Humanity how will it end?

[Ric]

The Bee's will kill us or rather their demise will.

The big pesticide companies are killing off the beneficial bugs like Bee's, the result being that nothing will be pollinated therefore no food. We will all be dead in a year or two.

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by Ric

The Bee's will kill us or rather their demise will.

The big pesticide companies are killing off the beneficial bugs like Bee's, the result being that nothing will be pollinated therefore no food. We will all be dead in a year or two.

I read recently insects are declining for the reasons you mentioned.
I think the pollination problem can be overcome but will certainly add to the cost of production.

I watch the air crash investigation shows and well anything where you can witness man made stuff go wrong and those shows tell me it is usually a combination of things.

I just want a list of all the preppers and their addresses.

I have thought of putting a shipping container underground with a tunnel and a round door but thats because my daughter wants a Hobbit house.. it would be cool.
Alex

[Astrophe (John)]

Despite the current fuss about climate change or global warming, something which will impact hugely on humanity, is the advent of a new ice age. If I'm not mistaken, we are currently overdue for one and if it is a Snowball Earth (severe) event, then the possibility arises that we could be wiped out....if not entirely, then at least severely impacted. Perhaps global warming has indeed delayed the onset of the next ice age, who really knows?

[75BC (Brendon)]

Originally Posted by Ric

The Bee's will kill us or rather their demise will.

The big pesticide companies are killing off the beneficial bugs like Bee's, the result being that nothing will be pollinated therefore no food. We will all be dead in a year or two.

Originally Posted by xelasnave

I read recently insects are declining for the reasons you mentioned.
I think the pollination problem can be overcome but will certainly add to the cost of production.

I watch the air crash investigation shows and well anything where you can witness man made stuff go wrong and those shows tell me it is usually a combination of things.

I just want a list of all the preppers and their addresses.

I have thought of putting a shipping container underground with a tunnel and a round door but thats because my daughter wants a Hobbit house.. it would be cool.
Alex

I have worked in the honey industry most of my working life so feel somewhat qualified to comment here. Far more than my comments on astronomy anyway.

The bee situation worldwide is something to not be understated. Pollination probably could be done by some other means other than by bees but I haven’t heard of any innovations in this area.

Overseas the situation is so bad that some Australian apiarists have given up the honey production and turned to being professional pollinators. Particularly places like the US pay big money for guys here to ship their bees over there to pollinate their crops. Like a lot of things our isolation here has been of benefit in controlling diseases that have devastated bee populations around the world.

Maybe not the end of humanity but it will make things much harder for us.

[AndrewJ]

Pollination probably could be done by some other means other than by bees but I haven’t heard of any innovations in this area.

All the masses of humanity being made redundant by technology could be given small brushes, a quickie TAFE course on how to pollinate and then be trucked off to the fields?????

Andrew

[xelasnave]

Pollination may be able to be done by drones.
Alex

[75BC (Brendon)]

I like Andrews’ suggestion. This could be the start of a whole new industry. We will of course need Tafe lecturers. We could have people specializing in different plant pollination. Companies to make the pollination tools. The phrase jobs and growth seems to come to mind for some reason.

[DarkKnight (Kev)]

I often ponder on what will be the catalyst for our ultimate demise.

Over-breeding and under provisioning, earthquakes and volcanoes or a nuclear holocaust are all worthy of consideration.

We live on a small, molten speck of insignificance, and I wonder just how much we can dig up, pump up, chop down and burn, before we get out of kilter and disappear off into space like a balloon blown up and released.

When one considers the infinite, all and every computation is possible. There could be an infinite number of Cages sitting down throughout the vastness of space typing this same post.

Or, and this is what scares the living crap out of me, we could be 'it', the only example of what we call 'life', in the whole infinite scheme of things.

Scary thought huh?

[sjastro]

Disclaimer:- Content more Science Fiction than Science.

Since Alex started this topic based on comments I made in another thread, if you want a 100% percent icon clad guarantee of wiping out humanity instead of the half heart efforts mentioned here, my advice is to be patient and wait another 100-200 years for scientists to build the ultimate particle accelerator.
A particle accelerator leading to the decay of a false vacuum will not only wipe out existence but change the laws of physics with the resultant effects on chemistry and biology.

