What is the greatest ecological/environmental threat we will face over the next century?

[GliderGuider]

Poll question: What is the greatest ecological/environmental threat we will face over the next century?

What do you feel is the greatest threat humanity in general will face over the next 50 to 100 years? In other words, what problem do you feel should get the largest amount of the world's attention, time, energy and money to avoid or mitigate?

[pinto]

1. Living in the West, I voted for water supplies. It's a major factor / liability here.

:hi:

[Lochloosa]

6. Living in the South, I voted for water supplies.

We are SUCKING our state dry to keep our grass nice and green.....

[joshcryer]

Yes I was very close to voting for water, but CO2 is global, if a national or local question...

...was posed, I would've voted water. But CO2 is an issue that is affecting everyone, globally, and it is one of the root causes for most of the others.

[LiberalEsto]

2. Also privatization of water resources nt

[Auggie]

3. I think it's a tie

between atmospheric carbon dioxide and biodiversity loss. One leads to the other and then everything falls in a domino-like effect.

[lfairban]

4. Either Energy or Carbon Dioxide

I'm betting that we run out of energy before the CO2 gets really bad.

Kind of like what Butch Cassidy said, "Don't worry about drowning, the fall will probably kill us."

[phantom power]

5. Well, I voted for CO2, and yet...

they are all so interlocking. I think a credible solution to any one of them will involve effectively solving the others as well.

[pinto]

7. Good point.

:thumbsup:

[joshcryer]

9. I voted for CO2, also, but fresh water is definitely up there.

They are indeed all so interconnecting, but CO2 = food shortages. Fossil fuel use = fresh water depletion & CO2 = food shortages. It all comes back to CO2 release imho, but I haven't really charted it out, I intuitively believe that.

[bananas]

17. Or avoiding the other problems as much as possible.

Some problems can't be completely solved, we just have to do our best to avoid them.

[tonyofoto]

8. Env threat

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI)

[Jackpine Radical]

10. Seconded.

What do you call a giant condo filled with 10,000 Sensenbrenner clones?

A high-rise hog farm.

[Dogmudgeon]

11. Other: The probable synergism of several of these

For instance, where is the concern that rising CO2 levels will affect microbial life -- both outside and inside the bodies of their hosts?

--d!

[abelenkpe]

12. Genetically modified crops?

Climate change for sure tho.

[bananas]

18. Good choice - the Doomsday Clock has GM at #3

It's definitely up there among the top 3.

http://thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/overview

It is 6 Minutes to Midnight


Doomsday Clock Overview

Overview

The Doomsday Clock conveys how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction--the figurative midnight--and monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies and new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrevocable harm.

<snip>

[Speck Tater]

13. In a sense each of those share a single cause: Human overpopulation. nt

[bananas]

14. Nuclear proliferation/Nuclear war with Global Warming in second place

The DoomsDay Clock places nuclear weapons as "first and foremost" among the threats to civilization.
Al Gore placed global warming "alongside" nuclear war: ""alongside the potential for some nuclear exchange ... this is the one challenge that could completely end human civilization"

[XemaSab]

15. Deforestation

and attendant biodiversity loss and water supply problems.

[bananas]

16. Nuclear waste will be the greatest threat over the next million years

"The Externalities of Nuclear Power: First, Assume We Have a Can Opener..."

http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/lawfaculty/491

THE INTERCIVILIZATIONAL INEQUITIES OF
NUCLEAR POWER WEIGHED AGAINST THE
INTERGENERATIONAL INEQUITIES OF
CARBON BASED ENERGY

Karl S. Coplan·

Sometime toward the end of the industrial revolution, western industrial
countries discovered a new way to power their steam engines,
which had previously been powered by burning wood and
coal. This energy source promised to power the machines of civilization
and progress far into the future. This energy source seemed at
the time to be cheap and limitless, and contained an energy density
(energy potential per unit weight) far exceeding those of fuels previously
used to power steam engines. 1 Unfortunately for the generations
that would follow, the early proponents of this energy source
simply ignored the waste by-product of this fuel cycle. The wastes
produced by this fuel will likely, at a minimum, render currently
populated places in the world uninhabitable, and, at worst, threaten
the survival of the human species. 'DIese impacts will affect generations
far into the future.

