End of human species

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Planet Earth Challenges

'Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future' Niels Bohr

However, one thing is certain, the human footprint on planet earth has never been so profound and intense as it is today and there is nor sign that the situation will improve in the near future. There are many challenges and these are increasing faster than our awareness of the impact all this will have on the earth as a human life residence. Imagine planet earth with the appearance in the entry picture. Will humans still be present when the blues of planet earth as we know it turns into various shades of pollution?

'Throughout history human societies have gone forward in the critically flawed belief that the oceans and rivers would wash away filth, the winds cleanse the air and the soils bury the rest. Instead the sheer quantity, and unrelenting flow, of human and industrial waste have overwhelmed the natural assimilative capacity of the earth and undermined human development. No aspect of life on earth is untouched by the dread hand of pollution. Clean water, fresh air and pristine environments no longer exist in anything more than concept. Unnatural chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) now contaminate the farthest reaches of wilderness, from the icy wastes of Antarctica to the barren dryness of the Sahara. Pollution is ubiquitous, seeping into and slowly rotting the fabric of the environment and affecting human societies and cultures in ways which we are only just beginning to fully comprehend.' Adam Markham in A Brief History of Pollution

When will this happen? Well, many parts of the world have already reached a level of pollution similar to what we see in the entry picture. One example is the gigantic exploitation of the tar sands in Alberta, Canada. The site used to be pure country, see what it is only starting to grow into.

WASHINGTON (Reuters - 18 June 2008) - World crude oil production has topped out at 85 million barrels per day even as demand keeps climbing, helping to drive a stunning surge in prices, billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens said on Tuesday. "I do believe you have peaked out at 85 million barrels a day globally," Pickens, who heads BP Capital hedge fund with more than $4 billion under management, said during testimony to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. The United States alone has been using "21 million barrels of the 85 million and producing about 7 of the 21, so if I could take just a minute on this point, the demand is about 86.4 million barrels a day, and when the demand is greater than the supply, the price has to go up until it kills demand," Pickens told lawmakers. (reference)

Alberta tar sands devastation

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