Earth Doomed by 2050?

[Dauphin]

"The fourth factor is poor individual perception. People worry that the endless rise in the amount of stuff everyone throws away will cause the world to run out of places to dispose of waste. Yet, even if America's trash output continues to rise as it has done in the past, and even if the American population doubles by 2100, all the rubbish America produces through the entire 21st century will still take up only the area of a square, each of whose sides measures 28km (18 miles). That is just one-12,000th of the area of the entire United States."

How deep is it supposed to be?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by DanS
Even though The Economist is the spawn of the devil,

Spawn of the Devil? Why is that?

[DanS]

I think landfills in the U.S. are pretty standard depths and lined with similar materials. 12 feet deep seems to ring a bell, but I don't remember.

Edit: No, 12 feet can't be right. Hmmm...

[orange]

those are impossible figures, DanS. Americans produce more than that in a year

[Saint Marcus]

The Economist = Bible

[Saint Marcus]

A model by Tom Wigley, one of the main authors of the reports of the UN Climate Change Panel, shows how an expected temperature increase of 2.1øC in 2100 would be diminished by the treaty to an increase of 1.9øC instead.

0.2 degrees isn't very bad at all, since even a mere 0.1 degrees can have a dramatic effect. Seems Kyoto is more usefull then I expected.

[DanS]

Originally posted by DinoDoc


Spawn of the Devil? Why is that?

Poor fact-checking.

[joseph1944]

In case some of you did not know it, Calif. farm land can feed the entire United States pop.

Some years ago, early 90s, someone did a study. Using the state of Texas and they said that if we built a house 1500 sq. ft. with lot to support and fill up the state of Texas from border to border every single person in the World would fit. The State of Texas will hold more than 6 billion people.

[GePap]

The comment on percetion is completely accurate:

The current problems we have with crowding, food distribution and waste of resources have nothing to to with the material realities and our abilities to do better but with political and economic ideology, which means more to us than reality (better dead than wrong). If we don't feed every human being like we can (enough food), its because we believe that people are egotistical f*ckers that will balk at helping one another if they are not getting paid enough to buy that second TV. The problem is that we teach people that they are egotitical f*ckers who would kill grandma for a big-screen tv, so why would they grow up into anything else?

But Che is right, this planet and life on it have 4 billion years to go, even if we egotistical monkeys all die out, so, where is my goddamned new TV!

[FrostyBoy]

See, evolution has made us who we are to turn "against" nature and force ourselves off the planet. This is the process required for life to continue forever.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

We shall see....

But with global warming and the rest... maybe not destory but there will be a huge drop in human population worldwide.

[Gatekeeper]

Chegitz:

Do you have a link or something to your statement regarding our solar system passing through a galactic dust cloud within a few thousand years? That's the first I've heard of such a scenario and I would like to read more about it.

Gatekeeper

[chequita guevara]

Not a link, no. It was an article in the Chicago Tribune a few years back. Dust clouds are rather ubqiuitous, and not all of them are lit up by stars inside them. According to the article, we're on an intercept course with one. It won't cut light off from the sun, but it will cause the sunlight reaching Earth to diminish very slightly, and it only takes tilting the planet to create winter. You could try running a search for it at www.chicagotribune.com.

[Saint Marcus]

Poor fact-checking.

Don't you mean: not asking permission of the Pentagon before posting articles?

[Seneca]

48 years? Oh well, just time for another bath....