Although this paragraph could well describe the climate impacts of
burning fossil fuels, I am not talking about the carbon cycle and
global warming. I am talking about the impacts of nuclear energy
production. Proponents of nuclear energy tout the energy source as
the most promising offset to greenhouse gases produced in electricity
generation. These proponents eagerly await the additional direct
and indirect subsidies for new nuclear power plants that would flow
from various carbon tax and emissions trading schemes. Carbon
emissions trading and offset schemes will subsidize the nuclear energy
industry indirectly, by making competing fossil fuel based energy
more expensive, and by potentially offering marketable offset
credits for new nuclear energy generation projects that displace existing
carbon-based energy generation.

This essay explains that such encouragement of nuclear energy
production as a "solution" to fossil fuel-induced climate change will
create environmental problems equally as grave as' those posed by a
carbon-based energy economy. Both nuclear energy and fossil energy
impose enormous environmental externalities that are not captured
by the economics of energy production and distribution. While
emissions trading schemes seek to harness market-based efficiencies
to accomplish pre-determined reductions, they neither seek to nor
succeed in capturing the environmental externalities of energy generation.
By creating a set of incentives without capturing all of the
externalities, these trading schemes will simply distort the market,
possibly leading to a worse overall damage to the environment than
global warming by itself.

Ultimately, nuclear power production as an alternative to carbonbased
energy production simply presents a choice of evils. Efforts to
reduce carbon emissions must not come at the expense of distorting
energy markets in a way that exacerbates the equally insurmountable
problems posed by the multi-millennial storage of hazardous nuclear
waste.

<snip>

http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/lawfaculty/489/

The Externalities of Nuclear Power:
First, Assume We Have a Can Opener...
Karl S. Coplan*

INTRODUCTION

The nuclear power industry has latched on to global warming as an
argument for its renaissance. Although even industry proponents
acknowledge that the problem of disposing of spent nuclear fuel remains
unsolved, the industry routinely assumes this problem will be solved in
the future. Unfortunately, this is the same assumption made by nuclear
energy proponents at the beginning of the nuclear industry fifty years
ago. We haven’t solved the nuclear waste problem in the past half
century, and there is no reason to think we will be more likely to do so in
the next one. Like the shipwrecked economist in the old joke, the
nuclear industry continues to postulate that we should “assume we have a
can opener” for the nuclear waste problem.1

While the impacts of global warming are described as
“intergenerational,” the impacts of the nuclear waste cycle are better
described as inter-civilizational.2 Nuclear fuel wastes remain hazardous
for hundreds of thousands to as much as a million years.3 By contrast,
recorded human history goes back only about 5,000 years, and human
civilization is only about 10,000 years old. Globally, none of the
generators of nuclear fuel waste have successfully implemented any
permanent disposal option for nuclear waste, leaving this externality of
nuclear energy production as a problem for future generations, or, more
likely, for future civilizations. Put simply, the nuclear industry, with
government complicity, has transferred and deferred the most expensive
part of the cost of the nuclear fuel cycle to future generations and
civilizations unknown.

Nor are the environmental and public health costs of nuclear waste
the only ones that nuclear energy generation has externalized. Nuclear
generation also poses a risk externality — the economic and social harms
that the public has assumed in the event of a radiation release, for which
the generating industry has limited liability. This risk externality arises
not only from the risk of accidental reactor meltdown and release of
radioactivity, but also from the proliferation and terrorism risks that are
inseparable from any scheme of nuclear energy production and waste
disposal.

These twin externalities, waste and risk, make any nuclear
renaissance an unsatisfactory substitute for fossil fuel power generation.
As horrendous as the impacts of global warming will be — millions of
people displaced and dead — the likely long-term impacts of increased
nuclear energy production are comparable, and longer lasting.

<snip>

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[NickB79]

29. Assuming there's much left to threaten after a Permian-style mass extinction takes it's toll

Brought on by global warming.

