Do you think humans will go extinct?

[ZombieHorde]

Poll question: Do you think humans will go extinct?

[MADem]

1. An unfortunate asteroid, and kiss the day goodbye.

But really, who knows?

[muriel_volestrangler]

39. No, I don't think an asteroid could wipe out humans

A huge one might bring down modern interconnected civilisation, but humans are all over the world, in very different habitats, with a lot of knowledge on how to adapt and move to different environments. And we know how to use a vast range of food sources. Plenty of groups would survive and adapt.

[Silent3]

41. All depends on the size of the asteroid

Make the impact big enough before we have a chance to spread out to other planets, and we're toast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTKau14cvQ4

Maybe, just, maybe, humans prepared for such an event could set up multiple deep bunkers and wait it out until the planet cooled to a safe level, then reemerge and start over, but it would mean decades, even centuries, of surviving on supplies and energy sources brought down into the bunkers for creating sustainable subterranean ecosystems, but that's probably a bit beyond our current technology. We'd have to bring many other species down with us to have even a hope of reestablishing a sustainable human-friendly ecosystem once the planet had cooled.

I have no idea what the atmospheric chemistry would be like after an event like this, if there would be enough oxygen for humans to breathe, or if it would take a long time after reintroducing plant life to the planet to have breathable air again.

While impacts this big have probably happened before (likely multiple times, according to the video), they're less likely (but not impossible!) at this stage in the development of the solar system.

Something more the size of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs? I'm pretty sure humanity would survive that kind of event, but the vast majority of humans would die first, and the survivors would face hell reestablishing themselves on this planet.

[Selatius]

42. Here's NASA's video of a simulation of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

While humans have the technological capability to prepare for an asteroid coming to hit the earth, I don't believe humans could survive if the asteroid were discovered too late to make advanced preparations. We don't know all the asteroids and comets that cross earth's orbit, and there are blind spots in the night sky that could easily hide our doomsday asteroid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFs-W0twxKg

[Silent3]

46. As bad as that impact was, however...

...advanced plant and animal life forms did survive the event that killed off the dinosaurs. If ferns and tiny mammals could survive that, humans could survive something similar, even if caught by surprise. The really high atmospheric temperatures would be a short-lived phenomena (hours? days?) and obviously since not every plant and animal was baked to death by 500-degree heat before, there must have been a few areas buffered by water or ice or cool earth, and enough unburned consumables left over so that all of the surviving animals didn't starve to death.

[Selatius]

52. Humans are rather large compared to rodents.

That seemed to be the problem of survival for many creatures that were larger than a few pounds.

[Silent3]

66. That's where our brains would come in

We may be bigger than rodents, but we're a lot smarter too. That would greatly increase our odds of survival. Even without having gone out of the way to prepare for such an event, caches of canned foods, military MREs and the like would survive a dinosaur-extinction-like event, and keep enough of us going to survive until we could plant crops again and start over. We'd probably be eating some of those rodents that manage to survive too.

Remember that we currently have around 7 billion people on the planet. If only 1% of 1% of those people survive the initial impact, that's still around 700,000 people left over to start over again. A large number of those could die off of disease and starvation while fighting to make a comeback, and there'd still be quite a few humans left over to survive long enough to reproduce and multiply. The setback to civilization would be enormous, but not insurmountable.

[Xithras]

77. Nuclear winter is largely a problem for foragers.

Humans have the ability to build greenhouses, and grow lights, and to power them using coal and gas extracted from the ground. While there's no chance that we could do so on a scale that would sustain our current population, we COULD do so at a scale that would save tens of millions of lives.

For animals dependent on finding their food in the wild, nuclear winter is an extinction causing event. We have the advantage that we can provide for ourselves, even when nature doesn't.

[muriel_volestrangler]

48. Humans are the most resilient animal there is

We have food stores; we are omnivores, eating a wide variety of grains, vegetables, shellfish, fruit, mammals, bird and fish. We know how to use fire. We know how to plan a migration to a new area if things are going badly. We know how to breed new food crops and animals, or take existing ones with us to seed new areas. We inhabit everywhere from the equator to the Arctic.

