Bye Bye Society?

[The Grand Nudger]

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Humans haven't been around all that long. Have we seen anything on the scale of the last ice age? We survived through that but we were effectively cave men at that time. In fact it's probably fairer to say the human species back then was an entirely different one to what we are now. I don't think there's any comparison between surviving a global climate event like that and the occasional natural disaster. I think you're underestimating how hostile this earth can be, and how disastrous a global climate change might be. It's really quite impossible to say whether we'd survive anything of that scale and still have our technology, our cities and our agriculture, because we've never really faced anything on that scale.

I suppose how long we've been around depends upon the frame of reference.  We've moved faster and farther, and farmed more inhospitable environments -since- the ice age than we ever did before or during.  We have been getting better at this, not worse, over time.  If we woke up in an ice age tomorrow, we'd do better than we did the last time we woke up that way.   We didn't die off then........why would we die off now?  The Romans very literally ran out of available -energy- not so long ago.  We didn't die off then, why would we die off now? We've been facing challenges the scale of the ice age, and whatever this rock throws at us in general...since we've been here.

Ofcourse, but that's not any indication that it can't happen. Like I said, it was only 70 years ago that we saw the biggest war of our species. What makes you think wars are going to get any smaller? As technology grows, so does the destruction that can be sown with it.

That's just the baseline.  It would have to be bigger -and much, much more-.  There's this notion that we're getting better at destroying ourselves (and life in general) than we are at stewarding it.  That's not, strictly speaking for our own species, true.  Yes, we've been getting better at killing.  We've been getting better at plenty of things, and if you insist upon referencing only the one in a vacuum - then your appraisal of our chances will be predictably dismal, but probably not representative.  

Two words, spanish flu.

Sure, some new bug could do damage.  Probably won't kill us all - but if 2/3rds of europe was wiped out by Black Plague Redux  I'd call that an event.  I worry more about ag disease because those superbugs do exist, and have for at least 10k years - despite every effort.  With the exception of a short blip between the 30's and the 50's it's been no contest, we aren't even on the same level.  We continue to lose that fight today, all while consolidating our -global- food supply into just three of the most susceptible crops.  The reason that crop disease is, in my estimation, more worrisome than global epidemic...is that mainline ag cultivars are uniform, and cloned.  What kills one, kills all.  A disease could spread from Heartland USA to Heartland China and kill wheat indiscriminantly, whilst a disease in those two populations of human beings might find more resistance in it's way.  Food moves alot more than people do, as well. In the end though, a disease of crops or a disease of our own, the effect would be similar(we're pretty tight with our food)..tell you what though, I'd rather be sick /w food than healthy /w none. Hell, running low on food will bring on all sorts of sickness and disease, no need for any new superbugs. What we already have would suffice. We're already in a massive starvation event.