[The2ndWheel]

19. Humans with access to cheap energy

[One_Life_To_Give]

20. Food Shortages

Ok Fuel, Water shortages and climate change are key contributors to the coming Global Food shortage. Which may in turn produce a new global pandemic.

[Kaleva]

21. fresh water

[Nihil]

23. Another vote for atmospheric CO2 for one main reason: Scope

Atmospheric CO2 affects the whole planet, not just the comfort of the naked apes.

If this issue is not addressed as the single most important threat then it will
continue to aggravate many of the other real threats (e.g., biodiversity loss,
food shortages, fresh water depletion) whereas the reverse does not apply.

Energy shortages and other (non-food/non-water) resource shortages only really
affect the resource consumers (=us in the technologically advanced nations) and,
if these threats were to continue, would become self-regulating to a large
extent - especially if they hit in the same time period (if not, the situation
would continue to get worse via the kind of externalising/exploitation that
we are seeing today ... but only for a short while before things level out due
to adding more pressure to an already unstable & over-stressed situation).


And as for the somewhat predictable single-topic dicks who voted for option 3 ...
get a life guys, really!
:eyes:

[Pooka Fey]

24. Atmospheric CO2 / Ocean acidification

I would like to have voted for biodiversity loss, however I can't honestly consider that the greatest ecological environmental threat we face - ("we" I assume means we the human species). We humans can probably survive quite handily alongside the remains of biodiversity, I'm guessing dogs, rats, roaches, and mosquitoes, and germs; even if every other species on earth perishes - as long as we are willing to say goodbye to pretty wall calendars, and the occasional glimpse of a land or sea critter when we go hiking or beach-combing. I believe the scientists who say once the oceans are dead, life on earth can't continue, and that is the enormous tragedy of our time - that we who have a clue must watch helplessly as we humans murder our mother earth.

I agree with the poster who cited population explosion as the root cause of the other choices: fresh water depletion, resource depletion, energy depletion, food scarcity. Aside from the political hell and resource wars that we have to look forward to, I don't see any problem to letting nature run it's course as it always has and always will, despite our narcissism and "let's pretend" fantasies that we humans can reproduce like a metastasizing cancer and not kill our host (the planet).

I personally like reality. I'm better and healthier when I live in respect of its limitations and rules, and I believe mankind will be better off taking several vicious ruler slaps on the back of the hands for our tremendous arrogance in thinking that our technology can trump our physical environment. If we had been given overpopulation as a choice, I would have been tempted to choose it, but as the topic brings out the worst in almost everyone, especially freedom-loving Americans, I can fully understand why you avoided offering it. (Note to posters wanting to argue this with me: I will not be drawn in.)

[Gman]

25. Other: I won't be here. At this point, I pretty much don't care

[Nihil]

37. Thank you for your contribution George W. Bush. (n/t)

:eyes:

[guardian]

26. Interesting

Even here on the EE forum, CO2 and global warming can't break 50%. The doomers who think the world is going to end because you ate a hamburger truly are a minority.

[GliderGuider]

28. It just goes to show you that there are enough problems in the world for everyone.

We don't need to march in lockstep on any single issue. There's lots of doom to go around, and no need for ideological purity. I'm not sure why you would expect us to speak with one unified voice - we don't do that for any topic on DU. :shrug:

[Nihil]

38. Interesting

Even with all your repeated trolling of the E/E forum you are still here.

Happy New Year Grauniad!
:P

[GliderGuider]

27. Our interactive predicament (Caution: didactic post ahead)

I tend to take a globalized, all-species perspective on these questions. Most of the ecological problems in the world twine together with human activities like a mating ball of snakes.

On top of my list, always, is carbon dioxide which I consider the main villain of the play. From CO2 comes climate change and ocean acidification. The warming aspect of climate change contributes to water shortages and biodiversity loss, while the climatic variability it introduces contributes to food shortages. Ocean acidification also contributes to more biodiversity loss and food shortages.