[Selatius]

51. True, but if we're facing a years-long winter with no growing season on short notice...

do you think we could survive if the entire food chain collapsed in the dark years until the dust finally filtered out of the atmosphere? I mean, the mount toba eruption killed off 60% of the human population, and that was just a volcanic eruption. I don't know of any nation with such a stockpile of food ahead of time that could last several years of darkness. If I actually survived the impact and the resulting years of darkness, frankly, I don't think I'd want to live in the world that comes after.

[muriel_volestrangler]

53. I don't think the entire food chain will collapse; it hasn't since multi-cellular life developed

And, since we practice agriculture, we make our own food chain. Billions might die; but it only takes a few thousand to keep the species going. We have the techniques of generating electricity to provide artificial light that no other species has had. We can use mirrors to concentrate light.

[Selatius]

54. Billions will die in the event of an impact the size of the one that killed the dinosaurs.

Starting with the poorest two billion on the planet. They'd die off first.

Nuclear power could run the lights through the dark years, though.

[NickB79]

74. Nations all over the world built nuclear bunkers for their leaders, equipped to last years

And they're still being maintained.

[Xithras]

79. The world is already dotted by countless greenhouses, and grow lights are plentiful.

We currently use greenhouses for specialty crops, but they could be converted to grow just about anything in just a few days time. As long as we can keep our fuel infrastructure operational, we can keep those greenhouses powered and growing food.

And building new growhouses would be pretty simple to start. Just about every city on the planet has large warehouses in it. Empty them out, use bulldozers to dump a couple feet of dirt on the floor, and hang grow lights from the ceilings. You can use everything from industrial warehouses to WalMarts and HomeDepot stores for this sort of thing.

Again, we couldn't save everyone, but we could produce enough to save tens of millions.

[muriel_volestrangler]

47. A 500km asteroid? There are only 3 in the solar system, in stable orbits between Jupiter and Mars

It just isn't going to happen. 4 billion years ago, the solar system was quite different.

Yes, we'd survive something the size of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. And that's the point; this isn't about whether it would be a nightmare, it's whether humans go extinct.

[Silent3]

60. There are only three *known* asteroids that big

I'm not saying the odds of an impact from an object that large are great -- they aren't. I imagine the growing heat output of the Sun over the next few hundreds of millions of years will be a bigger concern than worrying about asteroid impacts of the 500km variety.

But if you're trying to consider all the possibilities, we have no idea what's out there on crazy long-period eccentric orbits, especially stuff highly inclined to the ecliptic. There could easily be a few unknown monstrous chunks of rock out there, even if they aren't likely to ever impact the Earth.

[sakabatou]

2. Over 95% of all animal species that ever lived on Earth have gone extinct

What makes people think we're different?

[muriel_volestrangler]

40. We're different because we think

We're the only species to have the knowledge that species tend to go extinct. That gives us the chance to plan, to think out new plans in case of a disaster, and to adapt in a way that no other animal can. It may not guarantee our survival, but it does mean the question is fundamentally different from all other species.

[nomorenomore08]

3. Every other dominant species - i.e. apex predator, essentially - has either gone extinct

or been supplanted by us humans. So I find it reasonable to think we'll eventually vanish as well. And while famine, war, etc. may well decimate the human population in this coming century, I think it would take an asteroid or some comparable natural event to really wipe us out - that is, leave us truly extinct, not just endangered.

[ashling]

27. Or a Death Star

[begin_within]

4. Humans are just a parasite on this planet.

Thus we deserve to go extinct. And even tomorrow would be not a minute too soon.

[Silent3]

7. You first, if you're in such a hurry for personal oblivion.

If you're going to be that broad in redefining what "parasite" means, then all life is parasitical on this planet.

[begin_within]

9. Other species don't destroy the ecosystems.

[Silent3]

14. Sure they do

Look up what the first cyanobacteria did to the planet.

