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nah000
climber
now/here
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Sep 13, 2017 - 08:18pm PT
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three things that pose a threat to all life on earth [according to zee scientists and le goog]:
1. the sun losing enough mass in a few billion or so years that the earth moves into a larger orbit causing it to freeze
2. the sun while moving through its death cycle expands into a red giant large enough that the earth is effectively vaporized, possibly in as quickly as half a billion years
3. the sun burns out and again the earth freezes in a little under ten billion years.
but, the real question is not life but as we homo sapiens like to see it [our] Life. imo, three big threats to at least a good chunk of that Life [as it were] are:
1. we are not able to reform collective organizational systems grounded in required expansion to reflect a new age of necessary steady state and the mother earth rids herself of our collective expansionistic bacterial presence via an effective global parallel to a feverish human flu. [ex. global warming, resource depletion, etc]
2. we are not able to create and/or sustain spaces in the map [as it were] for individuated, small and large scale collective [relative] independence/experimentation/dissent in an age of increasing pressure from collective territorial [whether physical, intellectual, spiritual] control and the pressurized elements literally explode [ex. the current manifestation of the n korean spirit [kju], the current manifestation of the us of american spirit [djt], or one of the other collective terroristic spirits raising their heads around the world, etc.]
3. the theoretical, but currently only hypothetical, wild cards of the rise of other non-benevolent "intelligence": possibilities include loss of control of our own creations [ex. "self-learning" and evolutionary a.i., etc] or via visitation from other realms...
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Sep 13, 2017 - 08:27pm PT
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Another Carrington type solar flare is more likely than a meteor hitting the Earth.
This could destroy many of electrical systems hence our way of life
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Sep 13, 2017 - 08:30pm PT
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Anti-biotic resistant bacteria seem more threatening to life on Earth for nerds
Royale - Flush
Ultimately, the big fear is that the newly discovered mcr-1 gene will end up being picked up by other multi-drug-resistant bacteria--particularly a kind known as Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE. These microbes are resistant to a class of drugs called carbapenems, which are reserved to treat certain resistant infections. Infections with CRE are “becoming more and more common,” says Lance Price, a microbiologist who directs the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health—and right now, colistin is among the only drugs that can cure them. If CRE end up intermingling with bacteria containing the mcr-1 gene inside a person or animal’s gut, or even on a piece of meat—and this could already be happening unbeknownst to anyone—the world could suddenly be faced with pan-drug-resistant bacteria. “Then it’s a royal flush—the infection has an unbeatable hand,” Price says. “It’s untreatable."
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Sep 13, 2017 - 09:32pm PT
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A solar storm could possibly end civilization as we know it is far more likely than an asteroid of sufficient size.
I'm actually more worried about Pakistan than NK. I think a nuclear war between Pakistan and India is more likely than one on the Korean peninsula.
Besides the direct fallout, if you thought the 2008 financial crisis was bad, imagine when the entire world is trying to divest from India and everything related at the same time.
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 13, 2017 - 09:37pm PT
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No life is gonna end.
This why you people are insane.
You actually believe all this horsesh!t you're fed by your insane media ........
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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Sep 14, 2017 - 03:25am PT
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Entropy.
That's only one thing, but it's the ultimate thing.
Everything else is just gamesmanship until then.
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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Sep 14, 2017 - 04:32am PT
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Earth abides, and so does life upon it. The existence of the human race however is getting to be a dicier and dicier prospect
The earth has weathered major extinctions before as it will again. Not great if you are olf the group going extinct, but a culling and re positioning for life as a whole.
Until the scenarios tha nahoo and madbolter take place, as they inevitably will, given enough time.
The cycle goes on.
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Mike Honcho
Trad climber
Glenwood Springs, CO
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Sep 14, 2017 - 05:16am PT
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Werner is slaying TOUGH on this thread!! So glad I just gulped the coffee in my mouth before I read the second comment, I would have blown that sh#t everywhere!
Caylor
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Nick Danger
Ice climber
Arvada, CO
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Sep 14, 2017 - 06:35am PT
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I take the long view. Earliest appearance of live current placed by some researchers at 3.8 B.Y. Even as humans have changed earth's atmosphere, so did cyanobacteria, leading to the "oxygen catastrophe", which really set the stage for organisms with a more vigorous metabolism to evolve. The cryogenic period did not end life when snowball earth was 80% to 95% covered in ice, so nothing we are going to do can be more environmentally catastrophic than that. And then there are the five major and numerous lesser mass extinction events, some caused by external forces (bolide impacts) and internal forces (giant igneous province eruptions). Earth is a pretty dynamic planet, but life has proven to be incredibly persistent.
Moving on to our own human existence, our earlier selves made it through the last glacial maximum, then thrived and expanded our range through the transition from glacial to interglacial conditions. Many other species were not able to pull that little trick off. Our pumping CO2 into the atmosphere is not even going to lead to unprecedented rates of change vis-à-vis the climate, since Dansgaard-Oeschger events changed mean annual temperatures in the northern hemisphere by as much as 8 degrees C in 4 decades - well beyond even the worst potential outcomes from current anthropogenic climate change models. And humans lived through that, since 25 of those changes occurred during the last glacial cycle. Human beings as a species are going to be able to ride the coming climate changes out. It's the changes we have wrought to the microbial world that truly pose the greatest threat to our species' longevity (see zBrown's thoughtful post).
