Timeline: The Frightening Future of Earth

[FourScore]

(There is no doubt...the is THE most improtant issue we are facing!!!!!)

...2008

Global oil production peaks sometime between 2008 and 2018, according to a model by one Swedish physicist. Others say this turning point, known as “Hubbert’s Peak,” won’t occur until after 2020. Once Hubbert’s Peak is reached, global oil production will begin an irreversible decline, possibly triggering a global recession, food shortages and conflict between nations over dwindling oil supplies. (doctoral dissertation of Frederik Robelius, University of Uppsala, Sweden; report by Robert Hirsch of the Science Applications International Corporation)

2020

Flash floods will very likely increase across all parts of Europe. (IPCC)

Less rainfall could reduce agriculture yields by up to 50 percent in some parts of the world. (IPCC)

World population will reach 7.6 billion people. (U.S. Census Bureau)...

SNIP

...2085

The risk of dengue fever from climate change is estimated to increase to 3.5 billion people. (IPCC)...

COMPLETE TIMELINE:

http://www.livescience.com/environment/070419_earth_timeline.html

[loudsue]

1. What is dengue fever??

3.5 billion is a lot of people.

:kick::kick::kick:

[Whoa_Nelly]

4. Read about it here

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001373.htm

<snips>

Dengue hemorrhagic fever is a severe, potentially deadly infection spread by certain mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti ).

Four different dengue viruses have been shown to cause dengue hemorrhagic fever. This condition occurs when a person catches a different dengue virus after being infected by another type sometime before. Prior immunity to a different dengue virus type plays an important role in this severe disease.

Worldwide, more than 100 million cases of dengue fever occur every year. A small number of these develop into dengue hemorrhagic fever. Most infections in the United States are brought in from other countries. It is possible for a traveler who has returned to the United States to pass the infection to someone who has not traveled.

[FourScore]

5. A nasty virus, spread by mosquitos.

High survivability rate except with infants.

Symptoms include high fever, headache, chills, swollen lymph nodes, rash, purple spots on skin, headaches, joint pain, sometimes cough. Lasts up to 10 days, but the patient is weak and extremely tired for up to a month afterward.

[Mojorabbit]

7. It is already creeping into the US

Here is an older article
South Texas Sees Rise in Dengue Fever Outbreaks
Family Pratice News, Feb 15, 2000 by Guang-Shing Cheng


Dengue fever continues to creep northward into the United States.

But the most recent outbreak in southern Texas, which has claimed the life of 1 girl an sickened more than 50 others, has not yet convinced epidemiologists that dengue is now endemic in the United States.

Dengue is still very much an August-to-December disease in southern Texas, according to Gary Clark, Ph.D., chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's dengue branch in San Juan, P.R. The causative arbovirus depends for its transmission on the Aedes aegypti, a household mosquito that feeds during the day and does not travel more than a few hundred feet from where it hatches, Dengue is also transmitted by another species, A. aldopictus, which is also prevalent in the southern United States, but is not as effective a vector.

The incubation time for the disease is anywhere from 3 to 14 days after infection, and the viremic window for a mosquito to pick up the virus is only 5 days.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BJI/is_4_30/ai_60579654

[SoCalDem]

10. nasty stuff. we were always afraid of it in Panama

kind of like ebola..

[BrklynLiberal]

2. As Kurt Vonnegut said, at this point man is just some sort of virus that planet Earth is

trying to rid itself of.

[Pryderi]

6. George Carlin said earth just needed man to make styrofoam for it,

and we can be eliminated now.

[Mojorabbit]

8. What worries me more

is that they keep moving the timelines up. I am afraid that a lot of this will come to pass a lot sooner than they now think.

[ChazII]

3. Thank goodness

I live in the desert.

[riverdeep]

9. All the benefits of a global economy

are also it's greatest weaknesses. There really is no safe place to go in a global economy.

The population growth is the most disturbing and hard to manage.

[loudsue]

11. Population growth used to be a major issue to environmentalists.

Don't ask me how the focus on this issue went away, but world over-population is going to be what kills all of us.

:kick::kick::kick:

[Odin2005]

13. Because population control isn't "politically correct."

Can't offend people who believe that they must have as many kids as possible because their holy book says so, ya know? :sarcasm:

[pitohui]

14. because you can't tell the good guys not to breed when the bad guys (religious fascists) are breedin

unless population control is mandated by law, then it's a losing cause, because only decent, educated people control or reduce their birth rate

hence in the usa alone, decent, educated people are not replacing themselves, so new voters will increasingly be from the ranks of hate-filled religious extremists, the mormons, the fundies, and so on

it is politically self destructive to champion the cause

if there was so way to pass and enforce laws so that NO ONE was allowed to have more than one or two kids, it would be different, but as it is, focusing on this issue only encourages more educated empathetic people to tie the tubes while hateful fundies have a quiverful of little monsters to carry on their hateful beliefs

[electron_blue]

15. YEah, weird how many ardent environmentalists also have many children

when I would have had them p egged for going childless.

[BrklynLiberal]

12. kick more must see this