this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2023
139 points (92.6% liked)
Earth, Environment, and Geosciences
2010 readers
20 users here now
Welcome to c/EarthScience @ Mander.xyz!
Notice Board
This is a work in progress, please don't mind the mess.
- 2023-06-13: We are looking for mods. Send a dm to @[email protected] if interested!
What is geoscience?
Geoscience (also called Earth Science) is the study of Earth. Geoscience includes so much more than rocks and volcanoes, it studies the processes that form and shape Earth's surface, the natural resources we use, and how water and ecosystems are interconnected. Geoscience uses tools and techniques from other science fields as well, such as chemistry, physics, biology, and math! Read more...
Quick Facts
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Be kind and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
Jobs
Teaching Resources
Tools
- GitHub - RichardScottOZ/mineral-exploration-machine-learning: List of resources for mineral exploration and machine learning, generally with useful code and examples.
Climate
Similar Communities
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
- [email protected]
Sister Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
Plants & Gardening
Physical Sciences
Humanities and Social Sciences
Memes
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I think you are missing a few key external inputs with your theory. Yes populations in Western and Asian societies are predicted to drop, however African populations are still predicted to rise and that will blunt the level of population decline overall.
We may not be able to adapt our agriculture and industry to climate change fast enough. Once these industries suffer catastrophic setbacks or supply chain disruption they may never come back on line especially if we live in a world of constant crisis and change.
Finally there are external inputs that humanity doesn’t control that may take the place of industrial emissions which could create a feedback loop that humanity can’t break even if we set our emissions to zero. Google methane release from permafrost melting of you want a good example. There are also large stores of methane deep within the ocean that could be released if sea temperature rise as well.
There is a very good chance that if humanity enters a climate change induced “dark age” that we may never recover as a species. Most of the easily accessed resources that underpin our society were exhausted early on in our industrialization. A society trying to rebuild in the aftermath of a complete collapse may not be able to rebuild as there are no easy resource inputs to harvest to jump start the process. We may not get a second chance to correct our mistakes as a species.
Your last point is something I've never thought about but makes a lot of sense. Humans living in the aftermath of our collapse probably won't be able to go through another industrial revolution without easy access to resources like coal, oil or peat. Guess it's for the better though, since a collapse likely means we'll have already fully screwed the environment once.
The second Industrial Revolution could be built upon the garbage of the first, perhaps? It’s not like all that metal and solar capacity will just disappear.