Or how multiple incarnations of saber tooth tigers went extinct from over-hunting their prey.

There is no magical virtuousness about preserving life that every other species on the planet other than humans possesses.

[nomorenomore08]

21. +1

I think it goes without saying that we are a fucked up, destructive species in many, many ways. But it's easy to fall into hyperbole as well.

[Warren DeMontague]

26. Yes, the biosphere was a garden of eden

until man the original sinner showed up.

Where's my hairshirt? I have some thinly sublimated western religious guilt I need to sublimate into eco self-flogging.

[Posteritatis]

88. Hahahahahahahaha! (nt)

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

91. You must be frmo the big city...

Ever seen what overpopulation can do to a localized ecosystem?
Ironically, the starvation and desease leave the population worse off than they used to be.

Animals and plants can absolutley destry an ecosystem.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. Bet you're a ton of fun at parties.

:party:

[FormerDittoHead]

56. They should hook up with the "I don't drink with you" guy!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=5330132

[Silent3]

67. What a bizarre thread

And what a strange guy!

[greyl]

33. You are attributing to an entire species, that which should be charged to culture.

There have been thousands of human cultures whose members didn't behave like parasites.
Some of them are still around, in fact.

[coalition_unwilling]

36. If there is reincarnation, I want to come back as a flea so I can

bite Rick Perry on the ass :)

[KILL THE WISE ONE]

38. you could do that now

[LanternWaste]

45. The sun and the galaxy deserve to go extinct too!

And the planet is just a parasite of the sun. And the sun is just a parasite of the galaxy. The sun and the galaxy deserve to go extinct too!


As an aside: always amusing to read the prognostications and righteous rants of someone who believes that they posses the the depth and the breadth of wisdom to dogmatically state what "deserves" to go extinct. It truly reminds one of the petulant 3rd grader arguing math with a physics professor.

[stuntcat]

90. .

+1
we are worse than a bad virus, more like a cancer. Our greatest chance, and the Earth's, is our species making an evolutionary leap, but the time for that is running out faster every week. I'm not counting on it, just glad my years are half over. I'll spend the rest of my life sad for all the species we're wiping out, oceans we're killing, forests we're leveling to grow food just to feed to cattle.

All the species we're erasing forever, We are the only species who needs to go. OH but there's the whole god-like conscience thing that makes us the most incredible beings ever to exist in the whole universe :eyes:

[Ozymanithrax]

5. Absolutely, species go extinct, and even have lifespans.

The questions is not will they go extinct, but when will they go extinct.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. All species go extinct

[Rex]

13. Yeah but how about the next 1000 years?

We gonna make it that far?

[Lorien]

15. No, we won't make it another 100 years

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/jul/07/research.waste

Dead oceans plus no forests = zero oxygen.

[CleanGreenFuture]

18. Humans will make it that far barring any ELE that might happen along

the way. If no ELE happens, then in 1000 years humans will have returned to tribal agrarian societies on a much different landscape, strewn with the kudzu-covered waste of this current civilization.

[nadinbrzezinski]

70. Dpeends on hte global model

we are in the midst of the holocene extinction so 1000 years, perhaps not

[FreeState]

8. Nothing lasts for ever n/t

[flvegan]

10. In their current state? Probably.

Too stupid for words. Facing the world and reality for what it is now, but so many just can't get past "want"

Good luck with that. Morons.

[gateley]

17. In "their" current state?

Dare I ask where you come from? :scared:

[nomorenomore08]

22. Florida, if you go by his username.

;-)

[gateley]

24. Nice cover. Probably the first place the mothership landed.

:7

[flvegan]

32. How stupid do you have to be?

Pick if you will, still doesn't change dipshit. Apologies for spelling, considering idiots only have that to cling to.

Next?

[Silent3]

11. We're well suited to both destroying ourselves and to saving ourselves...

...in ways no other species could ever manage.

