Are you ready for 2012?

Techciple

Junior Member
Messages
65
2012 will just be another year. We will have some technical issues with solar activity, but that's it. There's no 'exo-planet', there is no disaster that will befall us. Doomsayers are not new. For centuries those endowed with more ego than the usual man have proclaimed upcoming disaster and peril. I just wish they would fix their pathetic lives instead of wishing the world to end. But you can't convince some. Iv'e had that many arguments with people spawning psuedo-science Iv'e given up. Here's the deal, let's talk about it in 2012. It will be interesting to hear the excuses and the new prophecies.
 

Rosco..Jones

Member
Messages
363
While all the wild predictions may be fantasy, there are enough potential changes happening in the world we need to take into account. The middle east is a time bomb that will go off at some point. Think gas is high now... China is expanding its military rapidly, why? The dollar is going to collapse in the near future. Eternal growth economies don't work. Resources are running out. Shortages of food and water are becoming a problem. The seismic activity in Japan is something never seen before. Politics of the left and right may result in violence. And that's just a start. Who needs to worry about solar flares, mystery planets and all that. We have enough REAL things to worry about.
 

Techciple

Junior Member
Messages
65
True, just like any period in mankind's history. The seismic activity we have seen in Japan and New Zealand et al, is actually cyclic. It occurs every 15 000 years. We are more aware of political tension(resulting in higher fuel prices,the amassing of military) because of simple globalization. Technology has kept everyone in the loop. And as for the lack of food and water, we can blame human greed for that. Not anything new. The economy is always variable. It might be bad in the U.S right now, but in Australia it's brilliant. As it is in China. But things change all the time and it's just silly to blame it on some impending disaster.
But I totally agree R.J, we sound be worrying about the above issues instead of some Harry Potter science.
 

Rosco..Jones

Member
Messages
363
This is not about what is going to occur on 12.21.2012. It is about what will happen in the 100 years that follow.

"Limits to Growth"' came out in 1972. In one of my classes, "Current Events in a Historical Perspective", we covered this pretty well. The Club of Rome utilized experts in all fields of knowledge and a stone age computer to project current trends and how society will be impacted.In the chart below, the actual 1970-2000 values were plotted and they are staying fairly close to the original projections. The decline in non-renewable resources, such as oil and various ores that mined, will start limiting everything else and begin the decline.

Around 2015-2020 the fall of civilization begins to directly affect the public and they will finally realize that something is up and it is not good. My feelings are that the population decline will be much greater than what is projected.
Economies will become more localized, as less is transported long distances due to rising fuel costs or lack of fuel. For most of the world, many will die from lack of clean water.

12.21.2012 is supposed to be the beginning of a new era, one that is more spiritual and less materialistic.
Does this go along with that idea?


limitsofgrowth.jpg
The recent study, completed on behalf of The Club of Rome, an organization which issued it’s own findings on ‘peak everything’ back in the 1970′s in a controversial environmental report dubbed The Limits to Growth (video), takes into account the relations between various global developments and produces computer simulations for alternative scenarios.​
Link:
 

Peregrini

Member
Messages
465
What scares me far more than a 2012 apocalypse are these Groups of "intellectuals", usually from the far left in society, that presume they are the be-all-end-all and have some innate right to decide for the rest of us what IS BEST for us and then seek to impose their decision on the rest of us, usually to "their own profit". The fault in these studies is they are always based on the decline of non-renewable resources. Recent discoveries are tending toward evidence that the so-called non-renewable resources are in fact renewing from previously unknown sources and processes. This then removes the main premis the studys are based on making them invalid.
http://www.infowars.com/articles/economy/peak_oil_index.htm

Rosco..Jones, we seem to agree on many subjects here but in this we may separate a bit.
As a biologist, by study and devotion, I know that any population that out grows its resources will naturally decline and when resources increase they will again increase in number. It's a natural balance. I would like to think that humans have the capacity to adjust, as a people, not because one group or another imposes restrictions on us. There doesn't have to be a fall of civilization. There only needs to be an adjustment of priorities.
 

