End of the Earth

Riskstream predicts that humans will be the first intelligent life form to destroy their own home planet. The reasons will be arrogance and lack of intelligence to overcome it.

As human's we are clearly now aware that global warming is a thing and that we need to reduce our emissions to get things under control. We also understand there is a timeline to get this done that is relatively short. Now the bad news. We are never going to make it no matter how hard we try to cut emissions. It won't be enough. And that is so tough a pill for most to swallow that some of the most intelligent people on the planet would rather ignore the idea than accept it.

The problem lies in our inability to accept the butterfly effect in terms of our global environment. In the case of global warming, the butterfly flapped its wings and died a very long time ago. We are now nearing the point in our history where the impact of those wing flaps, aka global warming, are now beginning to be felt in a very negative way. To human's credit, they have have finally, and with much struggle, acknowledged that they can indeed feel and measure the effects of those long since flapped butterfly wings. They have even taken the bold step to promise in very vague terms and agreements to look at doing something about it. But before our political leaders hurt their arms from patting themselves on the back they should know that they have only scooped a single glass from an entire ocean of problems that will lead to our eventual demise. In short they have not even begun to scratch the surface of the problem.

But before we present the case for human's being the first intelligent life form to annihilate their own world, let us present a ray of hope, all be it a very, very dim ray of hope. Human's possess the capacity and intelligence to save their world. And that's where arrogance plays into the equation. Although we have the intellectual capacity, we simply do not have the will. We are still an animal that believes that real, and not just metaphoric, gods and devils are watching us and controlling our lives. Millions of human's diligently pray to these gods each and every day. We as a species even kill each other simply on behalf of these unseen gods. And each of these religion's advocate for human population growth. It's a survival mechanism of sorts. In the past if you didn't grow your population then violence from another religion would ensue. We still see this currently in the Middle East and Africa. In short, we don't lack brain power, we lack the ability to access it and we need to access it in order to stop ourselves from destroying our planet. Our best option at this time is to leave our planet to save it and some of our truly intelligent innovators are promoting that exact concept are are even building the capability to do just that. The question is will they succeed in time. Statistically the odds against them are completely insurmountable. So that mean's we need to make it on this planet.

Environmental systems are complex and on a macro scale, i.e. planet size, have imbedded triggers that once passed cannot be undone. In the earth's case, you would think that after all the looking at planets nearby to us, we would have come to the realization that our world is so unique that it must be preserved at all costs. Surely someone out there must realize that the earth is effectively a fulcrum and we live on top of a carefully balance plane. Step too far one side and the ability to correct back to balance may be too difficult to ever be achieve. And we may have already tipped the scales too far to ever recover. That's is how fragile ecosystems work. They are carefully constructed balances that move and flow and ebb in somewhat self correcting mechanisms. As human's, we have come to so fundamentally believe that the world can be rebalanced that it drives our lack of motivation to actually make significant changes. The problem is, and we also know this, sometimes the balance in an environment tips too far and it cannot be recovered in a way that supports life.

Some of our most intelligent have, as we noted, identified the butterfly effect and have called for action. Decades later, action is being taken after the pace of negative change has already exponentially skyrocketed. And the change offered is at best meh. Grand promises to cut carbon production from visible sources decades from now but with no actual enforcement of the changes required. And as we all know, human's are not good with change. So that begs the question, if we made all the changes and more than those promised, would it have any impact? The answer is not even a cup of water in the ocean of issues that need to be emptied before it is too late for our species and our planet.

Today, humans wage wars, move people around the globe by the millions, fail to solve their issues, change their lifestyles or even enact rules to force change. We simply either do not have the will or believe our own PR that things will magically get better. But in science we are very aware that balances are fragile and that given the size and scope of our earth and the damage already done to it, we would need to make significant changes in the world and we would need to do it immediately. And therein lies the problem and that whole belief in gods and devils, to save the planet we need to reduce the earth's population until the planet truly recovers.

So why reduce the number of people? Can't technology or change save us? The answer is yes it can, unfortunately not fast enough to outpace the massive problem that causes all global warming, the exponential growth in the number of humans. If countries do not freeze the growth of human populations, then they will continue to need more food from cattle, pigs and chickens or from grain production and they will need more toilet paper and water and houses and cellphones and computers and schools and sports programs, all things that produce ever increasing levels of CO2 and pollution. Clearly the only way to stop it is to stop human population growth immediately and punish countries economically that refuse to stop growing their populations.

Now about those gods and arrogance. Take the idea that human's need to stop having large families to anyone in the world and see their response. You will get everything from denial to claims that your are anti religious. Even the Pope would spit at you for recommending mother and fathers stop producing more than two children per couple. That's the lack of human intelligence that drive us to not think first of a solution but rather think first of a response. Our arrogance would rather have us spend resources on ignoring and fighting against such a change rather than accept its possibility and then work toward a solution. But statistics and math don't lie, if the world continues to populate at the current levels, the earth has no hope even if tomorrow we were all to become vegan and ride bikes. Human's produce methane, cows produce methane, the technology we need to survive would produce CO2 and even growing the food we need to survive produces methane. We simply are not smart enough to save the world at the current rate of population growth. And sorry all you smart people hoping for a move to space. By the time you actually figure out how to live or travel to a nearby planets and not require support from the earth, the earth will already be collapsing. What surprises us most about global climate conferences and the environmental movement is that almost no one acknowledges the real and number one cause of global warming, the number of humans.

Our only way out is to stop polluting and stop producing humans that cause pollution. Balance is the key.

We do not believe this will happen, humans are far too arrogant, but on behalf of our children's, children we desperately cling to that faint hope that the intelligent will win long after we are gone.

We do know, however, that nature will eventually fix the problem soon by making that planet inhospitable for human life thanks to those butterfly wings so long ago.

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