Wednesday, May 23, 2012

An Environmental Apocalypse Soon?

Tojo, Indonesia: A villager walks through a burnt forest after a slash and burn practice to open the land for agriculture. Photograph: Yusuf Ahmad/Reuters

Apocalypse Soon: Has Civilization Passed The Environmental Point Of No Return? -- Scientific American

Although there is an urban legend that the world will end this year based on a misinterpretation of the Mayan calendar, some researchers think a 40-year-old computer program that predicts a collapse of socioeconomic order and massive drop in human population in this century may be on target.

Remember how Wile E. Coyote, in his obsessive pursuit of the Road Runner, would fall off a cliff? The hapless predator ran straight out off the edge, stopped in midair as only an animated character could, looked beneath him in an eye-popping moment of truth, and plummeted straight down into a puff of dust. Splat!

Read more ....

My Comment:
I have always been a skeptic of such predictions .... believing that man and nature will always find ways to overcome such obstacles and limitations. In fact .... we are already experiencing depopulation in many first world nations .... and it has nothing to do with changes in the environment but changes in social behavior and personal decisions.

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