[Timo]

This may be a complete waste of time for everyone. If so, just move on, but i have a question for everyone that draws on so much of the conversations that ebb from nearly every other discussion thread on this web site. The primary focus of this site is the discussion of energy, particularly oil, but everyone dabbles in other energy areas as well, like solar, wind, fission, fusion, etc..... These discussions inherently bring up peripheral arguments about over population, societal remedies for problems (like healthcare), and even political discussions about immigration, taxes, political ideologies, and historical contexts. I have no complaints about any of these subjects as conveyed through this site, but just for the sake of a more specific discussion, is there a singular cause that we can pinpoint for the vast majority of problems we all face on earth. I'm not talking about personal private problems. We all have some of those. I'm talking about societal problems, and things that threaten the very continuance of life as we know it. Is limitless life even possible on a planet with finite resources when it is the very nature of life, itself, to consume those resource to survive? This planet has witnessed several mass exitnctions over time, and i have noticed a peculiar trait through all of those doomsdays that the progression of surviving species seems to be getting smaller. I'll admit that life probably began as a single cell, but really, not that long ago, this planet had some behemoth dinasaurs and reptiles and sea creatures that dwarf anything alive today. If you look at what's alive today and facing extinction, a great deal of potential losses are the larger creatures, meaning that someday, life on the Earth will once again consist of very small organisms. I'm just looking for a larger context for all of the world's problems. Can everything be traced to energy? Is it simply a matter of scale? Is there too much demand for the energy we have? Would life, itself, be in any danger at all absent humanity? In all likelihood, it's probably a combination of things, but if possible, i'd like to identify the singular source of what we have to resolve for life to progress. Is this a big enough question? Mods, feel free to simply delete this if you find it absurd.

[Sixstrings]

All the problems come down to over-population. But that doesn't mean "extinction" for our species as a whole.. and if it does nature doesn't give a damn anyway, other species will continue to rise and fall and evolve into new species.

Anyway, either we solve the population / resource problem, or nature will.

Is limitless life even possible on a planet with finite resources

Maybe.. humanity just found another habitable planet. Astronomers now believe habitable planets are all over the place, with at least one in 20% of all solar systems.

[careinke]

I would say overpopulation and her brother over-consumption.

[Pops]

That's interesting and certainly beyond my pay grade but I'd guess a greater variety of sizes creates more niches, more diversity, more resilience of life in general.

But it does make me wonder about another possible problem modern man has caused. We are the ultimate homogenizer, with our line-breeding/monocropping/herbaciding/pestaciding/varmiticiding/etc but we also accidently do a lot of Japanese-beetleing/white-carpping/kudzuing/catting/ratting - basically transplanting stuff to places with no natural checks where it chokes out everything remotely close to it's niche.

[ian807]

Overpopulation + intelligence = large extinction events.

Nobody ever said intelligence was always a survival trait over the long term. For some species on other planets, perhaps, but with us, I think not.

[Sixstrings]

Nobody ever said intelligence was always a survival trait over the long term. For some species on other planets, perhaps, but with us, I think not.

Another way to look at.. if our species remains at high population levels, then over the long term we'd trend toward lower fertility. That's because high fertility is an evolutionary advantage only when infant / child mortality is high. If low fertility ceases to be an evolutionary advantage, then those gene lines will continue.

I just think nature handles these things.. it's not really possible for one organism to consume the planet; new viruses emerge, etc. And of course we're at the mercy of the same over-population dynamics as every other species -- if we stress our resources too much, then there will be famine, the population will reduce, and problem solved. Or we'll do what our ancestors did when overpopulated -- we'll reduce our numbers through warfare.

So really the whole issue is about us solving our own problems before it's left up to either nature or our basic warring primate nature.

[americandream]

Despite misgivings at large and I include myself in that category as I go through my periodic bouts of personal angst, we are precisely where we MUST be as a sentient species. A species acquiring the skills to comprehensively manipulate it's environment, complete with all the drawbacks that entails.

[Xenophobe]

Overpopulation + intelligence = large extinction events.

Certainly Earths history would indicate that occasional large meteorite strikes work pretty good too. Why make the issue more complex than necessary? A decent sized event and presto, everyone is happy.

But making it complex with overpopulation? Terrible perspective problems. Easter Island overpopulation? Earth overpopulation? Solar system overpopulation? And combining it with intelligence might actually turn "overpopulation" into "regular population" as fast as improved efficiencies in agriculture yield did in the past.