First of all, it's actually pretty hard to totally obliterate a species like ours which is so adaptable to a wide variety of environments and diets. We could do enormous damage to ourselves, wipe out 99.999% of the world's human population, yet still come roaring back after hundreds or thousands of years.

If we don't wipe ourselves out, we're likely to reach a point technologically where we'll be able to avert the next major extinction from an asteroid or comet impact, and/or spread life out to multiple planets, so that life from Earth can outlive life on Earth.

Of course, if the descendants of humanity survive long into the future, I'm not sure how much they'll resemble current homo sapiens. For better or for worse, we'll likely eventually start genetically re-engineering ourselves, and start blurring the lines between humans and machines.

[Lost-in-FL]

12. You missed the "I hope so" choice. nt

[Warpy]

16. I think our lifespans will again be shortened rather than lengthened

and with 30 year +/- 5 year lifespans, we'll likely head back to the trees eventually.

I don't think anything really goes completely extinct, the DNA in related species tends to live on as species evolve and change to exploit new environments.

However, do I see humanity in its present form around for as many millions of years as the dinosaurs enjoyed? Probably not.

[MilesColtrane]

19. Depends on your definition of human.

Homo sapiens will almost certainly cease to exist at some future point.

If we don't destroy ourselves, we'll merge with machines. Technology will accelerate to the point that there will be no line between what is biological and what is arificially made.

Imagine being able to change your body and mind at the molecular level.

Really, no one alive today can imagine what will happen after the Singularity occurs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

[sakabatou]

25. H. sapiens will go extinct

As to what will take our place, I don't know.

[Skittles]

20. yes, and it will be self-inflicted

[The Wielding Truth]

23. All things must pass.

[Warren DeMontague]

29. No. And we're not staying confined to this planet, either.

Sorry.

[Yupster]

37. That's the race

Can we get to a different solar system before our sun makes ours unbearable?

Not an easy task with the distances involved.

If we are to be an immortal species we will have to be constantly moving toward newer and newer suns nd even then the last will burn out, and then maybe by then we'll know how to get to multiverses.

[grantcart]

30. We are the real cockroaches

We gonna be around for ever.

[renegade000]

31. Eventually, most likely...

but when is anybody's guess...

[Blue_In_AK]

34. The whole universe will go extinct.

We are just a speck in time.

[pansypoo53219]

35. hopefully greatly reduced in numbers.

i think that's why we have war + disasters. we are getting to clever about not dying like we used to.

[Lucky 13]

43. It's really only a matter of time.

We are permanently fouling our air, water, and land. What other outcome could there possibly be?

[Spider Jerusalem]

44. On a long enough timescale every species will go extinct

the question is whether human activity will drive that extinction (climate change, overpopulation, etc) or whether some external factor will cause it (I lean more toward the former than the latter).

[pampango]

49. Ever? Sure. The sun's only got another 5 billion years. Once it goes... n/t

[Xithras]

82. Less than that. The biosphere on Earth only has about 500 million in its present state.

The process for the sun "going" has already started, and it's getting hotter. In 1 billion years, the surface of the Earth will be a parched desert, looking a lot like Mars. The planet itself may last several billion more years, but it won't be a friendly place for life.

The planet will gradually begin heating up over the next couple hundred million years, and in about 500 million years will hit a tipping point and start dessicating. Compounding this, the high heat levels will begin sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere, which will crash to levels that can't sustain plant life (this will only take a few million years once the tipping point is reached). It will take several hundred million years for life to die completely off after that, but life will be on a downward spiral at that point, and the large plants an animals that we recognize today will go extinct very quickly. In 750 million years, life will probably be limited to the poles, which will still look like the Sahara, but may still shelter reptile-like creatures that can handle it. The rest of the planet will be covered in sterile, blowing dunes baking under 250 degree summer suns. A hundred million years after that, the last remnant puddles of the worlds oceans will dry up, and even the life that manages to survive in its hypersaline, near-boiling, acid environment will die off. By 1 billion years, the Earth will be hostile to anything not in a space suit, and there will be little surface evidence remaining that such a diverse ecosystem ever existed here at all.

