Gee, that last post got away form me. What happened to "try to be concise"?

I meant to say: I don;t really EXPECT we will colonize any extra-solar planet i the next few hundred years. But we might NEED to. So humans would have a place where they can maintain a civilization while the ecosystem crashes and destroys industrial civilization on the planet.

If we had self-sustaining space colonies, THEY would understand that you have to PROTECT the ecosystem you live in. Over centuries, the planetary ecosystem would recover and then we could re-populate the globe we were born on.

I used to hope that we would build space habitats from asteroidal resources before we turned this planet into a desert.

But we are already saying that it would be "too expensive" to convert coal plants or find alternatives to automotive gasoline. Let alone build space habitats!

As crop failures make us even poorer, we will be even less able to afford space exploration and colonization. So we will have to live with (or die with) the consequences of our current shortsightedness.

In the past, we only faced mild threats like animal predators, Ice Ages, plagues and natural droughts. Now we have a dangerous threat: our own species' greed and shortsightedness. That challenge is so far proving too great for us to overcome.

Gosh, such doom and gloom. I remember well that 20-30 years ago, most of the oil experts thought we would run out of oil well before 2050, and many thought that 2025 would find us oil-poor and that would lead to massive conflicts over control of what little oil there was. There were books written about those precise predictions. If you want one of those books, I would be glad to send one to you.

The bottom line was that we better get our bu*** in gear and quickly find alternative sources of energy. Guess what? We are awash in oil. Alternative sources of energy is still an unknown factor. Lots of places have massive wind turbines, producing little energy. The wind doesn't always blow. Solar panels are expensive and guess what? The sun doesn't always shine. Hydroelectric is a great source of energy, but how many rivers, how many lakes do we have that are suitable for hydroelectric. Nuclear is a bad word in most of the world. The industrial revolution was born and grew on the back of oil. Pray tell, what energy source(s) would one suggest to replace the massive amounts of energy that oil produces?

I jokingly mentioned about finding another planet, but I was very serious about why I said that. I absolutely agree with Rick.

We are not putting the funding into space exploration anymore. Though there are some efforts to travel to distant planets (like Mars) which pretty much go unnoticed these days. Why? Why do you think we send up rockets to go looking? There IS an ulterior motive for such space (and planet) exploration missions.

There may soon be more funding going into space stations... possibly to save some members of the human race to later re-populate the earth when it recovers from the destruction we humans are causing. And Rick is likely on the money when he says it may take several centuries for planet earth to recover.

I often think of the movie "Blade Runner" (made years ago) of what planet earth could look like with pollution and over-population in a world of concrete and abnormal weather conditions. I used to laugh at those sci-fi movies, but not anymore. What I thought was a wild imagination by a writer and movie producer, may in fact become more fact than fiction.

If any of you can view all the episodes in the Showtime series, "The Years of Living Dangerously", please check them out. You can watch the first entire episode on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Well Becky sometime it feels like you need to say.....

Fred Flintstone meet George Jetson...

True.

I wished more and more people around the world knew what was really going on. The propaganda they are told by major corporations or their government are lies.

beckygardener said:... I used to laugh at those sci-fi movies, but not anymore. What I thought was a wild imagination by a writer and movie producer, may in fact become more fact than fiction.

I agree with that completely.

I agree with Ken that "resource depletion" is taking longer to kill us than was first predicted.

Using the analogy of a petri dish or flask with bacteria, we will poison ourselves before we've used up all the food.

I also remember past issues where fun was made of the doom-and-gloom-sayers.

"It will be too expensive to replace ozone-destroying fluorocarbons with less efficient coolant fluids".

"DDT isn't THAT harmful."

"Detroit can't compete globally if we try to prevent smog."

There will always be resistance to change even when the change is away from poisons and an atmosphere SO toxic that bicycle tires dissolve (smog in CA cities).

I think the key point where we disagree, Ken, is about where the burden of proof lies. I think the Keeling Curve and high school physics are obvious enough that the burden of proof is on those who think that unlimited rise in CO2 levels, forever, will never cause serious harm.

The way the counter-argument SOUNDS to me is: "We should keep on polluting the Earth at 9 billion tons per year and more until someone can PROVE with HIGH confidence (90%? 99%) that it WILL have the consequences that 97% of climatologists agree it WILL have".

