Humanity

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Originally Posted by Zico

According to these world population projections- World Population - The Current World Population that 10 billion figure could happen within this century, maybe not within our lifetimes but certainly within our children or grandchildrens lifetimes. Is there much we could do to slow it down? Maybe a change in the catholic church's stance on contraception?

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Well, in Europe the population has already pretty much stabilised. It's declining in fact in many countries, including my own. I'm sure the same will happen elsewhere, eventually.

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Originally Posted by Zico

According to these world population projections- World Population - The Current World Population that 10 billion figure could happen within this century, maybe not within our lifetimes but certainly within our children or grandchildrens lifetimes. Is there much we could do to slow it down? Maybe a change in the catholic church's stance on contraception?

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Maybe the replacement sarcophagus they are erecting at Chernobyl will not fit, the old one will collapse scattering lethal levels of radioactive dust throught the atmosphere and introducing killer rain to the world.........

What a pleasant thought?

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Originally Posted by EuroTroll

Well, in Europe the population has already pretty much stabilised. It's declining in fact in many countries, including my own. I'm sure the same will happen elsewhere, eventually.

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That's cos they're all over here........ :p

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Originally Posted by SGWilko

That's cos there all over here........ :p

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I'm not from Poland. :p Estonians mostly emigrate to Finland to find better jobs. ;)

One thing I always wonder is how long Humanity would survive.

Evolution continues and the planets life cycle will continue, Humans have come so far in such a short timescale, that I wonder if humans will last much longer than the same again.

Think about complex life being only 530odd million years old. Where will humanity and life be in even 1 million years time. Consider a million years ago Humans were still pretty primative.

I find it fasinating.

Not much talk in this thread about technological progress making a positive contribution in the fields of energy use and resource production, which I find rather odd.

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Originally Posted by EuroTroll

Great idea for a thread, Steve! :up:

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Thanks.

Certainly has got people talking. It covers such a wide base.

Evolution, Migration, history, influence on nature, use of natural resources. Anything really.

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

Not much talk in this thread about technological progress making a positive contribution in the fields of energy use and resource production, which I find rather odd.

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Give us a chance. We have only just started.

Thats another thing we can discuss.

Why dont you start us off in that direction BDunnell

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Originally Posted by steveaki13

Think about complex life being only 530odd million years old. Where will humanity and life be in even 1 million years time. Consider a million years ago Humans were still pretty primative.

I find it fasinating.

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It is, isn't it? :) Imagine a species who is intellectually as much our superior as we are superior to the early hominoids. What will they think of our primitive experiments with space flight, etc. They'll consider it quite adorable, no doubt. :)

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Originally Posted by BDunnell

Not much talk in this thread about technological progress making a positive contribution in the fields of energy use and resource production, which I find rather odd.

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Most of our energy production is still based around fossil fuels. The nuclear aspect has been dealt a blow by our (humanity again) lack of ability to maintain anything properly without cutting costs in order to make maximum profit, and wind, wave, hydro power is still only a fraction of what we need.

Now look at the amount of energy required to extract hydrogen from the atmosphere/water in order to make 'green powered' cars.

Climate change is making it harder to reliably grow enough food, and the ever growing population is taking up more and more space that would otherwise be used to grow crops or for grazing animals.