are we really all about to die because of global warming and over-population or is it an exaggeration to make people care? look up ehrlich's "population bomb" that was one scary theory, but was false. tell me your opinion. are you a skeptical environmentalist? what problems do you think the environment is facing?
2006-08-22 09:29:10 · 12 answers · asked by hmbn 4 in Environment
Most of it is just paranoia. Our activities are unlikely to produce some global catastrophy as some like to believe. However we do need to take greater care of what we do with our waste products. Our quality of life is a stake. Who wants to live in a world where the sky is grey and there is no natural wild habitat to explore on the weekends. Oh, sorry that's Britain isn't it?
2006-08-22 19:11:42 · answer #1 · answered by uselessadvice 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The "enviroment" will change and adapt. The various feedback mechanisms try to keep the planetary system optimum for life; but it may not be life as we know it. Systems flip quicky from one stable state to a new one, and it is impossible to predict on a system as complex as a planet where the tipping point wil occur.
The locking up of carbon as fossil fuel was one feedback mechanism which kept the temperature relativly stable compared to changes in solar energy over millenia and we have now reversed in a few decades.
Will the adapted environment support human society in its current form - unlikely.
Most people are unlikely to care unless it hurts them directly. Anyone who questions the wisdom of the industrial growth model is targeted by all the forces of villification those in power can muster; while ensuring the media and education system avoid real life sustaining options available today and which would give us all a better quality of life.
The population bomb is fact, the earth is finite it cannot sustain the current infinite growth model, it would take about 10 planets to support the current population at US levels of consumption.
2006-08-23 07:05:05 · answer #2 · answered by fred 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
> is the environment really in danger?
Yes. We're in the middle of a human-caused extinction event. Not good.
> are we really all about to die because of global warming
No. But things might get unpleasant in coastal areas which will become increasingly submerged. Think about Florida becoming an archipelago -- and the loss of the Everglades ecosystem permanently.
> over-population
We will find a balance, but resources may be a bit scarce -- that is, there may not be, say, enough developable copper for everyone to have copper pipes and copper wires.
2006-08-22 19:31:25 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, if we continue to treat the earth with the same attitude that we have been for 1,000 of years. we take away things but do not often put things back in the earth.
No, if you consider that in earth's history that no organism has survived a single phase of existence on this planet. we could evolve into creatures that are more symbiotic, find another earth which would relieve some of the natural tension we are put on to the earth, or not live to the point o earth's extintion which means that the earth will balance itsself out again just like the period after the dinosaurs :):):)
2006-08-22 16:58:55 · answer #4 · answered by soad_wakeup 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yeah probably. But we just won't see the effects until way later. I think people need to be warned about what they put into their environment because that's what will come back at them. I think that those theories are really exaggerated too, for want of political favor. I think that the environment is being taken for granted by pollution and waste but I don't think that there will be another grandiose effect that will happen during my lifetime anyways...
2006-08-22 16:35:19 · answer #5 · answered by kat 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, at least at the rate we're going. Global warming can and probably will make the planet uninhabitable for humans.
2006-08-22 17:54:13 · answer #6 · answered by dinizle26 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
K first of all, its not Global warming, its a climate change, the earth isnt getting hotter! The summers are getting hotter and the winters are getting colder. It says the earth is getting hotter yet the Ice caps are getting bigger
2006-08-22 21:00:51 · answer #7 · answered by D-Dawg 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Humans are parasitic on the environment, and we will eventually cause our own extinction. We may come close in the near future.
2006-08-22 23:36:04 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
40,000 children starve to death everyday, our seas are dying from our waste, arable land is disappearing at 2% per year,finite resources (like oil) will soon run out and people have the stupidity to say the world has room for more people.
2006-08-23 08:22:53 · answer #9 · answered by iknowtruthismine 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No. Read Lomborg's book.
2006-08-22 18:35:31 · answer #10 · answered by Tom H 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