My answer would be:
"No, we should start taking precautions as soon as the danger is plausible (1985)."

"We should take serious actions, even expensive actions, as soon as scientific consensus is that we will PROBABLY have severe consequences even if that might take 200 or 500 years (somewhere between 1990 and 2010)"

"We should be in full-blown panic and have this at the TOP of our priorities when the atmosphere is so damaged that the affect on weather is already grossly obvious (a few years ago to now)"

"For racial survival, we should start doing whatever it takes BEFORE it is too late. (1980s? 2000? We don;t know."

"When we don't know, take precautions to reduce the danger."

I have to respectfully disagree with the position that we should NOT take actions until the unprovable is proven. The only "proof" I can imagine is a total, accurate, reliable model of the planetary ecosystem ... I would bet on long odds that such a goal is hundreds of years away even if it ever becomes possible.

Instead of proof, we will eventually have the consequences SO bad that we'll take action even while some are preaching from their sand dunes that we don't KNOW the global desert was CAUSED by CO2 ...

I am "One of Those " I will keep my Air Engine Dune Buggy ready for the Dunes , While I Manufacture my PVC and Love Canal Chemical Barrels , We have those processed at our local water treatment plants ,
I have to go now , I am off the Radiation Special Metals plant ,, Got to get those Spectral science instruments together , so we will all know when we are about to be gone ,

BTW, no, I don't know what measures would help significantly without causing famine sthrough spending more on CO2 remediation that we can spare from food production.

Natural gas releases very approximately half the CO2 that coal does, for the same heat output.

We're going to HAVE TO use fission power eventually. We should have been researching how to make it safer for the last 40-50 years.

Wind and solar lose the economic competition - which is like saying that Microsoft could make more money by SHOOTING its customers and looting their bank accounts. Coal and oil are cheaper because their main cost (destroying the ecosystem) is paid by future generations, not by the Koch brothers and their like.

The efficiency of both has increased, due to lots of research. At least some investment has trickled into those, and into battery technology for electric cars.

Space-based solar power (SBSP) - solar power satellites with microwave power-beaming to Earth, and later moving heavy industry into orbit were designed in considerable detail around 1968 to 1973. Peter Glaser demonstrated and patented the microwave-beaming technology. It was shot down because it couldn't compete AT THAT TIME with coal.

When the crops failures are SO obvious that even WE figure out that the need to eat trumps ideology, we'll loosen the reins on GMO development. Fortunately, that research HAS been ongoing for decades. It's just been aimed at unproductive goals instead of targeting marginal land and saline water and adverse, rapidly-varying climate. And now we have CRISPR which should be much faster and somewhat safer than the old "Agrobacterium plasmid" genetic engineering.

However, as long as decisions are made by people who don't understand science fiction or long-term unintended consequences, we will continue down the road to self-destruction, secure in the knowledge that we are maximizing profit every day in every way.

Until then, our laws will funnel almost all the money the richest 1% of the country, instead of working towards our mutual survival. No, we are NOT smarter than chimpanzees.

I you held a gun on me and asked "what should we be doing?", my only answer is "start a Manhattan Project-level-urgent research program 35 years ago - it might have been too late then and it is more likely every year that we ARE past the tipping point."

My fallback theory is that we are in the process of proving that we are not, as a species, smart enough to live.

I just read an interesting article.....

One year and counting: Mars isolation experiment begins:

http://news.yahoo.com/long-mar...

My hope is that such things will help us learn how to exist without poisoning our nest (planet).

A space station or Mars colony will HAVE to recycle effectively. Maybe we can learn from that.

I sure hope so. If not, this experiment in Hawaii may be a last ditch effort to save humans from their own self-destruction.

Extinction of plant and animal species has been on the rise since humans entered into the picture:
http://news.nationalgeographic...

I think that many of the people who aren't worried about ecosystem destruction think we will continue as always while animal and plant species go extinct around us.

As if we didn't live on the same planet.

I guess it's true that humans can live for a while in an environment of asphalt and ferro-concrete ... until it's time for dinner. Then we need a healthy ecosystem whether we know it or not.

