Doom and Gloom
Apr. 12th, 2007 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ewtWheat stem rust
Colony Collapse Disorder
Energy shortages
Resistant TB
Bird 'flu
War
Climate change
And people wonder why I get so discouraged. This was going to be a link round-up but it got too depressing.
Colony Collapse Disorder
Energy shortages
Resistant TB
Bird 'flu
War
Climate change
And people wonder why I get so discouraged. This was going to be a link round-up but it got too depressing.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 08:17 pm (UTC)Colony Collapse Disorder
Energy shortages
Resistant TB
Bird 'flu
War
Climate change
We didn't start the fire,
It was always burning since the world's been... oh... wait...
no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 10:09 am (UTC)*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 11:14 am (UTC)It was a reference to We Didn't Start the Fire (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Didn't_Start_the_Fire), which is itself a list of cultural references.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 10:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 11:25 pm (UTC)actually, pretty much anything short of that, and there are a few isolated corners that'd be safe...
I'm hopefully headed for one of those in a few years time.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 01:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 10:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 12:56 pm (UTC)OTOH, it's always a good idea to have a few back-ups around in a protected archive. Just in case.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 10:16 am (UTC)Even if everything stays as good as it is now, I've got a rough ride for the next few years trying to sort out my physical and mental health. I don't really entertain happy illusions that something isn't going to go wrong.
Wheat prices rose 14% last year, and I'm doing a music degree.
On the other hand, I know more about foraging and preserving and other stuff than most Londoners, even most people I know, and there's almost certainly a selection bias toward people who know this sort of thing in my friends. It's all for naught if there isn't any clean water though.
Basically if there is a hard crash we're all stuffed. If there's a slow crash (and some people would argue that we're in it - I lack the perspective to make the judgement, myself...) I'm not sure at what point I should cut my losses with the music degree and so on. Blah blah blah opportunity cost blah blah blah.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 01:14 pm (UTC)Best estimate at present is 5 to 10 years before we could safely say for sure we are in a slow decline... with 20 years before things go really down hill. [as in the Utopia project scenario].
Oh, and how about this (http://www.envirotechproducts.com/clearbrook-water-filters.htm) water filter?
no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 02:12 pm (UTC)I'm optimistic that public awareness of climate change is appears to be going up (I have only my own anecdotal evidence for this), at least in this country. And I don't see the world having a long term energy crisis. Air flight probably will be the most effected (and less accessible) if fuel climb, but I'm sure practical technological solutions can be found for cars, and trains (where the answer isn't electrification). And electricity. At "worst" we can build nuclear power stations. Expensive and a bit dodgy? Yes. Governments may find them more palatable the guaranteed blackouts in x years if nothing is done and renewable methods are insufficient.
Food stuffs have to be sortable over the long term too. It's not as if we don't have grain mountains and milk lakes. It will be less pleasant then it is now, but I'm sure waste will be slowly cut eventually - because we won't have the choice not to but life will go on somehow.
Yes, I'm optimistic about this, very possibly too optimistic. But we haven't managed to wipe ourselves out yet... And I'm nto saying that things won't change and what people do won't have to change. But I don't think the changes will mean death-of-society, but I am uncertain as to how large they will be and aware that because of this and the fact that I simply don't know anywhere near enough about this means I can not have a *proper* opinion, in other words this is probably all crap.
My alternative view should be met with a No! :\
no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 11:01 pm (UTC)AAAARGH
Date: 2007-04-12 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-12 11:30 pm (UTC)oh yeah, and Apophis (http://www.armageddononline.org/99942_apophis_asteroid.php)
Trust me, it's possible to survive just about anything...
it's all a matter of where you are standing!
no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 08:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 09:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 01:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 12:54 pm (UTC)Personally, I'm thinking of New Zealand. It's position is such that an asteroid would ahve to have a very weird orbital inclination to get even close, and the NZ government are working towards being a self-sufficent country, so the rest of the global economy could go to hell and not affect it.
Granted, a dinosaur-killer strike might cause problems, but even that kind of global winter would only last a few years, and would be survivable.
If we consider the other options, it's easily isolated in the event of pandemic, and is separated into two big islands and lots of little ones as well, so has the functional equivalent of bulkheads. Global climate change is predicted to impact there less than anywhere else, thanks tot he affects of deep sea currents [which are largely unaffected by surface conditions].
Over-all, unless we postulate a planet destroying event, NZ is the most best place to be. And it's pretty civilized already.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-13 02:55 am (UTC)At least you don't sit around going "meh, may as well sit around waiting to die" like some people I know.