Energy shortages are likely to contribute to a number of ecological problems, as we’ve already seen with the growth of coal generation around the world. Another risk that will crop up in many places as oil and gas supplies begin to decline is the increasing use of local biomass as fuel. That means burning trees, which leads to deforestation with the loss of carbon sinks (more global warming), loss of habitats (more biodiversity loss) and ground water. Energy shortages will also lead to more development of resources like tar sands and shale gas, resulting in more damage to water supplies and species habitats.

Non-energy resource shortages result in more intensive exploitation of ever more fragile and remote areas of the planet, increasing the pressure on other species.

Pollution of all kinds leads to biodiversity loss in addition to the toxicity risks it poses to humans.

Food shortages have their own ecological impact as people turn to local, non-traditional food sources (aka “eating the songbirds out of the trees”). This increases the pressure on biodiversity due to direct decimation of target species and the disruption of local ecological balances.

How much of this is due to human overpopulation, and how much of it is due to human overactivity? It’s tempting to say that it’s because there are just too damn many of us, but I think that’s a bit too simplistic.

The one set of effects that is unarguably the result of human numbers includes anything to do with eating. Each of us needs the same minimum number of calories per day to survive, and every human mouth that’s added to the planet brings with it a 2500 calorie a day appetite. The spiraling race between population and food supplies increases the pressure on water supplies and biodiversity, as well as contributing to river, ocean and ground water pollution.

Other effects that may appear to be the result of overpopulation – such as resource shortages, energy shortages and industrial pollution – are largely the result of human activity. In fact, the majority of the damage we are doing to the planet is the result of our activity and not our numbers. I say this for a number of reasons:

1. Human population growth is no longer exponential, it's linear. We are adding a constant 80 million people to the planet every year, but this growth is constant, not exponential. Population growth has been approximately constant ever since we left the sheltering umbrella of the Green Revolution in 1980. This simple fact lends great credence to Russ Hopfenberg's theory that food causes people.

2. Humanity is in ecological overshoot already. Our consumption of global biosystem resources is up to 50% greater than the natural workld can support, if WWF and the Global Footprint Network are to be believed. If our population magically stopped growing tonight, if we could cut our growth by 80 million people a year right now, we would still be in overshoot. We are simply consuming too much for the planet's safety.

3. The half of the world's births that occur in nations with the highest ecological footprints consume three times as much of the world's resources as the half that occurs in the nations with the lowest ecological footprints.

4. If the Ecological Footprint is a good measure of sustainability (and I think it is) the world could comfortably support its current population in perpetuity at the living standard of Vietnam. If we each had the same ecological footprint as the average Indian the earth could sustainably support over twice as many people as it does today.

5. The problem is that we don't have the ecological footprint of India. The world average is more on a par with Costa Rica or Turkey, with industrialized nations consuming 5 to 10 times the sustainable biocapacity. The 2 billion people that lead unsustainable lives in developed nations consume as much of the planet's biocapacity as the 5 billion who lead sustainable lives in countries where the average ecological footprint is below a sustainable 1.8 global hectares.

So while our population numbers are definitely a problem, our consumption represents a much bigger one. Yes, there are probably too many people, but it’s our consumption, not our numbers, that is wrecking the planet.

While I recognize that others are of a very different opinion, nuclear issues - whether they are proliferation, waste storage, radiation releases or even outright warfare - seem almost insignificant to me. The ecological threats I talked about above are global in scope, are happening as we speak and are accelerating in severity with every passing year. The significance of localized issues like nuclear waste storage, or the risks posed by proliferation seems almost picayune in comparison.

But this is just my take on it. As I’ve said before, we need to have everyone who is moved by the predicament working on whatever issues are most important to them, in whatever way they feel is appropriate. We never know what the crucial problem may turn out to be, or where an essential answer might be found.

[Pooka Fey]

31. My feedback on your much welcomed didactic post.

I regularly hear this argument that the earth (although admittedly already in overshoot) can sustainably support twice as many humans as it does today IF those humans agree to consume/have the ecological footprint of the average Indian. My reasons for not agreeing with this argument are as follows:

1st: We don't get to hear the opinions of the other great species with which we share this planet, because we can't understand their language and mental processes (I might add, nor do we really care to pay attention). What is the opinion of the Indian elephants, humpback whales, or the mountain gorillas on this theory? Do African lions agree that the earth can sustainably support twice the number of humans as it does today? I doubt it.