At first, crop failures will "only" make food more expensive, so those with enough money to buy elections don't care. "Only the poor and middle class will suffer", their thoughts must go. "Who cares about THEM?"

Isn't that the way it has always been with humans from the beginning. It's the "ME concept". As long as I have enough, who cares about everyone else! (I know that is NOT everyone's view, but many of those in power and wealth seem to think that way.) I am always apalled at the lavish wealth of dictators while their people live in extreme poverty. Maybe we should ship these dictators off to planet Mars?!!!

Some shrink's specialty was testing prison inmates, and he came up with a questionnaire that was pretty good at determining how sociopathic they were. Murderers and rapists and other criminals "know" that they are "entitled to" abuse other people for their own profit or amusement (and many enjoy hurting others). Or at least they had no idea about any reason they should NOT hurt others, and that their own pleasure and whims absoltuely trumped any other consideration (like laws or "right and wrong").

Luckily, one day, this shrink was upgraded to Business Class or first class on a flight. He sat next to some CEO or VP and started chatting. "Gee, this guy would score high on my sociopath questionnaire!" he realized.

Later he did more research and found that the main difference between high-powered executives and obvious sociopaths like serial murderers was that the CEOs had better impulse control, and were smart enough to know that they would go to jail if they didn't have excellent lawyers and chose mostly legal ways to abuse, steal, and hurt people for their own pleasure and profit.

But the underlying psychology: "who cares how many people I hurt, if I WANT something?" was identical.

I am NOT one bit surprised. How does it happen that people like that get into powerful and wealthy positions?

Fortunately, the majority of people are NOT sociopaths! But many do become the victims of such evil people.

beckygardener said:... How does it happen that people like that get into powerful and wealthy positions?

Fortunately, the majority of people are NOT sociopaths! ...

I think that nice guys don't get promoted that high: first, they aren't ruthless enough to trample their own way to the top.

Second, the selection process for top jobs and sky-high pay selects for willingness to do anything to get ahead, and therefor lacking any scruples that would slow them down from using the same rapacious standards to advance the company's interests on the backs of who-cares-how-many abused victims.

I do see some guys in fairly high positions who act fairly decent - are they more decent than their very-highly-paid-peers, or just better liars?

I really wish I were over-cynical about this, but if you plotted my Pollyanna Index over time, it would trend steadily downwards as I accumulate workplace experience. SYEADILY downward.

I worked for one Director of Engineering in a VERY small company who was smart but a decent guy. He used to have a medium-highly placed job with a company like Hewlit- Packard (maybe not exactly HP, but like that).

He used to wonder why he never got promoted past a certain level at the big company. "I take notes at ALL the lectures and I do EXACTLY what they say we SHOULD do. But I see guys promoted past me who break all the rules and do "bad" things."

My buddy finally explained the answer to him: they lie. They SAY they want managers to be 100% "transparent", which means more-honest-than-honest. They SAY they want managers to put Safety First and be humane, and make SURE that all laws and regulations are 100% obeyed and never covered up.

Their course materials are probably vetted by HR and Legal to withstand scrutiny by regulators and even lawyers, for when they get sued for consistently breaking their own rules.

They SAY one thing, but they PROMOTE as if they want the opposite.

Which one do they REALLY want and reward?

Pollyanna need not apply.

I have a saying .... "Incompetence gets you promoted". I have seen more incompetent people promoted to higher paying jobs with all the perks, while those that do a really good job never go any higher than where they are at.

Is the world really THAT corrupt? Or is it just those at the top?

My husband and I come from a different generation of working class. We work hard. We don't call in sick all the time. We don't try to make others look bad. We aren't glued to our cell phones. We care about doing a good job. We take pride in our work. We've concluded that we must be dinosaurs that are going extinct. Though I will say .... our 3 children seem to have adopted the same work ethics, so maybe there is hope that things will improve. I know .... I am being VERY optimistic!

I overheard folks at the store checkout line the other day talking about Donald Trump and they all said they were voting for him! People are so disgusted with our politicians that they would vote for Trump. Need I say more .....

Becky ...

It sounds like you are writing about the "Peter Principle". People get promoted until they are finally promoted to their level of incompetence.

Yup!!!!