Given that a number of people here in the Environmental

[Strong Atheist]

forum have told me that we are past the "tipping point", what are your predictions/fears for the world-wide environment for the next 10 years? The next 20? Then next 50? The next 100?

In other words, what is coming down the pike here?

[htuttle]

1. I expect massive coastal flooding within 50 years

More likely within 20 years. I think the Greenland ice cap is going to melt a LOT faster than people realize.

I also expect widespread drought in central North America, much of South America, Australia and Asia.

[phantom power]

6. I pretty much agree with htuttle.

I would add that Europe will be colder than it is today. Probably cold and dry. The THC shutdown does seem to be in progress, and it's likely to continue, or accelerate, as polar ice melting accelerates.

I'm almost hoping for the "global ice age" scenario. Some of the other projected equilibriums are even worse. Massive temperature increases, with everything between N60 and S60 lattitudes uninhabitable. If it gets that bad, I wonder if there's anything to stop us from becoming Venus 2.0.

I also agree that the changes will build momentum faster than even the "pessimists" are predicting. I think it will be a different world, 50 years from now.

[Strong Atheist]

15. Ah. More like we won't survive .... maybe just as well ... nt.

[phantom power]

22. I think under most scenarios, we will survive.

Although "we" may or may not include "me," or a lot of other people. My mind shies away from it, but it seems likely that billions of people will die sometime over the next 50-100 years.

I think that short of the extreme "venus 2.0" scenario, the odds of at least some humas surviving are high. We are adaptable, and, really, we're all over the place. As long as even a few places end up being habitable, odds are good that there are some people there already, or that they'll find their way.

We could lose 99.9% of humanity, and still have 6.5 million humans left.

[Strong Atheist]

23. May be a good thing, in the LONG run .... nt.

[Strong Atheist]

14. Sounds like you expect us to survive ... some good news ... nt.

[htuttle]

21. Some of us, anyway

For awhile.

Then we'll see.

[China_cat]

2. As with the dinosaurs

a large die-off of the organisms using the majority of resources.

When the world is back to the population numbers of the first or second century by our counting, then it will be hospitable for humans or their evolutionary descendents again.

[Delphinus]

39. I wonder what our evolutionary descendants will

be and/or look like.

Seems I've read (somewhere!) that every time we do have a big die-off - not like the bubonic plague or the 1918 flu, but BIG - the fossil record of humans has shown a significant change.

[pscot]

3. In the immortal words of professor Harold Hill

"Law of the jungle, animal instinct, massteria...

Without fossil fuels a population of six billion is unsustainable. Some sort of die-back seems likely. Four horsemen pressage the apocalypse; war, famine, pestilence and death. I somehow doubt we'll see Jesus coming on a cloud to raise us up.

[Strong Atheist]

16. "I somehow doubt we'll see Jesus coming on a

cloud to raise us up." Agree with that part, of course.

It looks like the others agree that a massive die-back will happen. Sigh .

[Kolesar]

4. I'm going to take up smoking

and buy a really, really fast and powerful motorcycle.

[Strong Atheist]

17. And max out you credit cards/lines? nt.

[umass1993]

5. Dogs and cats sleeping together!

That 's from Ghostbusters, in case you didn't know.

[pscot]

7. And the lion shall lie down with the lamb...

but the lamb won't get very much sleep. Woody Allen

[hatrack]

8. Fundamental problem - unpredictable weather patterns

Even setting aside little things like, oh, 830-milibar hurricanes, rising sea levels swamping coastal areas, greater numbers of extreme tornadoes, floods, forest fires and the like, what happens when you can no longer predict how the weather will be when you try to grow food?

What happens when you can't predict the weather to grow food, and in addition a destabilized climate simultaneously allows for new insect and/or fungi, rusts, molds and smuts to take hold where they had not been seen before?

[phantom power]

10. The Seal Scenario, of course.

[Strong Atheist]

18. Please educate? nt.

[phantom power]

25. Sorry, it's this...

Seal herds taking refuge from warm temperatures decimated by blizzard:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=115&topic_id=41208

They were already on the run from climate change, but then they got clobbered anyway, by chaotic weather. Probably the same fate awaits many humans. We'll run, but we can't hide.

[Strong Atheist]

27. "... can't hide". How true. Luckily for me, my life is already

about half over, so I will have experienced life. I feel bad for the younger generations...

[NNadir]

9. In the short term, I predict disruptions to the food supply.

I also expect high loss of life from extreme weather events, such as we saw this summer in the American Southeast.

For the long term, I see Easter Island: http://www.netaxs.com/trance/rapanui.html

[Strong Atheist]

19. Ah. I have read up on Easter Island before. nt.

[phantom power]

28. Except we probably won't even leave behind any cool giant heads.

[NNadir]

29. Maybe giant Hummers will do.

One shutters to think of future archeologists coming across those things.

