Is global warming an urban myth?

DPinBucks

I think you're dead right in all that, but there is a lot of “if's”.

If humans carry on as they are (ie pretty well uncontrolled), then one of two things will happen:
We'll get a Malthusian population crash when finite resources run out;Or, we'll end up as you predict, with the entire Earth essentially one single farm, supporting us alone.The second of these requires a total understanding of genetics and a complete mastery of genetic engineering. The reason is that we must be able to cope with the implications of zero genetic diversity. For example, climate change might force us to literally construct drought-resistant wheat, since we couldn't use selective breeding. Similarly with pharmaceuticals needed to resist mutated pathogens. The implications of this mastery are, of course, profound, because they will also apply to humans themselves.

The ultimate barrier to human development on a single planet is not climate change or resources; it is heat dispersion. Eventually, the planet will become too hot to be worth inhabiting any longer.

Plasticine : nice one.

BISHI

This is the excact point where it becomes necessary to move beyond the bounds of the earth to stop this happening.
We've had 2 world wars, numerous pandemics and the nuclear bomb for 60 yrs - and the population continues to grow !!!
There are scientists who suggest that sentient life exists as a means for the universe to observe itself. Maybe it liked what it saw on earth and would like to see it spread across itself !!

mcnoiserdc

well don't worry, things will change soon!
Another war, or another disease, something will happen! you'll see.
There are people in this world who will move their asses and change things, not me, but who has money and power to change things,

but if the one who says the earth is warming is the one who are getting all the money that comes from "not warming" the earth, we are in good hands then

Al Gore is said to have made 500 million dollars on it.

BISHI

The point is no matter what has been thrown at humanity so far, it has made not a single dent in long term population growth and mans increasing mastery of his environment and the planet. Short of a global destruction event like that which killed the dinosaurs or the far fetched fiction of 2012 human monoculture is the destiny of the planet.

GasDad

But the growth rate has slowed right down - in many parts of the world we now have negative growth.

It is perfectly possible that we will peak at around 10billion or so.

Shipping people off world - is not going to ease population pressure - if anything the reverse will be true. After all if we have the technology to say terraform Mars, and move significant numbers of people there, that also means the resources of the solar system will be available to us - all those terra tonnes of hydrocarbons  around the gas giants, along with all the metals from the asteroids, which create an abundance of wealth on Earth. And so far in history, bountiful resources have always resulted in population growth.

BISHI

Those places where population is negative are western style democracies where women are empowered. These places are few and far between. The major population centres of Asia are industrialising and it is from here that population pressure will come.
Also populations move to where the wealth and opportunities are and the 'colonial ' spirit is ingrained in the human psyche.

mcnoiserdc

well, the birth rates in poorer contries where people are having lots of babies are going down, and it will keep going doing as there are pressure to reduce these rates aswell as the emancipation of women is increasing greatly everywhere, not just in rich countries.
For instance I was born in africa, where my grandmother had 8 children, my mother had 4 and in my generation people are having 2-3.
there are lots of people interested in slowing the population growth.
For instance bill gates foundation funded a research to cause man to lose fertility by ultrasound last week. People are busy at work fighting it like it was a disease.

Man and nature will always know how to cope with the challenges. Problem is if the stronger will care for the weaker, but it seems things in this area, will keep as before=animally

GasDad

But they're not - and that is the point. Though we still have positive growth, the rate has dramatically decreased in the last 30 years or so.

Well the facts say otherwise - industrialization requires an educated workforce and that always reduces fecundity.

BISHI

Well looking here -
Projected population growth (most recent) by country
It would seem it would be a bit of both !
The population boom in the UK rode on the back of industrialization and this will certainly be the case in some countries today.
China s projected population growth I think was just over 7 %, but that 7% will still be a huge number of people.
In places such as Kerala in southern India where female education is encouraged and women are granted more equality than the rest of the sub continent - population growth is stable. Elsewhere in the copuntry it is growing so much that India is projected to overtake China as the most populous country.
The trend might be that growth levels are slowing down but if you compare populations to 100 or 200 years ago the world population has grown massively.

BISHI

I would say quite the opposite, Industrialization initially requires an un educated-recently primarily agricultural population. Urbanization usually depends on a rapid demographic shift from rural populations to fill spaces in factories. This is happening now in China and India and is the biggest movement of populations ever seen on the planet. A tertiary service and technological economy requires an educated workforce.