[Rebubula]

50. Of course

Not anytime in the near future (or at least what our limited minds can imagine) - but of course it will happen.

We are not special on a universal scale.

[sarge43]

55. Most likely

99% of the species that ever existed no longer do. The odds for any species suck.

[deaniac21]

57. By the time the sun has turned into a red dwarf we will all be

crispy critters.

[Little Star]

58. I think they will someday. After we finish killing off each other..

in big enough numbers and only the rich are left. Our human race will go extinct. The rich can not survive on their own, as a whole they are to stupid for daily life. That's my opinion. Just glad I won't be around to see it.

[InvisibleTouch]

59. Yes, and in the fairly near future, too. n/t

[LeftishBrit]

61. Eventually. Almost all animal species do.

[ileus]

62. It won't be long before we're all dolphins.

[lumberjack_jeff]

63. I don't hate all people. Just the misanthropes. n/t

[LeftishBrit]

64. The Brontosaurus had a brain no bigger than a crisp

The Dodo has a stammer and the Mammoth had a lisp.
The auk was just to awkward, now they're none of them alive,
Each one, like man, had shown himself unfitted to survive.
Their story points a moral now it's we who wear the pants;
The extinction of these species holds a lesson for us ants.

(Flanders and Swann.)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

65. Compared to other species, we're a flash in the pan eating our host.

Sponges, algae, cockroaches, may not be all that bright, but they've been around a long time. They must be doing something right.

"There is no safety in the cosmos." Alan Watts

[LanternWaste]

68. I imagine it's a mathematical certainty.

I imagine it's a mathematical certainty.

If the universe is not indeed finite, then any possibility within the laws of physics will eventually happen-- human extinction being on of those possibilities.

[fifthoffive]

69. Absolutely

99% of all species ever alive on Earth have become extinct. Why would humans be exempt?

[hunter]

71. Of course we will.

If we are lucky our genome and cultures will be stashed away in a database somewhere so our species can be recreated whenever we might be useful or interesting.

[KamaAina]

72. Yes -- IF we stay only on Earth.

That is one of the big reasons for manned space exploration. Someday the time will come. Maybe it won't be for a thousand years or more, but it'll come.

[FreeJoe]

73. When, not if

There is no escaping either the heat death of the universe or the next big bang. Nothing lasts forever. I don't know if we'll go extinct today or in billions of years, but it will eventually happen.

[Douglas Carpenter]

75. that's about like asking if a young child will eventually die?

Well of course. All things must pass. But a young child who acquires and engages in unhealthy and self-destructive habits and behavior will most likely die significantly sooner than one who doesn't. An otherwise healthy child who becomes psychopathic and engages in homicidal behavior will almost certainly die even even sooner than that. But even the one who lives right. exercises properly and eats healthy will sooner or later die. So of course at some point whether by folly or natural destiny, humans will become extant. To suggest otherwise would be as absurd as suggesting that death will be eradicated.

[McCamy Taylor]

76. Certainly. We will either continue to evolve or go extinct. Or both.

[Lucian]

78. Oh definitely.

When? Who knows. That's the only real question here.

[Shagbark Hickory]

80. Nuclear war will take care of the planet but good.

[Silent3]

83. Nah

Even an all-out nuclear exchange of the kind we used to worry about with the Soviet Union would leave a few scattered survivors. Life would be hell, and a lot of people who survived the initial event would later die of disease and starvation, but all it would take is a few thousand people, or even just a few hundred, to eke out a living and eventually rebuild the human population.

Besides, I think these days the biggest nuclear war risk these days is nuclear terrorism, causing horrendous casualties in one or more scattered locales, but with the rest of the world suffering no more than fallout damage-- not pretty, but not close to being an extinction-level threat.

[Shagbark Hickory]

84. Evidently you never watched Life After People

Between the nuke weapons and the nuke power plants, the remaining humans don't stand a chance.

