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We’ve been here before, might have to do it again.
An astonishing study using new genetic methods to research human history has discovered evidence that bolsters my long-held belief that the impending crash of industrial society does not necessarily imply the extinction of the human race. My belief has not been based on science, of course — I am not a scientist — but rather on the conviction that the earth is far more varied in its micro-environments, and that people are far more resilient than today’s fragile, air-conditioned population is able to contemplate.
Now comes potential scientific validation.
According to the new study, for a period of 117 thousand years after 930,000 BCE, the human population of the entire planet hovered around a little more than a thousand individuals. The reason appears to have been climate change — severe glaciation disrupted the ecosystem of the planet and made large swaths of it uninhabitable by people who had not yet mastered fire. The period of near-human-extinction ended only when the climate moderated and humans learned to use fire.
Oddly, I am reminded of the island war in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Over and over again, the powerful US Navy targeted a relatively small island occupied by Japanese forces, pulverized it with artillery fire, and only when it seemed no one could possibly have survived the bombardment, sent in Marines to occupy the ground. Every time, the Marines were met with brutal resistance from people who not only had survived, but were capable of engaging in protracted combat operations.
That history helps shape my view of the post-crash world of tomorrow. Admittedly, casualties among the unprepared and the uninformed will be catastrophic. But there will, I believe, be many pockets of individuals who have learned to grow and forage their own food, provide their own energy, live simply, and who are in or who quickly go to a microenvironment that is not entirely hostile to human life. There they will endure until the climate moderates, as it always does, and the planet has had time to regenerate a supply of fossil fuels sufficient to … no. I am not going there.
We carry the genes of those 1200 or so individuals who persisted in the face of horrible conditions that lasted for more than a thousand centuries. They came through it, and founded a renewed human civilization that has not distinguished itself in modern times, but still has the previously demonstrated capacity to rise to any occasion. Including the apocalypse.
Apples to oranges. I don’t think you understand.
How many mass extinctions have humans survived? None.
**Experts Say Humanity Faces a Grim and “Ghastly Future” – State of Planet Is Much Worse Than Most People Understand**
““Humanity is causing a rapid loss of biodiversity and, with it, Earth’s ability to support complex life.”
https://scitechdaily.com/experts-say-humanity-faces-a-grim-and-ghastly-future-state-of-planet-is-much-worse-than-most-people-understand/
Humans = complex life
I do like to think some indigenous people would act as humanity’s survivors after all they are already prepared since they are already living this way but with the Oceans predicted to lose oxygen and pretty much die and coral reefs are already dying and an Artic sooner than later turning ice-free, plus once earth CO2 levels spike to 3C they will most likely keep going up for more than awhile anything after that 3C is going to go the way of the Dodo it will be doubtful; much can survive except at a bacterial level, it sucks I know that but life will eventually start again, hopefully, the next time everyone remains as the native Americans once were living within the means of the planet’s ability to sustain them. (And yes I know that’s all rather doomer but hope as Woody Allen once said is a bird without feathers)
“…No, I am not going there”. Well, then I will.
Because the same grizzly cycle will begin again: from simple tribes, to herding, to farms and villages, and eventually to full-blown civilizations. This will be followed by empires, population explosion and the environmental degradation that always results from such mass folly.
The human creature is so designed by evolution, as to be the dominant species. No other animal or group of animals, however elegantly composed, can match humanity’s combination of adaptive advantages: bipedalism, prehensile hands (tool use) abstract reasoning ability, and – most importantly, complex language. This final attribute allows humans to coordinate activities in such a way that no other social species can hope to achieve…(“In the beginning was the word.” This is the single most instructive sentence in the NT.) All of this gobbitygook, of course, has been accomplished by mere happenstance; given enormous spans of time, this is how natural selection works, I guess.
Anyway, without a balance to the human animal’s dominance (i.e., a credible competing species) ecological disruption on a grand scale is baked into the cake, even if it takes ten thousand years after the so-called apocalypse. Also, there would seem to be no adaptive pressures to evolve our progeny into a kinder, gentler, and more rationally motivated species. After all, Humans are still animals, and thus driven by their base, short and mid-term needs and desires. So fugetaboutit!
Mother Nature – go figure.
A population tends to expand until it can’t. True for bacteria, true for large mammals, and seems to be true for humans. I fear that if we don’t control population, we won’t control climate change.
A 95% cull and subsequent population control would save billions of lives over the next millennium and give the 5% a Star Trek future. But what do we have? Roe v Wade as controversial.
