Do you think civilization will survive 21st century?

I use to be very anti-civ and even though I don't agree now with their positions I can't refute one point. Is civilization by definition unsustainable? Does it require resource consumption that is impossible to balance with nature?
 
I think we are close enough to colonizing space and other planets that I think we will survive, if not in quite the same form. I really recommend Isaac Arthur's SFIA channel on YouTube for discussions about science and the future.
 
Jason_Tesla_19 said:
I think we are close enough to colonizing space and other planets that I think we will survive, if not in quite the same form. I really recommend Isaac Arthur's SFIA channel on YouTube for discussions about science and the future.
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Do we have enough time left to escape Earth? Climate models are showing 4-6 degree Celsius warming by 2100. If true, we'll starve te death because of crops collapse alone. Lloyd's study predicts crops yields collapse by 2040, which coincide with surpassing 2 degree warming by 2040-50, if business as usual continues.

And where will we go? Mars is less hospitable planet than Antarctic is. And no culture lives on Antarctic.
 
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Max Fisher said:
Is civilization by definition unsustainable? Does it require resource consumption that is impossible to balance with nature?
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Good question. Exponential population growth is certainly unsustainable and it has been driven by fossil fuels. Take fossil fuels out of equation and you get population collapse driven by major crops yields collapse. It makes sense as fossil fuels are just millions years of stored solar energy and we're using it all in 200 years time frame. Pretty scary if you ask me. I'm pessimist when it comes to replacing so much fossil fuel energy consumption with the same amount of solar energy in due time.
 
The one thing that bothers me about the population argument (which can be valid to some degree) is no one can say how much is too much. I mean it makes sense that there is a cap on the earth's carrying capacity but what is that cap exactly?
 
HoplessCase101 said:
Do we have enough time left to escape Earth? Climate models are showing 4-6 degree Celsius warming by 2100. If true, we'll starve te death because of crops collapse alone. Lloyd's study predicts crops yields collapse by 2040, which coincide with surpassing 2 degree warming by 2040-50, if business as usual continues.
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The climate on the planet various wildly be geography. Yes, some land will become "uninhabitable", and some previously arable land will become unsuitable, but it's likely the climate change will make previously unsuitable land usable, and previously "uninhabitable" land habitable. The total comfortably usable land may well decrease. In the last hothouse Earth, Antarctica was a tropical paradise! Siberia might become prime real estate. The oceans could well rise 100ft/30m. If all the ice and snow on the planet melted (unlikely in the near future), the oceans would rise about 230ft/70m. It would put a bunch of coastal cities underwater, but make other places prime real estate.
 
HoplessCase101 said:
Good question. Exponential population growth is certainly unsustainable and it has been driven by fossil fuels. Take fossil fuels out of equation and you get population collapse driven by major crops yields collapse. It makes sense as fossil fuels are just millions years of stored solar energy and we're using it all in 200 years time frame. Pretty scary if you ask me. I'm pessimist when it comes to replacing so much fossil fuel energy consumption with the same amount of solar energy in due time.
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Fossil fuels are what definitely worry me, as they are currently very important in the production of artificial fertilizer and powering farm equipment, and powering delivery vehicles from farm to store. I doubt the replacement will come from wind and solar. I really believe nuclear power will become absolutely essential. They say fusion is only about a decade away now, and that will completely change the energy economy. If nothing else, civilization will have a setback, and a higher percentage of the population will have to be farmers. Before the industrial revolution, at least 90% of people were directly involved in farming, fishing, or hunting, and nowadays it's about 1%. We may have to revive old practices like using feces to fertilize our crops, use crop rotation, sister crops, etc. We could very likely have a population decline. Wars over resources could very well accelerate that and reduce the number of people who actually die of hunger.
 
I read both Endgame volumes and they are hard to refute. What do you think about his definition of civilization?

 
Jason_Tesla_19 said:
The climate on the planet various wildly be geography. Yes, some land will become "uninhabitable", and some previously arable land will become unsuitable, but it's likely the climate change will make previously unsuitable land usable, and previously "uninhabitable" land habitable. The total comfortably usable land may well decrease. In the last hothouse Earth, Antarctica was a tropical paradise! Siberia might become prime real estate. The oceans could well rise 100ft/30m. If all the ice and snow on the planet melted (unlikely in the near future), the oceans would rise about 230ft/70m. It would put a bunch of coastal cities underwater, but make other places prime real estate.
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That's not what climate models predict. Humans (not civilizations) have survived in 5 degree Celsius temperature variation (difference between ice age and today). Thinking that we can somehow survive 10 degree global temp variation is utopian. Major crops yields start to collapse after 2-3 degrees of global warming in mid latitudes, where most food grows, so there's no way of feeding 9 billion people. You can't grow major crops up north, because soil is too acidic, even if temperatures become optimal there.

If we hit 4 degree Celsius warming, we go extinct from starvation and water shortages, if we don't kill each for remaining arable patches of land before:

https://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/august/climate-change-speed-080113.html


climate-change-speed-080113.html
 
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Max Fisher said:
I read both Endgame volumes and they are hard to refute. What do you think about his definition of civilization?

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Very good definition… Similar to Dr. Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex societies:


It's very interesing to learn how little is needed to go wrong for complex society to collapse. Scary stuff. it makes you think of things we take for granted.
 
I'm pretty sure you started an almost identical thread to this about 3 months ago :emoji_rolling_eyes:
 
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