[Silent3]

85. Actually, I have watched the show

The planet is a big place, however, and all you need is a few places that aren't so badly contaminated that humans can survive long enough to reproduce. There would be plenty of deadly places for people to wander into, but in between there would be plenty of not-so-great-but-still-barely-livable places as well.

[Shagbark Hickory]

86. And what places might those be? I don't think you were paying close enough attention.

There's nearly 500 nuke reactors in the world including those that are under construction.

There's also this thing called weather that spreads contamination to a greater area.

[Silent3]

93. You could live near Fukushima right now

I wouldn't recommend it, you'd probably be kind of sickly and have a high risk of cancer, but a large population of humans could survive long enough to reproduce at sustainable rates.

It would be a ugly, harsh existence (lots of illness, short lifespans, high infant mortality) but you can't judge survivability by the standards we've come to expect for healthy living.

[Shagbark Hickory]

94. The entire Fukushima fukushima didn't completely melt down though.

[Silent3]

95. But even if it did completely melt down...

...I don't know the exact figures, but the truly positively lethal zone would probably be less than a one mile radius. Ten to twenty miles away, at a rough guess, avoiding the occasional concentrated hotspot, and living conditions should be ugly but survivable.

Don't forget that we have the luxury of considering an environmental level of radiation that would add one case of cancer per hundred per ten years absolutely uninhabitable. Our warnings about radiation are stated accordingly, not in the language of post-apocalyptic survival. And while some radioactive contaminants are long-lasting, the ones that produce the highest levels of radiation also have the shortest half-lives, so really high radiation levels around meltdowns will fade relatively quickly.

Humans still wouldn't want to live there, but wildlife is actually doing fairly well right now in and around Chernobyl, especially by survival standards, as opposed to robust good health standards.

[Fred Engels]

97. And yet in the history of all nuclear plants in the world, only a tiny handful of people have died

from accidents. The world total is far fewer than people killed by 'conventional' power generating facilities.

[Shagbark Hickory]

101. That's because theres a small army of people to run them around the clock and plenty of electricity

and water to cool the reactors.

No electricy means no water pumping to cool the reactors. No water to cool the reactors, chernobal

[Fred Engels]

103. Exactly...which is why it is less of a threat than other technologies.

Thanks. :-)

[elleng]

81. 'We,' humans, will kill us all/destroy the planet, before we have time to become extinct,

imo.
Nature's 'joke' was/is our brain.

[Silent3]

92. It's very, very hard to destroy *all* life

It's even pretty hard to destroy most life. You'd have to incinerate the planet and superheat the entire crust down to a great depth (several miles, maybe even tens of miles) to kill off the last of the bacteria. Anywhere short of that and the surviving life has a great chance of coming back and re-evolving into more complex forms again.

Bacteria have even survived the harsh airless environment of the moon for years:

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1998/ast01sep98_1/

[War Horse]

87. The Sun won't last forever

(about 6 billion years, according to Nat Geo, and our planet will become uninhabitable long before that), so we need an escape plan.

As far as AGW, massive migration is ineviatble. We might all end up killing each other over resources.

[undeterred]

89. We will be killed by Republican greed.

[Fred Engels]

96. Eventually the universe will expand out to a dead cold nothingness, or contract

into a 'big crunch'...neither of which will be supportive of humans or any other living thing...

[cherokeeprogressive]

98. Even if humans did absolutely NOTHING to the environment, made no weapons, and ate berries...

The earth will one day be as dead as the moon. It's the way of the universe.

So, yeah. Extinct like the dodo bird.

[GreenStormCloud]

99. Sounds like we may have some volunteers for the Voluntary Human Exctinction Movement.

http://www.vhemt.org/

[mmonk]

100. Here in the US for sure. I think it's pretty close now.

What separates humans from others species has been empathy and reason.

[Arugula Latte]

102. Sure, eventually.

But will it be tomorrow or in 10 billion years? That is the question.