I think this is the beginnings of an economy based on perpetual growth and fossil fuel energy running headlong into geological energy constraints. Basically I see an undulatory downward path for the rest of my life. From here out, I think any rallies in our economic condition are going to be met with spiking commodity prices that knock us right back down.
Joined: Oct 06, 2006 Posts: 1367 Location: East Texas
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 4:45 pm Post subject: Re: Humans have pushed planet into a new geological era
DoomWarrior wrote:
Just curious: if mankind does become extinct, then what "future observers" will be around to appreciate this new geologic era?
I'm assuming you aren't religious....
SPACE ZOMBIES FROM NEPTUNE.
if you are religious, then we'll have to settle for,
SPACE ANGELS FROM NEPTUNE.
No seriously; its a figure of speech, meant to lead you to place your time frame of reference outside the norm, and observe back towards the results of current actions.
If you'd like to debate whether the space angels live on Neptune or Pluto... well, we might have to start another thread for that on Open.
otoh, I don't think I suggested extinction was guaranteed by climate change. I'm more of the bottleneck opinion, thus, there may be a significant number of humans able to explore this idea further in the distant future. _________________ Yes, we are. As we are.
And so shall we remain; Until the end.
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 5:16 pm Post subject: Re: Humans have pushed planet into a new geological era
Quote:
Just curious: if mankind does become extinct, then what "future observers" will be around to appreciate this new geologic era??
I don't think humans will go extinct, but there is the possibility. Keep in mind humans have only evolved from our ape-like common ansector about 1-2 mya. The suns got at least a couple hundred million years left in it (more likely 4-5 billion). Should extinction occur, I am sure nature can evolve up some new intellegent life to appreciate our follies before the earth is completely uninhabitable.
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 5:19 pm Post subject: Re: Humans have pushed planet into a new geological era
AgentR wrote:
(...)
otoh, I don't think I suggested extinction was guaranteed by climate change. I'm more of the bottleneck opinion, thus, there may be a significant number of humans able to explore this idea further in the distant future.
Joined: May 06, 2008 Posts: 419 Location: Omicron Ceti 3
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 5:22 pm Post subject: Re: Humans have pushed planet into a new geological era
pjd2 wrote:
Quote:
Just curious: if mankind does become extinct, then what "future observers" will be around to appreciate this new geologic era??
I don't think humans will go extinct, but there is the possibility. Keep in mind humans have only evolved from our ape-like common ansector about 1-2 mya. The suns got at least a couple hundred million years left in it (more likely 4-5 billion). Should extinction occur, I am sure nature can evolve up some new intellegent life to appreciate our follies before the earth is completely uninhabitable.
First things first: Let's wait until Geo. W. Bush leaves the Oval Office, and then we can ponder the likelihood (inevitability) of human extinction.
Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 6:31 pm Post subject: Re: Humans have pushed planet into a new geological era
Quote:
I'm not forgetting CO2 has been much higher; I'm relying on it. It is the reason why I have little doubt that we'll drive it that high. The fact that such concentrations have been sustained for very long periods of times in the past makes it a reasonable prediction that high CO2 levels will long continue, even after humans stop their contribution.
CO2 at the 1000 ppm level for any sustained period of time will produce an unmistakable change in deposited strata; which is what a geologist is really looking for; thus, it is reasonable to consider dubbing a new era, which, for the lack of a better term at the moment, is being given a human-centric name. Nothing really wrong with naming an era after the supreme apex predator that was there at the beginning.
First of all there is no direct correlation in the paleorock record of abundance of carbonates (which would be the main CO2 buffers) and CO2 levels. We know what the CO2 levels were through various proxys and mainly oxygen isotope data. And generally speaking the abundance of carbonates would not be global anyways given their soluability with respect to temperature. From a depostional standpoint the rockrecord will be so thin for the period of industrial man that it will not be recognizable unless you were purposefully looking for it using geochemical means.
You could argue that the appearance and then dissappearance of man might represent a faunal zone which would be a subset of a geologic epoch which is a subset of a period but that would have as much significane in the rock record as the appearance and dissappearance of one type of brachiopod in the Cambrian.
Joined: Oct 06, 2006 Posts: 1367 Location: East Texas
Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 10:33 am Post subject: Re: Humans have pushed planet into a new geological era
rockdoc123 wrote:
From a depostional standpoint the rockrecord will be so thin for the period of industrial man that it will not be recognizable unless you were purposefully looking for it using geochemical means.
You keep bringing this up, as if you think I disagree with it. I complete agree with the above statement. The period of industrial man will disappear to everyone except the random future archaeologist who is actually hunting for bits and pieces.
