What would it take to exterminate mankind?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
You don't even need global warming to destroy the world, the more "conventional" effects pollution is enough in itself.

That couldn't possibly kill off all humanity, let alone the world. By the time a signficant number of humans are dead the machines that produce such pollution will be nonfunctional.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
I see no one reads my posts...

What was that? Did someone say something?

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


That couldn't possibly kill off all humanity, let alone the world. By the time a signficant number of humans are dead the machines that produce such pollution will be nonfunctional.

That's the thing about pollution, you feel it's effects long after you stop causing it.

[VetLegion]

to Lancer, for asking the right questions.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
That's the thing about pollution, you feel it's effects long after you stop causing it.

You're not going to have pollution sufficient to kill off everything. Not even to kill off everyone. You'd have to pollute to extremely toxic levels most of the planet to kill off all humans.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


You're not going to have pollution sufficient to kill off everything. Not even to kill off everyone. You'd have to pollute to extremely toxic levels most of the planet to kill off all humans.

You don't have to kill off everything and make the planet toxic to all life to cause a mass-extinction. It just takes a little push to get things rolling.

[Whoha]

Re: What would it take to exterminate mankind?

Originally posted by Lancer
With all the bomb shelters all over the place left over from the cold war, I'd say the infestation would be difficult to eliminate. A show on dinosaurs I watched some time back said that after 2 years the air had cleared pretty much, but all the dinosaurs were dead by then. That couldn't happen to people as canned food can last alot longer than that. The population might be reduced to a million people or something, but I think we would survive such an event. What about Yellowstone blowing up? Full on nuke war? What would it take?

Stellar Converters.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Frankychan




Seriously though, I think it would take a virus or plague of epic proportions, a huge a** meteor...or an alien invasion. I doubt a world war would do humanity in unless all the biological, chemical and nuclear weapons were used.

But I heard the US has enough of Bio andn Chem weapons to kill everyone on the planet 15 or so times over...

we destroyed all of our bio weapons 30 years ago, and are in the process of destroying our chemical ones. That last is a little more tricky, since they tend to stay deadly for a long, long time.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Mass Driver weapons.

they only do 6 damage, halfed by atmosphere.

[St Leo]

An evil 75-billion-year-old sorceror named Xenu. Duh. Unless we all join the Church of Scientology.

[Ben Kenobi]

Doubt that, UN estimates population at 2050 to be between 7 and 12 billion...

If you read the same UN estimates, they also say that the moderate population curve shows a decline after 2050. That's not even talking about the low curve, which shows a decline well before.

On the other hand, I guess since you said after 2050, we could start declining, but with 12 billion people, would it really matter?

Why 12 billion, and not 7? A better shot would be to say just under 10 billion. The UN population estimates hinge on how quickly the birthrates drop in the developing world, and if they continue to drop, as they have been, we will have a population crunch within less than 50 years.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/Organizations/healthnet/HUpapers/implosion/depop.html

[Theben]

Originally posted by General Ludd

Wasn't there a number of mass-extinctions in earth's history caused by exactly that?

There have been massive dieoffs, but AFAIK no extinctions.

[Whaleboy]

Can you think of any species that has ever been driven to extinction due to it's population expansion?

BK & Geronimo: You ever heard of the bacteria-in-petri-dish experiment?

[Whaleboy]

If you read the same UN estimates, they also say that the moderate population curve shows a decline after 2050. That's not even talking about the low curve, which shows a decline well before.

But why the curve? If it settles down to zero-growth, the simple problem of finite resources will send numbers falling, see above post.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by General Ludd
You don't have to kill off everything and make the planet toxic to all life to cause a mass-extinction. It just takes a little push to get things rolling.

That's obviously not true, since the environment is a stable equilibrium, not an unstable one... and we've already given it tons of little pushes.