Currently the most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider operates at a maximum centre of mass energy of 14 TeV which is pathetically low if you want to destroy humanity (although some physicists thought this would be ample.)
We need particle accelerators which exceed the Greisen–Zatsepin–Kuzmin limit which is a million times greater.
Given the rate of increase in particle accelerator energies over the last century and assuming economics doesn't put the brakes on progress this might be feasible in the time frame mentioned.

For those that are not interested in going through the "fascinating read" thread for the background of the role of particle accelerators and false vacuums conspiring to destroy humanity should read this.
https://steemit.com/science/@relativ...-vacuum-theory

If this isn't bad enough there is the case of the Universe destroying itself without any prompting by the human race or any other "intelligent" beings that might exist.
This is also based on vacuum decay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijFm6DxNVyI

Regards

Steven

[DarkKnight (Kev)]

If this isn't bad enough there is the case of the Universe destroying itself without any prompting by the human race or any other "intelligent" beings that might exist.

A highly likely scenario as the universe is in a constant state of flux.

[Tropo-Bob (Bob)]

I am just wondering if humanity (kindness, grace etc) will end well prior to the disappearance of humans.

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by Tropo-Bob

I am just wondering if humanity (kindness, grace etc) will end well prior to the disappearance of humans.

Funny I was thinking earlier that I should have taken more care with the op.
So did you pick up my thoughts or did I pick up yours.
Alex

[Tropo-Bob (Bob)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Funny I was thinking earlier that I should have taken more care with the op.
So did you pick up my thoughts or did I pick up yours.
Alex

Serendipity, my friend.

[silv (Annette)]

I think the pollination problem can be overcome

of course!

like in NZ with the Kiwi trees (which come divided in male and female, the female not producing fruitproducing pollen).
they stopped planting male trees and imported pollen instead.
(don't know about the actual pollination procedure which I will look up shortly...)

one batch of infected pollen destroyed orchards, the plants had to be burnt to get rid of the virus.

[xelasnave]

Hi Annette dont go scaring folk you will send the price of kiwi fruit thru the roof.

I do wonder if there is any work being done re artificial pollination.
Maybe ants could be trained.
One thing for sure I think I will get some bees which means I need to put in flowers.
I can see renting them out.
There is a silver lining to every cloud.
Alex

[silv (Annette)]

brand new this year: the RoboBee!
https://wyss.harvard.edu/technology/...bots-robobees/

in NZ, pollination of Kiwi flowers is done manually with spray bottles.

The PSA Kiwi pest story has already happened.
Started in 2010 and was still spreading in 2012. It's gone overseas, too and still is a threat. Did you really not hear about it?

Sort of makes the RoboBee less valuable. because it will mean that the pollen will all come from factories before they're sprayed over fruit and veggie flowers.
That's where the PSA pest started: in a Chinese pollen factory.

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Mosquitos and flies also pollinate flowers, but not to anywhere near the extent that bees do, and that's probably not a swap that many people would be comfortable with.
Interestingly, this is the first year that I have not gotten any plums from my trees. Zero. I normally get a couple of hundred off a tree (and you can make some nice liquer out of it)
Maybe it's a co-incidence, maybe not.
What is probably more scary, is what happens in nature once bees are removed. Extinctions in the wild tend to have flow on consequences that can be hard to predict.

[clive milne]

Originally Posted by el_draco

Pointedly, today, A news reporter said the barrier reefs northern extents are pretty much rooted and the good news is, "At least they are not totally rooted yet".

It's not all bad news... once the climate stabilises in a couple of thousand years, there might not be a reef worth looking at but at least our cities will be moderately interesting dive wrecks..... so there is that.

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by el_draco
Pointedly, today, A news reporter said the barrier reefs northern extents are pretty much rooted and the good news is, "At least they are not totally rooted yet".

Originally Posted by clive milne

It's not all bad news... once the climate stabilises in a couple of thousand years, there might not be a reef worth looking at but at least our cities will be moderately interesting dive wrecks..... so there is that.

Didn't you read the news.
That intellectual supernova Pauline Hanson after doing a swan dive into the reef has given it a clean bill of health.

[clive milne]

Originally Posted by sjastro

Didn't you read the news.
That intellectual supernova Pauline Hanson after doing a swan dive into the reef has given it a clean bill of health.

Nitrogen narcosis is a terrible, terrible thing.