Friday, March 24, 2006

Oh Goody, We're Doomed

First: (via Adam) We're killing things as fast as the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. So: If asked to rank which force is more destructive, and your choices are:

1) Megatonnes of rock hurtling at thousands of meters per second towards the unsuspecting Cretaceous period, or:
2) 6 billion humans,

You'd have to say "both."

Second: (via Battlepanda) We're all gonna die too. Except we're gonna drown. And not because of the future - because of the present:
Over the past 30 years, temperatures in the Arctic have been creeping up, rising half a degree Celsius with attendant increases in glacial melting and decreases in sea ice. Experts predict that at current levels of greenhouse gases--carbon dioxide alone is at 375 parts per million--the earth may warm by as much as five degrees Celsius, matching conditions roughly 130,000 years ago. Now a refined climate model is predicting, among other things, sea level rises of as much as 20 feet, according to research results published today in the journal Science.
So now we're proper fucked. With no further increase in emissions, we could see a 5 degree push and a 20ft sea level rise.

The word "antediluvian" is about to be current again - but to refer to the present. Lovely.

Your morning smile, courtesy of Dymaxion World!

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