What is fantastical about the choice of death from fragility due to an ice age? And what does it have to do with voting? Only thing I can think of is that you are implying (or inferring) that S is a Global Warming Denier maybe?
If the conceptualized hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming has any validity, then do you think that we(sapiens sapiens) have become as gods able to stop the reglaciation of the earth?
Don't be silly. You can't be a climate change denier in 2016. If you are, go and research that stuff properly. It depends. Look what happened to the planet Venus, for example. No signs of reglaciation happening any time soon there. On Earth after runaway global warming? Well, maybe after enough time has passed, a lot of humans are gone etc.
wegs, I think your choices are restrictive, but yes, that's the closest fit. For viruses: look at previous pandemics, like the black death, the Spanish flu, or the recent Ebola crisis. In all of those, people survived. Even in the case of Ebola, which is pretty nasty, people had it and survived. The mortality rate for a virus is never 100%. It isn't in the virus's own interests, evolutionarily speaking, for that to be the case. For nuclear war: look at what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or in Chernobyl. People survived. A nuclear war wouldn't kill everybody. This is not to say that a virus or a full-scale war couldn't decrease the human population of the world to some small fraction of what it currently is.
Seriously? Are you trying to be humorous? Venus--(you have evidence of an anthropogenic component for that planet?)-------why not compare us to mars? or mercury? or a fictitious planet named rsemaj in a galaxy far, far away? Look to the studies of lake el'gygytgyn sediments(and elsewhere): For at least 3 million years, climate change is the norm. Climate stasis is a silly bit of nonsense that the ignorant or simple minded may find comforting. holocene: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0033589473900409 ............................................ "runaway global warming?" hahahahaha (boil away the oceans so the archaeologist can do some serious continental shelf archaeology without all that damned water in the way?)
sculptor: Venus is an example of what happens when you keep adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, which is exactly what we keep doing by burning non-renewable fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide is not responsible for the climates of Mars or Mercury. I did not mention climate stasis being the norm. Like I said, you'd do better to go off and learn something, rather than trying to laugh your way out of an embarrassing ignorance.
Venus is an example of a planet with different orbital parameters, with much less tilt, and therefore less seasonal variability--------------and interesting study with absolutely no bearing on this earth's climate. "runaway global warming" Prove it! Whoever came up with that nonsense would have done the scientific community a big favor by putting away his keyboard and scratching his balls.
Why did you ignore my comments about adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in order to go off on a tangent about orbital parameters etc.? Let's not get off track here. Focus. If you keep adding carbon dioxide to Earth's atmosphere, the atmosphere will continue to warm, all other things being equal. Do you agree with this basic physical connection? Sorry. I'm not sure what you want me to prove.
I'd be a little more optimistic about everyone dying off. I'd think that in the very near future there will be a large space station in orbit above the earth that would contain thousands of humans and could sustain itself making its own food, air and water. Therefore not everyone will succumb to a final ending but only a brief respite.
Prove that "runaway global warming" can turn this planet into another venus. Before we came along, the primary producers poisoned their atmosphere with too much O2, and wildfires raged killing off billions of them. We, who use O2 and produce CO2 are their salvation. If we are indeed an intelligent species, then we should seek to understand our relationships with the rest of our shared co-evolutionary biom, and do that which is best for all. Scare tactics based on 1/2 baked nonsense ain't gonna help. Neither is waggling fingers in front of a self righteous attitude. This the time for real science and a cessation of shrill idiocy. Venus: Perhaps you have a mechanism whereby our CO2 production will replace the Nitrogen and Oxygen in our atmosphere?
sculptor: We're drifting off topic here. I'd invite you to start a separate thread, but I fear that you might just trot out the usual string of uninformed climate denier talking points. I'm about to disappear for a while, too - it's late night where I am. Tautologically it must. That's what "runaway global warming" means. That really depends on whose perspective you're adopting, doesn't it? But again, you appear to be going off on a tangent discussing (very) ancient history. Can't be done. Any given climate will benefit some life forms over others. But again, this is tangential. There are 7 billion human beings on Earth right now. Let's deal with the here and now. What can we expect in the next 20, 30, 50, 100 years, given our current effects on the Earth's climate? And what can/should we do about that, if anything? Right. And nor will burying your head in the sand and pretending that human activity can't affect the climate. Especially given the overwhelming body of evidence that shows exactly how it can and does. So we return to where I started. It is 2016. One cannot be a climate denier in 2016 if one understands the science and the evidence. Alternatively, lacking the ability or desire to gain such an understanding oneself, one should trust the experts, just as one trusts experts in other aspects of daily life. Not sure why you think that is necessary. Like I said, all other things being equal, increasing CO2 means you heat the planet. I notice you ignored my direct question to you about whether you accept the basic physics. Are you going to continue to ignore that question?
. My options are restrictive, but appreciate you making a choice. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Agree that probably nothing would end humankind altogether, but my question is aimed at what would greatly diminish the global population, as we know it, basically to the point of people living in a survivalist environment as opposed to the one many enjoy, today. This is why I allowed for two choices, because I think that a natural disaster or deadly global virus, would lead to an end in our limited resources, at that point.
Shortly after the onset of the last glacial period when temperatures were already falling, it seems that toba erupted plunging the earth into several years of volcanic winters. The global temperatures, and especially those of the northern hemisphere likely dropped another 6 degrees. There is strong evidence that the population of humans plunged to below 10,000 people(some claim as few as 2000 survivors. If indeed toba was the mass killer it is claimed to be, then how much worse that it occurred during a cold glacial period? During this holocene, we have had other eruptions which caused years without summers, resulting in crop loss, famine and disease. So, I voted for natural disasters.