The male leader of a pride of lions requires 100 square miles (259 sq kilometers) of grassland, scrub or open woodland territory (meaning quality land - not sand dunes, not toxic, ecologically blighted abandoned slum-land) to support his pride: which includes (from National Geographic) 3 male lions, a dozen or so lionesses and their young. The young male lions must eventually leave the pride and (if they are strong enough), take over the leadership of another pride from an older and/or weaker male lion. This other pride also requires 100 square miles of quality land. I don't want to look up the territory requirements for elephants, but you get my point. All theories about the number of humans the earth can support are, to my mind, just another sad example of our subconscious, unquestioned psychological blind spot: We humans have divine right to rule and dominate the earth and all its creatures; after all God has decreed it so.

2nd: How do you convince a human being to forgo all the goodies of modern industrial civilization once they are born? How many real 21st century Indians are willing to limit their ecological footprint to the footprint of the "average" Indian? Now that their nation has finally arrived, now that they have taken their seat at the all-you-can-eat buffet table of 21st century life, what right do we few chastened modern Americans have to say anything to the citizens of India about limiting their consumption levels, just because our poor planet is dying? The Indian automobile industry is now one of the largest in the world and the fastest growing globally, producing over 11 million vehicles annually. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_industry_in_India) So let's talk about limiting CO2 emissions now...

3rd: Our modern world economy depends on convincing humans to borrow and consume, so I find it really disingenuous to repeat this idea that we as a species can continue to spawn, because we have a linear growth rate and not an exponential growth rate. Are we supposed to convince the 80 million new annual worldwide baby spawnlings to grow up and voluntarily choose to abide by a low-impact ecologically sustainable footprint? (If they have the good fortune to have a choice in the matter, that is.) To do so, you would be working against the banking/political/industrial/media complex, which has constructed an elaborate hologram (thanks, Joe Bageant) of reality television entertainment, Internet(s), video games, pornography, etc. which spectacularly occupies the consumer's attention 24/7. This complex will continue directing tiny spawnling consumers worldwide toward their destiny of consumption and borrowing, concurrently circumventing all awareness of issues like CO2 emissions and ocean acidification and what it means for the future of of life on earth. So how does it help to remain relatively sanguine about the issue of 80 million annual new potential VISA card holders, because those numbers are really only a secondary concern if we can limit their planetary footprints?

I can only discuss solutions in terms of what I consider to be my personal responsibilities and actions. I currently don't own a car, because I have the luxury of living in a walkable city with a good public transportation system. (Disclaimer: I have rented a car twice since September, because I needed to do a big grocery shopping trip and/or an IKEA run. I also sometimes WISH I owned a car, because I live in a cold, rainy & snowy city and it's more work and much less comfortable to do everything I need to do on foot/using the buses). I believe that my actions, though practically insignificant, do make a difference on some obscure, metaphysical level. I have spoken to people twenty years younger than myself who are convinced that no action is worth the effort, (recycling, taking the bus, supporting local sustainable farmers) because according to them: nothing makes any difference anyway. I could never stomach living my life under such a nihilistic personal philosophy, even though I admit that they might be right. I hope not.

It's just a sad, depressing subject all around, but it does desperately need thought and examination. Thanks for posting, GliderGuider.

[GliderGuider]

32. We won't cut our population, we won't cut our consumption, and we're 50% into overshoot...

TPTB don't want us to cut either our numbers or our habits, and they have conspired with our evolved brain structure to make sure that most of us see it their way. That doesn't sound very good, does it? But that's the way it is, here on Planet Earth at the beginning of the 21st century.

This is why I have pulled all my efforts back to the individual level. The fact that there are people like you out there, Pooka Fey, that there are quite a few more like you and that everyone who shares this point of view learned it from somewhere -- all that means that individuals are reachable, even as the masses shuffle obediently off towards the cliff.

