Scenarios For the Near Future Climax of Human History

Hi Ifen,Rather than an incurable plague or asteroid impact, how 'bout good ol' fashioned ecological collapse? Sort of, "not with a bang, but a whimper" scenario. I doubt that would eliminate all humanity, but the trend is there for the demise of Homo technicus, I'd say.For an interesting look at this concept, see for instance Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1981 Extinction (Random House), the ecosphere feedback loop theory of Levin 1999 in Fragile Dominion (Perseus Books), or for something more recent, Diamond 2005 Collapse (Viking Press). I like the last one primarily because he talks about nature eventually sorting out the problem even if we don't do anything - in this case by deleting us.

I agree. One of the most troubling scenarios for me is even a slight warming trend melting enough of the north polar ice to push the Gulf Stream south, or worse, disrupt it completely. Makes the LGM look like an ice cream cone. With all of northern Europe (say, to the Pyrenees), Russia to the Aral Sea, and North America (say, to the Ohio River) frozen over, not much chance the northern hemisphere civilizations surviving. And without the agricultural produce being exported from Canada and the US wheat belt, a lot of other countries are going to be in real trouble as well. Global economic meltdown caused by ecological disruption. "And a fun time was had by all."added by edit: Of course, climate change might just make the Sahara bloom again. Wouldn't THAT be a kick?This message has been edited by Quetzal, 02-26-2006 10:34 PM

I agree that we can't assign a probability to this kind of scenario. OTOH, thus site contains links to a number of articles (mostly from Science Magazine) that seem to indicate that the disruption of the Atlantic conveyor is alreadly occurring.Of course, a frozen UK is not the only likely outcome of global climate change - loss of many lowland and coastal areas would occur as well as you noted. Coupled with unpredictable local and regional climate shifts, "things are tough all over".And by the way, "gigantic climate change" doesn't require a gigantic shift - a few degrees is all that is necessary to cause global problems.