I borrowed this from climate activist Kevin Hester on how so many get Climate change wrong like it can be fixed like a bicycle or something, this just made more sense so I thank Kevin for this. Kevin Hester says:
April 30, 2023 at 9:48 am
“Despite advanced mathematical developments in the field of climate modeling, the existing climate models suffer from the following major limitations: first, the models do not consider that their estimations will be highly unreliable when a tipping point is triggered; secondly, many of the environmental tipping points are already triggered, however, their existence is overlooked; and third, the existing climate models do not consider the interrelations among the tipping points (i.e., one tipping point can trigger other tipping points to be tipped more rapidly). Our objective is to describe the importance of environmental “tipping points,” the importance of which is often ignored or downplayed in relevant literature.
Humans will be around for a long time, unless we tip the environment into the Canfield Ocean mode. If that happens, then yes, it will be only bacteria for a long time.
Humans are the only eusocial vertebrate ( except naked mole rats, who got too specialized) which is a very successful evolutionary development. We are a generalist and also have all the attributes listed by Greg K. Even in a world of reduced biodiversity and the resulting chaos in biome dynamics, we will be one of the survivors.
However, we will never have the one time pulse of fossil energy to enable us to impact the ecosphere like we have this time. Future empires and cultures will ebb and flow, but will be more like past ones, local and ephemeral.
We are coming up to another bottleneck, but it is unlikely to be as narrow as the last one.
Don’t forget about the thousands of civilian and military nuclear reactors. Who’s going to look after those?
And therein lies our hope: enough radioactivity to break enough DNA to generate mutation after mutation, and thence to a better species.
Interesting: I believe this was the premise behind the 1970 science fiction movie, ‘Beneath the Planet of the Apes’. It didn’t work out so well in the film, but who knows how it might unfold in real life?…I have my doubts.
I’m not sure that’s how evolution works.
The search results from Google for “how many nuclear power plants are in the world” indicate approximately 400-450 operating plants and a few dozen more planned or already under construction. However, even half that number is more than sufficient to pretty much guarantee that ALL life on this rock, even most microbial life, will not be extant well before the end of this century.
Extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and intense and that trend will only accelerate more going forward. This will significantly impact crop production and delivery resulting in plunging populations in all castes and sectors. What happens when those nuke plants start going Chernobyl/Fukushima and there are no crews of sacrificial humans to build sarcophagi or drench with billions of gallons of water? Then ask what happens to ozone when it interacts with ionizing radiation? Finally, what happens when Earth’s ozone layer goes bye-bye?
Who’s to say it would be a good thing if human civilisation was to revive after the coming Dieoff? I support the view expressed by the “Agent Smith” character in “The Matrix,” that humanity is like cancer cells, devouring everything it comes in contact with. You know all those science fiction movies with invading aliens that kill remorselessly, for no apparent reason other than “that’s just what they do”? To anything in the animal world (except for our slaves, the dogs) that’s us!
It’s not a given that civilisation, as defined by “being able to intentionally manipulate the environment” (i.e using fire, planting food crops, breeding animals, making clothes, building houses, etc.) is a given. Dinosaurs and other creatures occupied the Earth for hundreds of millions of years without any species evolving the ability to control their surroundings. Neanderthals and Denisovians lived just fine for hundreds of thousands of years in their caves. They never got around to building New York City, but their tiny groups stayed stable for five or six times longer than our madly breeding mob has lasted. During the epochs of the dinos and Denisovs, the land was thick with plants, the skies were filled with birds and bugs, the seas ran thick with fish. There was a lot more life on the planet overall. With us, not so much. I’d say human civilisation is a net negative for living things, but we’ve been great at promoting death.
In answer to the sputtering indignation that will arise in the mind of any “humans are great!” person who reads this, no, I don’t advocate that currently living people oughta kill themselves to improve the planet. I don’t plan to neck myself. I have a comfortable First World life. I try to live conscientiously, no longer own a car, get around by bicycle and my city’s excellent tram/train network, haven’t flown on a jet since 2018. Sorry about the combined trips that added up to three times around the globe before that, and all the shorter flights, plus decades of driving V-8 vehicles around the U.S.!
We all do what we’re able to when it’s cheap and easy. As people will keep on doing, despite all the “Climate Emergency” talk. Until we hit the wall, our current pattern of civilisation collapses, and billions of people die sooner than they would have otherwise. But not ALL of our species will cark it, because we’re as adaptable as rats. And the rest of the animal kingdom (maybe not the rats, because they enjoy our garbage) will say “too bad Nature didn’t finish the job.”
P.S. If a new “intelligent master species” DOES evolve, my money’s on raccoons. If the rats don’t get ‘em first.