Rather than moaning with despair as the ship goes down, I choose to dance. Who knows what might happen if enough people made that choice?

[Pooka Fey]

33. ...

:hug:

[Nihil]

39. Excellent points in your reply to an excellent post.

(Especially about the territory requirements for animal ranges.)

:toast:

[Pooka Fey]

40. Thank you, I made an effort, which is rare for me these days on DU

I've been reading GliderGuider for years and I hold tremendous respect his posts. Any time there is some intelligent discussion available on DU these days, I'm ready to throw in my 2 cents. Luckily for my agenda, (and unhappily for our society) discussions usually degenerate pretty rapidly on DU these days, so my typical contribution is a KnR. It was nice for me to put some thought into an idea - DU can be a fantastic forum still.

(Sorry to be completely off-topic here, GliderGuider, also I'm sorry for assuming that you are American like me. Speaking of blind spots)

I hope that's a pint of Fuller's London Pride ale in my "smily" tanker - my current favorite amber beer. My 1st taste was served ice-cold and it was delicious, however I was scolded by my London born drinking buddy for enjoying it. She said that ale should be served at room temperature - and I replied that she was sounding suspiciously like the French. As luck would have it, the tavern had just barely put the bottles in the cooler so our second round was served just slightly colder than room temperature and, though I hate to admit it, she was right. All the complex flavors were evident in the room-temperature brew that were masked when the beer was served cold. It's never too late to learn something new, even for an American. :toast:

[Nihil]

44. Glad you did!

Fuller's London Pride is a good standby for any toast IMO but I'd prefer
HSB at a Fuller's pub (or ESB if I'm not driving!).

On the other hand, if you like chilled beers, give their "Honey Dew" a try
as it is a pleasant light organic beer:
http://www.fullers.co.uk/rte.asp?id=50

(See: I dragged it back to an Environment-related topic ... organic beer! :hi: )

[zeaper]

30. I voted for other, I think over population is the biggest issue.

Of course those other issues may take care of the population issue.

[OneBlueSky]

34. Other . . .

"We have met the enemy, and it is us" . . .

[The Croquist]

35. I vote poverty

If you are poor the environment takes a back seat. Ask China.

[GliderGuider]

36. Doesn't affluence cause a different set of problems?

And aren't they even worse? :shrug:

I'd suggest that what's doing China in isn't their poverty per se but rather their desire to make 1.3 billion people affluent by catering the the existing overconsumptive affluence of the industrialized world...

[The Croquist]

41. Look at the differences between developed and undeveloped nations

I used the CIA World Factbook for the data and put it in a spreadsheet.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html

The richest 52% of the countries using per capita GDP had the following statistics:

Life Expectancy 74.59 years
Population Growth Rate 0.59%
GDP - per capita (PPP) $17,257.24

The poorest 48% of the countries using per capita GDP had the following statistics:

Life Expectancy 64.31 years
Population Growth Rate 1.67%
GDP - per capita (PPP) $2,786.78

The per capita GDP is 1/6th, the life expectancy 10 years less but the population growth rate is almost 3 times as high.

China was number 124 of 219 countries that I included in my comparison * so I wouldn't call it affluent although it did make into the richest half(in last place). It has a per capita GDP of $6,700 compared to Taiwan's $32,000 yet it is the most polluted country in the world.

The point is that poverty is closely linked to population growth and pollution.

* I did not include 20 countries because the data was incomplete. By far the largest is Zimbabwe. Their total population was 0.26% of the worlds population.

[tinrobot]

42. Self-delete

[CRH]

43. The Greatest threat to humanity ...

is IMHO population over shoot in relation to our ability to provide sustenance.

This will likely effect bio-diversity, water supply, and eventually add to defoliation. This in turn could add to CO2 levels further straining feedback loops.

In the end, the degradation of ecology and environment could eventually lead to a die off that might actually help large portions of the earth's surviving bio-diversity, to endure and evolve.

Within this prediction, I can not imagine many good scenarios for 90% of the humans present today. The remaining 10% could find bountiful potential in some locations.