I

[Ibon]

Overpopulation and consumption are the source. But you can continue to peel back the onion and ask what is overpopulation and consumption a symptom of?

A sentient species whose evolution, both cultural and biological, endowed it with the power to manipulate and control its environment but lacking the cultural self regulation to stay within carrying capacity.

And in a sense American Dream's last comment is correct that we are exactly where we must be. Why? Because none of modern civilizations institutions including religions, politics and economics ever had to be honed through consequences of overshoot in the past on a global scale. From the moment we embarked on this path of civilization some 10,000 years ago this day of reckoning was pretty much programmed. You could rightfully argue that our destiny was set once we made the first stone tool also but we've been through these discussions.

So we now pass through consequences that are not guaranteed but have the opportunity to transform our fundamental institutions in a way that will embed limits so that we stay within carrying capacity. In a religious sense an 11th commandment so to speak that states that thou shalt not breed beyond the carrying capacity of your environment etc.

Consequences are the catalysts which have the opportunity to transform our species in a cultural direction to become stewards of our planet. Otherwise we die-off back to a small remnant population more tribal or we go extinct.

Some people argue that the tribal model is how we evolved and that civilization is a mistake and that the solution and cultural evolution forward must be modeled within this tribal model from which we have biologically evolved. Others argue that we can be stewards to our planet under a larger population with civilization.

It doesn't really matter what pet theory you have or what one really advocates or what ones cup of ideological tea is because once you have overshoot you have relinquished to a certain degree the ability to steer the trajectory forward.

So get used to hanging in the unknown for it will be with us for the next couple hundred years before we reach some stable cultural place. We are now culturally speaking in that rapid change part of punctuated equilibrium that Steven Jay Gould referred to when describing the fossil record and noticing that between plateau's of stability that lasted for long periods of time there were moments of rapid speciation.

There comes a point when going deeply into this topic that one can only really surrender to consequences. That doesn't mean you stop trying to lower your carbon footprint but it does mean that we can't do anything about the lack of tools at our disposal today. Those tools will be honed in the fires of consequences and wont come beforehand.

[zoidberg]

I think there's the possibility that the universe has within its most basic structures a predisposition towards the formation of life given any possible circumstance. We know this because we find microbes in areas that support much different forms of life.

Sulfar Bacteria

Or based on other elements entirely like silicon. As long as energy flows into a system life will arise, given the correct conditions which we may imperfectly understand. In short the fluctations in life, and its far from a large to small scenario, the energy and matter mix differing over time - wildly perhaps as life changes the environment to support more life.

Gaia hypothesis

Given these ideas one can view life as a whole arising spontaneously from the proper mix of matter and energy. Indeed there are many ideas on the topic of the creation of life, such as:

Neo-creationism
and
Intelligent Design

Both of which I approach with an open mind. At the very least its just as likely as anything else we've come up with, but the implications if true could possibly be exploitable through the manipulation of matter and energy(I know what isnt)

[sparky]

Timo

" is there a singular cause that we can pinpoint for the vast majority of problems "

Yes , being alive require dying , it's a package deal for all living things , being alive in too large a number make massive die off a nescessity

" Is limitless life even possible on a planet with finite resources when it is the very nature of life, itself, to consume those resource to survive? "

living organism don't consume anything , they cycle stuff , powered by sunshine

" This planet has witnessed several mass extinctions over time, and i have noticed a peculiar trait through all of those doomsdays that the progression of surviving species seems to be getting smaller. "

Nope it seems like the number of species is increasing overall
( or used to before the current mass extinction )

" meaning that someday, life on the Earth will once again consist of very small organisms."

life on Earth is small organisms , the greatest number of species is yeast , bacterias and monocellular organisms , the top of the ladder is the insects ,
large animals are statistically unescessary and expendable


"Can everything be traced to energy? "

Yes , life is an energy manipulation , from plants to viruses to whales

" Would life, itself, be in any danger at all absent humanity? "

Humans absent , life on Earth would be fine , it has been doing OK for 645 millions years
human civilization is only the latest disaster to strike , it will not be the last either .

" i'd like to identify the singular source of what we have to resolve for life to progress."

the most satisfactory solution is to revert to our optimum ecological niche...hunters-gatherers

[Narz]

the most satisfactory solution is to revert to our optimum ecological niche...hunters-gatherers

Too late for that now.

You'd have to slaughter 90% of the population first, probably more. Couldn't do much growing in Manhattan or fishing in the East river.

Didn't read the full OP, gotta make paragraphs man!