Of course, in that case, the archeologists are likely to be extraterrestrials. ;-)

[phantom power]

31. Those hummers will surely make them say "WTF?" Just like heads!

Maybe our future archaeologists will interpret them as over-sized religious talismans, in homage to the Oil God. In which case, they will be exactly right, I suppose.

[JudyM]

11. Significant escalation of species' failure to survive.

[skids]

12. Biosphere will hurt first.

Totally off the cuff:

Other than hurricanes, there won't be much direct impact on lifestyles here for a decade. Instead we'll see the impact in mass dieoff of species (and such will be blissfully ignored by a good chunk of our citizens.) Immediate effect will probably be only on the seafood supply. Drought in the breadbasket will start to hurt food supplies badly after that.

Barring a mass infestation of red tide or some other caustic opportunistic organism filling the void left by disappearing sea life, I don't think Americans will care.

[Dead_Parrot]

13. And lots of refugees...

As food and water suplies become unreliable, we'll have massive migrations of increasingly desperate people trying to find somewhere else to settle. I suspect these people won't be recieving much by way of relief aid, either...

NOLA was a picnic in comparison.

[Strong Atheist]

20. Ah. I feel bad about the youngsters. I have lived about

half my life, and thus will have experienced good times no matter what the future holds...

[Dead_Parrot]

24. Same here - including my own

Saying "Sorry" doesn't really cover it... :(

[Strong Atheist]

26. One of many reasons I will NEVER have children .... nt.

[NNadir]

30. Well you have to forgive those of us who did.

My two sons were born during the Clinton administration. It seemed as if there would be a future then.

[Strong Atheist]

32. Not yelling at hose who did.

More power to you! :patriot:

[phantom power]

33. I sometimes wonder if my daugher will hate me. Or if I will hate myself.

On the other hand, I know that my parents pondered the same questions, 37 years ago. For one reason or another, the world has never been a "safe place to raise kids."

Somehow, not having kids because the future is uncertain, seemed like giving up, and not even I am ready to do that. Maybe it's programming. I come from a long, long line of organisms that didn't give up :-)

[Dead_Parrot]

34. Yeah, the 'ol biological imperative...

I hit my mid-30's and realised I might be denying the world the benefit of my genetic superiority. :D

[phantom power]

36. Yeah. I'll be damned if I'm gonna be out-bred by a bunch of..

religious nut-cases with 16 kids... Well, OK. They're outbreeding me. badly.

[Dead_Parrot]

37. Go for quality, not quantity... nt

[NNadir]

35. Probably your kids are happy to be here. May they always be so.

Their generation, I think, is going to have a very hard time, but let us hope that they don't feel the need to give up and that they are not forced to give up.

[Oerdin]

38. There is no "tipping point"

at least not in a scientific sense. Geologically speaking the Earth has been much warmer in the past and it has been much colder in the past so what ever we throw at it the Earth will survive. That said climate change always results in a lot of extinctions and there will be a whole lot of downsides around the world because of global warming. It would be smart to stop deforestation, plant replant historical forests, and cap all human green house output but that just isn't going to happen because humans are terrible at long term thinking. As a species we seem to only care about right now instead of how what we're doing will effect everything later.

[Boomer]

40. "Interesting times" up ahead

Within ten years: the complete collapse of ocean ecosystems. We are already seeing the first signs of this with starvation of sea birds and other high-level ocean predators. The simultaneous stresses of toxic runoff, changing ocean currents, increased acid levels, warmer temperatures, and plankton die-off will lead to massive die-offs all along the food chain, or what there is left of it. Also the bleaching of coral reefs.

Increasing numbers of climate refugees from U.S. coastal communities that have been devastated by increasingly intense hurricanes; money for rebuilding simply runs out. Add to that the swelling numbers of people leaving the drought-ridden Western states because of fires, increased cost of air-conditioning and water, plus other residents driven out by floods and mud slides brought on by alternating drought and rainfalls that erode marginal land.

Increased cost of food as agricultural yields begin to drop due to adverse weather conditions, new insect infestations, the increased cost of petroleum-based fertilizers, the increased production and distribution costs, and decreasing access to water.

Within 20 years: All the above, plus spot shortages of staple foods as major agricultural areas are increasingly stressed by climate change and the soaring costs of production and distribution.

Increased medical expenses and loss of productivity as tropical pathogens spread farther and farther across the warming globe.

Increased mortality during summer and winter as the price of fuels drives the cost of air-conditioning/heating above the reach of poor and middle-class families.

Yet more displacement from coastal areas as some areas are submerged and violent storms make deeper inroads into the "new" coastline.

Increased political tensions as the "haves" jostle for their share of the pie and the "have-nots" are riot.

Within 30 years: Widespread famines, violent civil unrest as increasingly large numbers of hungry, impoverished people are shoved together into smaller areas of land. Major political upheavals and world-wide economic collapse as the cost of oil rises faster than the development of fuel alternatives.

Within 50 years: Disintegration of globalization as oil-based transportation collapses; countries mobilize their miltary to lock down populations protesting widespread famine, disease and infrastructure decay.