Where is Earth headed?

[IAMTHEEVILBEAN]

Sucks to be earth.

[LEGO]

I wish I could delete that post ^.

I think that although many people are thinking up solutions to these problems, the earth will eventually become uninhabitable. Not in our lifetime, but perhaps further on. I think it's possible to live on/in space stations with simulated gravity but to support a population such as earth's it would be very tricky. There is also the problem of nomads and hermits who do not live within society. Abandoning earth for life in space (and possibly another planet) would be hard because assuming not everyone would be able to leave, it would be more like communistic than the world currently is...

I'm just trying to show that it would alter our way of life as we currently have on earth.

To preserve the earth we can't keep using so much fossil fuels and spreading so much pollution. I've planned to have my first car be either electric or get 60 mpw+ (I'm only 16 so by the time I get my own car this will be more realistic.)

As a teenager I also try to contribute a little, I mean I run everywhere I want to go that is within 10 miles, and if I want to get there faster, I bike. The last time my parents drived me to a store or to a friends, I was 12.

[talisman]

Hmmm... To be honest I'd rather see some sources before I take those numbers at face value. I mean, they sound reasonable, it's just that seen in the context of their origin, they might have slightly different implications.

Also, with any research, sources are really the only way to prove or disprove conclusions reached in the research.

I'm not asking for a bibliography/works cited or anything, just maybe a couple urls so that I can see the info for myself.

[NeoDarkHeart]

how could 75 rainforest species be extinct everyday if only 12 species worldwide are extinct per day? (source - george carlin. i trust him.)

only 40% of the stuff you recycle actually gets recycled. the rest ends up in the city dump.
(source - Bullshit! (showtime series with penn and teller))


heh. yeah. but seriously. earth's gonna be disintigrated no matter what. sun exploding 'n all... i know it's not for a while, but you only asked where the earth was headed. that's where it's eventually headed.

[Jello]

None of you people got the answer right... the real answer to where the earth is headed is

DUN DUN DUN DA

ANDROMEDA MORONS

the milky way and andromeda are headed strait at eachother at 100 000 miles per hour. they will collide in about 4 billion years or so? i think its 4 billion. anyways, our solarsystem will either explode in a massive supernova or be flung safely into space.

anyways im goin out cya ppl

[NeoDarkHeart]

4 billion? when's the sun exploding?

k, whichever of those events happens first, that's where the earth's ending up.

[Jam930]

We'll be out of the solar system in 500 years or less. Out of the milky way in 1000-1500.

[NeoDarkHeart]

o_O links to where you got info?


meh. wherever we're ending up, we're probly gonna die in the process. as for the earth, it'll eventually be destroyed.

[IAMTHEEVILBEAN]

Earth (dun dun dun) is goin to work,
Fight off the solar,
SYSTEM

WEEEEEEE

DEDADEDADEDADUMMDEADEDAEDWHICKAWHICKAWHICKA

we need a man,
to save the day,
earth,
earth, earth

[Jam930]

Links for those statistics... well I guess I could go and find all the websites all over again. I got information from like 5 or 6 different ones. And chose the numbers that some of those sites had in common with each other. Cross-checking.

[TheTypist]

That is a very unhealthy question to ask. If we dwell on these statistics rather than on improving the world starting with ourselves, all we do is shorten our own lives, and the lives of others.

Do we really want to darken the statistics further by doing that?

[alvask8er]

But what can we really do? Two of the problems on the list, probably three, stem from the destruction of trees( forrest and rain forrest alike) I dont see a way that we could slow this down, boycotting paper products wont do much, much of it is recylced, or at least claims to be, and jam said that lots of the wood is just burned off by the third worlders who cannot afford better disposal. For all the carbon dioxide, we all could write into our state reps, (presuming your from the US), and suggest law ideas about tightening pollution controls. But it would take a lot of effort and people power. And it would also be difficult to develop new stuff to abide by the new laws, people are hard at work anyways on that kind of stuff. Or tell all your buddies with their hot import to change the exaust system to non-aftermaket gear....reduce pollution....All the previous= far strech

[Moogy]

No one got my joke.

That makes me sad.

[Jam930]

3 things need to be done.

1. Forests belong to earth.
2. It is illegal to cut down a tree you do not own.
3. Make use of non-fossil fuel sources of energy. Solar power, lunar, winds, gravity, etc.
4. Cars need to run on electricity generated from these non-fossil fuel sources.

Idea: Gas station -> Charge stations(name?). They'd have a big solar panel on top and they'd also get electricity from power stations that used wind etc to get their electricity.

You'd plug your car into one of the many charge spots in the station and it'd charge you up. And you drive off.

No fuel crap or anything, you'd just have 2 or more big batteries in your car.

[Squeek]

Jam, they've invented these kinds of cars. Oil companies are so rich that they buy out the plans and development for these ideas so that they never happen. All for money, you see? This is Conservativism at work. You're lucky to see Hybrids on the road these days. (Just so you know, I'm not liberal or conservative)

The pinnacle of these inventions was a "Smart Car" that drove itself due to magnetic handling. You would drive your electric car to a special road that would have been created and magnets placed every 4 feet in the road would keep your car aligned. There would also be magnets on the bumpers to keep perfect space between cars in front and behind you. The car would also drive itself at an exact speed so you could eat or watch TV on the windshield (they had a projector-like thingy) while the car drives you to work.

But that would take away 0.1% of the billions that oil companies make. That's a horrible horrible thing. Who would dare take money from such caring individuals?

~Squeek

[DracIV]

I think you're wrong. Besides that smart car being insanely expensive to buy and insanely expensive to make useable, it's pointless for so minor a change. Oil companies don't buy out all the plans; none of the plans are good enough yet to be commercially profitable. In fact, probably the easiest solution for now is to ban gas-guzzlers, especially most types of SUVs. Once that is done, then we can wait for new cars to become cheaper and more efficient.

[Squeek]

Except that SUVs are awesome. I drive a Ford Explorer Sport. My parents bought it for me for 2 reasons:

1) SUVs are safer to drive.
2) I wanted it, it was used, it has a sunroof, etc.

If they ban SUVs then we'll all just die quicker in accidents now won't we? A silly little aluminum frame isn't going to save your life in a head-on collision. Solid steel has a better likelihood to.

~Squeek

[Chrissi]

Originally Posted by Jam930

We'll be out of the solar system in 500 years or less. Out of the milky way in 1000-1500.

Are you sure of this? Where in the world did you get this? Do you realize how little 500 years is in the earth's lifespan? And what a co-incidence it would be for us to be at the dying end of our earth?

I don't doubt that we'll be out of the solar system (or the solar system stop existing) eventually, but 500 years? Please... Shakespeare was around a little less than 500 years ago ('bout 400 or something, I'm not exactly sure on this).

[Omeganitros]

Statistics are for wussies. Real men/women just blindly guess.

[DracIV]

MrSqueek, your SUV may be making you safer but now every is more dangerous for everyone else. If no one drove SUVs you'd be equally as safe in a normal car, but since jerks drive the overpowered SUVs, it's more dangerous for everyone, even the SUV drivers. SUVs don't have to be gas guzzlers, though. It's only if you are too lazy to get a good one that you become a gas guzzler yourself.

If they ban SUVs the roads will be so much safer for all, the gas prices will plummet, air pollution will become less of a problem, and we can get rid of a bunch of overcompensating people. (That's not to say that normal people don't dry SUVs, but those are less often the massive gas guzzlers)