Rosco..Jones

Member
Messages
363
[URL='http://paranormalis.com/members/peregrini.2670/']Peregrini, Thanks for the heads up on the oil reserves situation. The infowars.com article was interesting. It did get me to check out other sources on the web. If true, the energy portion of the calculations need to be updated. New data always requires a rethink on the subject, eh? One factor here is, how much new oil is there? I am pretty sure it is not limitless. Oh yeah, what does this mean as far as green energy research and that Global Warming thing? The rate of usage increases with the population.[/URL]

[URL='http://paranormalis.com/members/peregrini.2670/']Oil/Energy is not the only concern. There are many other non-renewable resources that actually are non-renewable. The chart below is from," Mineral Supply and Demand into the 21st Century" by Stephen E. Kesler. http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/2007/1294/reports/paper9.pdf[/URL]

Figure 7. Graph showing ratios of global reserves to annual global production (consumption) for most mineral and energy commodities for 1992; the ratios provide a rough indication of the adequacy (in years) of currently known global reserves (from Kesler, 1994).[URL='http://paranormalis.com/members/peregrini.2670/'][/URL]

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Basically, this shows when we are expected to run out of these various minerals/resources.
This is not a temporary decline in resources that will recover, gone is gone.

Water may be a renewable resource, but in the Midwest they are pumping well water for irrigation faster than it can be replenished. The wells keep going deeper, but eventually they will reach the bottom. Water in the Colorado river is being fought over by all the municipalities along it's course. Communities are expanding and require more water. The amount of snowfall in the Rockies has been declining. This equals less water to be shared downstream. Las Vegas, along with LA, gets its water from Lake Mead. This is an extremely large fresh water lake. Since I moved from there in '97, the water level has fallen over 100 feet. It is still falling every year since. When the water goes, Vegas goes. Yes, water is a renewable resource, but changing weather and our demands may mean that, at some point, there is not enough to go around.

In this paper there was some interesting comments on population.
"Population will have a bigger effect on future mineral demand than the creation of new products and markets. Projections of future population range widely, depending on estimated fertility rates. For low fertility rates of 1.5 to 1.6 children per female, which are below the “replacement rate” of 2.1, world population is projected to increase from about 6 billion to about 7 billion people and then to decline after that, reaching the 1950s level of 2.5 billion in about 2150. If, on the other hand, global fertility rates remain at 2.5 to 2.6, world population will reach about 25 billion in 2150. For 2050, these two extremes would yield world populations of 7 billion or 11."

"any population that out grows its resources will naturally decline and when resources increase they will again increase in number. It's a natural balance."
This must be referring to renewable resources, since "non-renewable" would not magically increase. The biggest concern with renewable resources still has to be fresh water. We continue to use our fresh water faster than it gets renewed. I know we have some common and divergent views. That's what life is all about. Life's different experiences create a unique perspective for each of us.

Trends and forecasts are based upon things going as expected. This is not how things always work out. Some world changes can be drastic and happen in a relatively short amount of time from the whims of weather both solar and terrestrial or other natural events. Say we get hit by a big coronal mass ejection (long-shot), that wipes out all electronic devices world wide. We may have resources then, but would be unable to do much with them. The oceans' circulatory system may stop working, due to all the glacial ice melt messing with the near ice thermal exchange. (medium-shot) This would cause major changes in global weather and renewable resources. As far as us really forecasting the future, it is all just a best guess, no matter who does the talking.


http://paranormalis.com/members/peregrini.2670/
 

Techciple

Junior Member
Messages
65
I think you guys are taking the hypothetical a little too far. Either you fear the future or have a lot of free time to study negative contingencies. As an engineer one thing I'm sure of; mankind will adapt. " “Beware of complexity disguised as a solution.” Thomas Frey. "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” Da Vinci. There are solutions to EVERY perceived catastrophe that may befall humankind, the problem as I see it is it's implementation, or lack thereof, due to man's own narcissistic and nefarious tendencies.
 

titorite

Senior Member
Messages
1,974
To say nothing of the inland hurricanes AKA derichos.... All the damn earthquakes... the east coast was not always seismically active.

Greenland lost its ice sheet recently in the span of four days.

AND THE TILT OF THE MOTHER LOVING EARTH!!!

YOu all know the earths tilts has changed due to major quakes according to the mainstream news media.

Ah yes 2012... magic hour.

TIme for all of us to entertain our worst fears and best plans. Just a few more months now.
 

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