We can't see below the waves, so it's easy for us to ignore what is going on down there. Massive overfishing and acidification is having huge impacts, not to mention the falling levels of oxygen in the water.
I know people talk in hyperbole to make a point but can you point to any credible source in the last 30 years stating we are close to total annilhilation within the next 50 years? No one doubts the Earth will be fine. The doubt is whether or not human civilization will be fine.
It's civilization where you get to walk to the store and buy a week's supply of food in exchange for money, and expect to do so the next week just as easily, which is in doubt.
Any single person can probably get away with not doing anything, and the problems will seem to magically go away, but they only do so because some people act. (And usually it takes a lot of people.)
It's not the earth anyone needs to worry about, it's the humans. We've not been through worse and our smaller challenges often have catastrophic outcomes.
Just to cover one angle (IMO most likely one): reduced living space (sea rise) and food shortages will cause massive migrations. Think how the whole EU went basically insane over a bunch of refugees from Syria (and the aftershocks still threaten to shake it apart). Climate-change induced migrations will be much larger, and this time around actually backed by countries people are fleeing. Wars are likely. Proxy wars are likely too. And nukes won't be off the table either.
Even if you live so far inland that waters can't get to you, people will. And if you survive that, then lack of people will get to you as the global supply chain stretches to a breaking point and suddenly no one can make anything as all the components came from China. The lifestyle we're all used to depends on global-scale systems with single points of failure.
This got down-voted to hell, which is odd, because it rings true.
The "total annihilation" isn't even that hyperbolic. I've seen comments here on HN that depict our world as under imminent threat of global nuclear war, or that depict our world as suffering from a mass extinction (caused by humans) that will end all life as we know it.
I believe those statements are the hyperbolic ones, and one should be allowed to call them out for that.
I read a lot about history and the one common thread that appears over and over again is that history is only repeating until it stops doing so. So many cycles that must have seemed eternal to those inside have eventually come to an end. One day, every Cassandra will be right.
Just to show that the history-repeating argument can be made ad absurdum both ways.
We have ample empirical evidence that drunk driving poses a significant risk of killing someone, hence there should be a non-trival level of expectation of this outcome.
We have absolutely zero empirical evidence as to what actions may trigger a nuclear holocaust, and we're currently not seeing any of the popularly accepted causes for the 5 mass extinctions of the past.
"I have the story of a turkey that is fed for 1,000 days by a butcher, and every day confirms to the turkey and the turkey’s economics department and the turkey’s risk management department and the turkey’s analytical department that the butcher loves turkeys, and every day brings more confidence to the statement. So it’s fed for 1,000 days… "
Every day somebody was able (even accidentally) to start the nuclear annihilation of the whole world (hint: it's not "just a president" who can do that, but many, many more): the complex systems and the war plans are actually maintained in which everything happens in just a few hours.
Our statistics that it didn't happen yet is not a proof that an "accident" (oh, sorry, it was an error!) can't very easily happen any moment now.
Observing a pond exclusively frequented by white swans in the past is not proof that black swans don't exist, but from that fact alone you cannot derive any reasonable expectation of seeing a black swan upon a random visit to the same pond.
Around 7.55 billion with something like three more every second. [1]
Since muslims believe in basically the same god it gives you 54% (jews are rather insignificant portion of population). It still means 3.5 billions currently (and historically over 100 billion) are breaking 10 core amendments and should burn in hell eternally (grossly oversimplified obviously).
You can't just bring rationality, common sense or critical thinking into most current religions, they fall apart like house of cards.
I wish there would be some new major religion that would only preach a single thing - be a nice, good person to yourself and every sentient living creature out there. Nothing more required.
Not sure what you mean by that - you seem to be not very politely saying I got the stat wrong? I was referring to the line:
"No Religion affiliation (16%): atheists, agnostics and people who do not identify with any particular religion."
- which I think it's fair to summarize as "non-religious". (And 15.5% are catholic apparently)
edit: ..Although when I was at my most religious, 25 years ago, I didn't 'identify with any particular religion' but felt very close to a number of different ones - Hindu gurus, christian mystics, buddhism of various types, sufis etc.
Population is already an issue, this isn't some future problem.
on edit: typo, changed out to our.
-- Franz Kafka
And it just occured to me that the following quote expresses exactly what I'm trying to say if you change "loving" to "solving problems impacting poor people and future generations, and not creating them by running away from other problems or just out of sheer selfishness or boredom". I put it like thast because it's already acceptable to "look out for number one", it's just the "irrational" stuff, having caring about people who don't even exist yet, as well as animals and plants that can't even sue us, that we are still having problems with.
> Because one does not see that love is an activity, a power of the soul, one believes that all that is necessary to find is the right object - and that everything goes by itself afterward. This attitude can be compared to that of the man who wants to paint but who, instead of learning the art, claims that he just has to wait for the right object - and that he will paint beautifully when he finds it.
- Erich Fromm
Yes, we need big solutions, of course this can't be solved by people just buying a little less and recycling. But still, I kinda feel it's weird to think assume we would do the right thing at large scale, if only we knew the exact right thing to tackle, when we aren't even doing it at smaller (and supposedly easier) scale.
Sorry for basically just posting a bunch of quotes, but now that I thought of it, it just seems too fitting not to:
> A tiger catches a mouse with his whole strength. A tiger does not ignore or slight any small animal. The way he catches a mouse and the way he catches and devours a cow is the same. But usually, although you have many problems, you think they are minor, so you don’t think it is necessary to exert yourself... So even though the problems you have in your everyday life are small, unless you know how to solve them you will have big difficulties.
-- Shunryu Suzuki
I thought that overfishing the kinds of big fish we like to eat will just lead to a growing population of smaller fish and other marine life.
I agree that the oceans change - a lot - due to human influence. Some species will dwindle in numbers and disappear. It takes a long time for new species to emerge. But what I'm not so sure is that the overall change necessarily would have to be so negative in the long run.
What I'm also saying is that I think that other fish (or lifeforms in general) will take their place.