Reply #17: That's a lot like the way I was thinking. [View All]

[sofa king]

This civilization is doomed as of this moment, for as a matter of course it will change over time until it is very different. It will change faster or slower in part due to climate change.

There are plenty of other factors at work, though. Five billion people are dependent upon a steady supply of oil for their sustenance, and if that is interrupted most of them could be gone in a matter of months. That in turn will dramatically reduce hydrocarbon emissions, which might change the climate again. If the decline in oil production is slower, a still-huge population will be living on the bubble, in poor health and vulnerable to diseases both natural and tailored.

One way or another, six billion people are going to die this century, for very few of us alive today will live to see the next one. If we're replaced--or even doubled, as some predict--by our successors, they will have a much rougher time of it. If we're not replaced, civilization itself will have to contract, with unpredictable results.