What I am suggesting, is that the change in the makeup of the atmosphere will long outlast industrial man. My opinion is that the CO2 in the atmosphere will NOT be quickly reabsorbed by the various available buffers, but rather, since high CO2 is the more normal state of things on earth, that we are moving towards the natural equilibrium state with increases in CO2, and not away from it. _________________ Yes, we are. As we are.
And so shall we remain; Until the end.
Joined: May 27, 2007 Posts: 1718 Location: The Post Peak Oil Historian
Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2008 8:11 pm Post subject: Re: Humans have pushed planet into a new geological era
This from Plato's Timaeus and Critias, Solon is speaking with an Egyptian Priest:
Thereupon one of the priests, who was of a very great age, said: O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are never anything but children, and there is not an old man among you. Solon in return asked him what he meant. I mean to say, he replied, that in mind you are all young; there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. And I will tell you why.
There have been, and will be again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many causes; the greatest have been brought about by the agencies of fire and water, and other lesser ones by innumerable other causes.
When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a deluge of water, the survivors in your country are herdsmen and shepherds who dwell on the mountains, but those who, like you, live in cities are carried by the rivers into the sea. Whereas in this land, neither then nor at any other time, does the water come down from above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from below; for which reason the traditions preserved here are the most ancient.
The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of summer does not prevent, mankind exist, sometimes in greater, sometimes in lesser numbers. And whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in any other region of which we are informed-if there were any actions noble or great or in any other way remarkable, they have all been written down by us of old, and are preserved in our temples.
Whereas just when you and other nations are beginning to be provided with letters and the other requisites of civilized life, after the usual interval, the stream from heaven, like a pestilence, comes pouring down, and leaves only those of you who are destitute of letters and education; and so you have to begin all over again like children, and know nothing of what happened in ancient times, either among us or among yourselves. As for those genealogies of yours which you just now recounted to us, Solon, they are no better than the tales of children. In the first place you remember a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones; in the next place, you do not know that there formerly dwelt in your land the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, and that you and your whole city are descended from a small seed or remnant of them which survived. And this was unknown to you, because, for many generations, the survivors of that destruction died, leaving no written word.
How long does it take for all traces of a civilization disappear? _________________ In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell
It riles them to believe that you perceive the webs they weave. - Moody Blues
Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 9:52 am Post subject: Re: Humans have pushed planet into a new geological era
Quote:
How long does it take for all traces of a civilization disappear?
I think traces of concrete, bricks and glass could potentially survive for millions of years, but for longer time periods:
From Stephen Baxter's Deep future:
Quote:
Artefacts away from Earth – such as probes in deep space – will survive longer.
But all such objects in the inner Solar System are subject to a constant sandblasting from micrometeorites, and will eventually erode to dust. On the patient Moon, the last traces of Apollo - footprints, flags, plaques and all – will surely be gone after ten million years.
On longer timescales, of course, Earth itself is doomed. In five billion years the sun will start burning helium instead of hydrogen, and expand to a red giant. Earth itself may be engulfed - rocks, tectonic plates, artefacts and all - and any last trace of ourselves will finally be destroyed.
Our most enduring monuments of all will surely be the four interstellar spacecraft we have launched: the Voyagers and Pioneers, launched to the outer planets in the 1970s by NASA, and now escaping from the Solar System altogether.
Right now Voyager One is flying high above the plane of the ecliptic, that invisible sheet in space which contains the orbits of the major planets. Voyager weighs about a tonne, and is about as big as a small house. Racing across space at more than a million kilometres per day, Voyager One is heading for the stars.
It takes twenty thousand years for Voyager to cross the Oort Cloud, the sun’s immense swarm of comets. Then, its power and radio transmitter long dead, Voyager embarks on an endless circling of the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy.
In the silent calm of interstellar space there is almost nothing to damage the derelict craft. The stars are so sparsely scattered that Voyager never encounters another stellar system. But at last the slow sublimation of metal causes Voyager’s aluminium structure to collapse. The fragments of the spacecraft - instrument booms and power generator, pitted and tarnished, metal walls reduced to a paper thickness - drift away from each other, so that the ruin of the spacecraft is surrounded by a cloud of glittering metal dust.
Thus Voyager dies: billions of years after the first clumsily chopped stone axe, twenty thousand light years from the sun, the last human artefact in existence.
_________________ "Life is merely an orderly decay of energy states, and survival requires the continual discovery of new energy to pump into the system. He who controls the sources of energy controls the means of survival. "
Joined: May 27, 2007 Posts: 1718 Location: The Post Peak Oil Historian
Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 10:49 am Post subject: Re: Humans have pushed planet into a new geological era
That was cool. Thank you very much.
Even the pyramids are crumbling and will be gone after 10,000 years. So, I think terrestrial time scales must be shorter. _________________ In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell
It riles them to believe that you perceive the webs they weave. - Moody Blues
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