense (I'll never find it!), but the detailed work is pretty much out there for anyone to calculate themselves. It comes down to two things (or three):

A) World population needs to drop dramatically (like, going from 6 billion to less than 1 billion). Whether that means controlling pregnancies, or actually killing people, I have no clue. I would prefer the China Route.

B) We will be forced to change our lifestyle completely. We will be forced to ration food, or be forced to live in some crazy 1984-world.

C) Neither A or B - Everything just completely collapses and we're Viggo Mortensen pushing a shopping cart down the road.

What you need to know, in a nutshell, is in this series of videos. Math is the key to the world's problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY

[YT]F-QA2rkpBSY[/YT]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb3JI8F9LQQ&feature=relmfu

[YT]Pb3JI8F9LQQ&feature=relmfu[/YT]

I recommend watching all of the videos, because it demonstrates why we're about to witness some crazy ****. I actually am happy to see this thread, because I've been researching this stuff (casually) for the past 10 years.

In my own life, my best friend (the one who did the project) is taking this VERY seriously. His entire family is too. They're extremely intelligent people, and they're somewhat wealthy. They have spent thousands of dollars in constructing green houses on their property (they live in a farm area) because they want a self-sustaining area where they can grow all of their own food and not have to rely on anything in society. They are literally becoming Mennonite from scratch. They are convinced that society/the economy is about to crumble. They studied this stuff for years and they're not kidding. And they're not conspiracy-nuts either. They're regular people who know that poo might hit the fan.

Just remember this, because it's a 100% fact (look it up): The world population increases by 80 million every year. (That's including people who died; there are 80 million more on the planet than the year before, every year.)

 

[SuperFerret]

Something will happen to cause the population to drop, which all of your three options will end up as, and your option C is the most likely to happen. I've been saying this for years, there are too many people.

 

[Spidey-Bat]

"The planet's not going anywhere. WE ARE!"
-George Carlin

"The planet is fine. The PEOPLE are f****d!"

 

[DoomsdayApex]

Well, this sucks major a**. See you mates on Mars!