All this being said, we DO live in interesting times. We are bearing witness to a mass extinction event even as we speak, as well as a marine transgression. These things are real and happening. however, our collective attention span is not well equipped to appreciate the incrementalism of these changes. That being said, our coastal communities are definitely going to be aware of these changes going forward for the rest of this century. Hang on folks, it's going to be an interesting ride (don't forget to hug your kids and tell your parents you love them).
cheers
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Loose Rocks
Trad climber
Santa Rosa, CA
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Sep 14, 2017 - 07:45am PT
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Life on earth will be just fine after the humans are gone. Probably less than a 1000 years (I'm an optimist). At least until the sun starts in to the red giant phase.
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Cragar
climber
MSLA - MT
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Sep 14, 2017 - 07:49am PT
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Ego
Materialism
LARGE carbon footprint
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 14, 2017 - 09:05am PT
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The st00pid ignorant gross materialists think they are in control of this planet.
They are not and never ever have been.
You do not own this planet and you do NOT have the power to do what you want nor you DO have the power to destroy it.
You ARE clowns that believe your own bullsh!t when you say st00pid sh!t like this earth will be fine with all humans gone.
You fool masquerading gross materialistic clowns playing God are nothing but insignificant little arrogant cockroaches playing with sh!t you ultimately know nothing about ......
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Sep 14, 2017 - 09:35am PT
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Where on Earth?
This morning, North Korea threatened to use a nuclear weapon against Japan and turn the U.S. into “ashes and darkness” for passing fresh UN sanctions earlier this week - fiery rhetoric that is likely to exacerbate tensions in North Asia. “Japan is no longer needed to exist near us,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency said on Thursday, citing a statement by the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee. “The four islands of the archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the nuclear bomb of Juche,” it said, a reference to the regime’s ideology of self-reliance.
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clifff
Mountain climber
golden, rollin hills of California
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Sep 14, 2017 - 09:56am PT
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Noam Chomsky and Amy Goodman "Requiem For The American Dream" (2017)
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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EdBannister
Mountain climber
13,000 feet
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Sep 14, 2017 - 10:08am PT
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note that the only nuke test in the 48 states, was in Nevada.. no one noticed.
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c wilmot
climber
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Sep 14, 2017 - 10:11am PT
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Actually the first nuclear test occurred in New Mexico
The more you know..
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EdBannister
Mountain climber
13,000 feet
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Sep 14, 2017 - 10:16am PT
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yes right you are, and i was incorrect, but not the first time, thanks!
but there was a test in Nevada, also.
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Loose Rocks
Trad climber
Santa Rosa, CA
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Sep 14, 2017 - 10:51am PT
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I totally agree with you on human’s inability to destroy the planet and certainly my own inability as a single member of that group. It will still be here after I am gone. I’ll leave its destruction to the sun.
I don’t agree with you that saying that the planet will be fine after humans are gone is all that “st00pid”. We will certainly be gone at some point in time as many of the species that came before us. Any thoughts that we’re here to stay in this universe indefinitely are acts pure arrogance. But unlike the other species we actively participate in our own demise. We stand under the arch and chip at the mortar that holds the keystones. In our st00pidity we’re likely to be the cause of a large extinction event that will be our own downfall. However life on earth will not end with us. The life on this planet will survive the rise and fall of humans. It will survive this extinction event that we’re on the precipice of causing. The fossil records (if you believe in such things) show that tree of life has been pruned before and has recovered. I am optimistic that it will recover again after we do what we do even if we’re not here to see it.
To enrich my life’s experience I just drove nearly two thousand miles on a ten day road trip to see the moon obscure the sun for a hand full of seconds. I will drive hundreds of miles many times a year to go do an activity that benefits nobody but me. I am participating in this activity where I buy and discard materials that will likely contribute to the above. Members of my community will fly to the ends of the earth to do this business. They will come here with tales of adventure and I will cheer them on and ask them to do more. We are all involved in a petroleum enabled activity and we all do it with glee. In our own little way we all will contribute to this end. Not knowing (who’s to know) but thinking all of these thoughts, I am still here chipping away under the arch with the rest of the cockroaches. Am I a “fool masquerading gross materialistic clown”? Of course I am. Am I “insignificant”? That is for sure a certainty. In the scale of time that I’m incapable of understanding I think that we all are. I believe acceptance is the last stage.
By the way the cockroaches will likely survive us. Maybe Dodo birds or some other species that we’ve already killed would be a better descriptor.
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Nick Danger
Ice climber
Arvada, CO
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Sep 14, 2017 - 11:40am PT
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Ed,
There were something like 89 underground nuclear tests in Yucca Flat, something like 48 in Frenchman Flat, and 28 or so beneath Rainier Mesa and Shoshone Mesa, all on the Nevada Test Site. The folks in Las Vegas definitely noticed, as cracked foundations and other damage from ground movement encouraged the AEC to find another place for large yield tests. This led to one test at the Central Nevada Test Area near Warm Springs Nevada. That test actually triggered additional earthquakes not directly associated with the test (it pushed local tectonic shear stresses associated with the Walker Lane into a critical failure mode), plus created a local graben with as much as 4 meters of vertical displacement at the time of the test (ironically called the "Faultless Test"). Another test occurred in the Sand Springs Range 30 miles east of Fallon, NV. Two underground tests took place in New Mexico, two more in Colorado, two in Mississippi, and a couple of real duzies at Amchatka Island in the Aleutians (videos of those tests show some truly impressive ground motion, including launching a local lake about 30 feet into the air). These were all underground tests. Both Frenchman Flat and Yucca Flat hosted numerous atmospheric tests before the nuclear testing regime moved underground.
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