Humanity Facing Dire Consequences

Dire earth problems should be a priority for all world governments.

Researchers spend more time creating electronic gadgets and toys for the consumer instead of solving problems that are a threat to life on earth. Governments of the world should be pooling their resources of the brightest minds to solve problems that are affecting mankind. The benefits of developing new technology to eliminate these problems would also have a positive affect by reducing taxes and increasing employment.

Here is a list of problems that if solved would save and reduce hardships on humanity and the earth’s ecosystems.


1. Recycling machines that will eliminate Landfills. We’re running out of land to bury our waste. We need technology that will recycle all waste into usable material or converting it into energy. We also need technology that will break down hazardous waste into re-usable and safe alternative usages.


2. The elimination of cemeteries. We can’t continue to bury are dead. Again, were running out of land. Caskets take up way too much space as compared to cremations. Not to mention, the cement vaults prevent decomposition of the coffins.


3. Clean new sources of energy. We can’t continue to rely on oil or nuclear energy. Both are harming the atmosphere and the environment. Nuclear energy is too dangerous and old fuel rods cause major problems for disposal.



4. New technology that creates electricity on the premises of individual homes and businesses instead or power plants. We need to eliminate telephone poles and overhead wiring. Electricity is the first thing that’s lost in weather related catastrophes. Telephone poles and wiring are exposed to the elements and our electrical grid is outdated and vulnerable to terrorist attacks.


5. New programming technology that eliminates computer hacking and viruses. Internet commerce should be secure to prevent terrorist attacks by foreign and domestic hackers.


6. Technology that can tap into fresh water from icebergs in the arctic to be transported to areas in the world that lack or need fresh drinking water.


7. Designing modular homes that can withstand catastrophic winds during hurricanes and tornados. These moduler homes should be the norm and be built in areas that are prone to catastrophic weather.


8. A cure for cancer and other devastating diseases. The brightest medical and scientific minds should work together on solving diseases that affect humanity.


9. Prison over population. Hard core criminals and murderers should be euthanized. The prison system and expense of maintaining the life of the most hard core criminals is becoming a burden on law abiding taxpayers.


10. World hunger. Countries of the world should all take the responsibility of feeding the hungry.


11. Population control. Families should be limited to how many children they’re allowed to have. The world is only so big with limited resources. We all have to become responsible for preserving it for future generations.


12. Technology that can cleanse the oceans and fresh water lakes of chemical pollution and garbage.


What other problems do you feel world governments need to address for the benefit of mankind?

The other problem mankind faces is..
mass Immigration

Sorry to be blunt, but here in britain it is a problem
The NHS is at breaking point, people that have worked their whole lives to be told your not entitled to anything
Immigrants getting free health care and operations which some have admited that they came here for in the first place.

I agree with all of them apart from the following:

5. New programming technology that eliminates computer hacking and viruses. Internet commerce should be secure to prevent terrorist attacks by foreign and domestic hackers.

Not going to happen. There will always be hackers, crackers, coders. Where there is a will there is a way. Code is written by humans. There will always be mistakes.

6. Technology that can tap into fresh water from icebergs in the arctic to be transported to areas in the world that lack or need fresh drinking water.

Too power intensive and unrealistic. New technology such as layers of graphene that let through H2O but block impurities like salt are much more beneficial.

11. Population control. Families should be limited to how many children they’re allowed to have. The world is only so big with limited resources. We all have to become responsible for preserving it for future generations.

Overpopulation is lie. There is plenty of room and plenty of resources for everyone. Things just need to be made more efficient and with new technologies with more people recycling, etc. There IS enough for everyone.

As you can see from you list, we've dug ourselves in quite a hole. You might as well add some kind of requirement for people to farm. A bartering system would also be nice.

The recycling machine is a great idea...landfills are icky.

I also like getting rid of cemetaries but that is a pretty big cultural thing so I'm not sure if its going to happen.

New energy should always be something we are pushing. Subsidize the oil companies to research it and make it profitable for them. They have the tools and staff on hand to get this done the quickest.

#4 kind of ties into #3....gotta see what they come up with first.

Computer hacking will always be around...kinda like jewel thiefs are always around. Maybe we can secure it up but then you get into more regulation and the cure might be worse than the problem.

Fresh water shouldn't be an issue. We can build desalinization plants to get all the freshwater we need, just have to pay for them.

Modular homes are great but that's the persons choice, it shouldn't be mandated.

There are always people working on cures for disease, not sure if they are being held back at all but if they are then yes, we should correct that.

You can't just kill off prisoners and maintain a decent society.

Fixing world hunger is problematic. You'd first have to change the leadership of many of the poorest nations and that will include war and installing new regimes. World hunger needs many things to happen to be solved.

There is no population problem, the world can handle far far more people than we have currently. Only certain area's, like Mexico City, are actually overpopulated.

Cleaning the oceans is always a great idea.

reply to post by WeRpeons


Currently the biggest problem we as the human race face is ourselves. Until we realise this, nothing will change and things will continue to get worse. Our livelihood and our existence is imploding before our very eyes!!

reply to post by WeRpeons


Humanity is most certainly facing dire consequences, extinction even.

But the causes are not the nautural earth changes that had existed for millions of years.

The cause lays in our individual minds - our uncaring, self centred greedy nature.

It begins from one, to set the tone, and others follow. To be self centred and greedy, it is far more easier as the material comforts and adoration is almost immediate for the short term. But in the long term and the end, while no human lives forever, those acts only ensures we become extinct faster.

The pics you posted are realities, but the root problem is the selfish us. We created this mess. We hold stubbornly to our views, even if they are wrong, and refused to share, to discuss, to debate honestly, to find common grounds to build sustainable solutions, but instead to waste precious time to sue, to smear, to fight and even kill one another.

It will be us that will ensure our own extinction. It is us - male or female, boy or girl, mother or father, brother or sister, friends or enemies, rich or poor, employer or employee, political leader or masses, republican or democrat, israeli or fundamentalist jews, shia or sunni, protestant or catholic, buddhist or hindus, atheists or theists, hetrosexual or homosexuals, drug lords or drug consumers, farmers or city dwellers, etc, etc.....

It seems...we refused to bridge the divides, and not many good men left on Earth....

Enjoy the sunrise....while it lasts..... and weep for the last young generations of humankind....when the last good man gives up....

I like this thread, it addresses some of the issues instead of just complaining about them. The iceberg idea may not be so good for water though. The glaciers tie up the methyl mercury that hits them so the levels of mercury in them may be high. This is just an assumption from reading about the cycle of mercury in the atmosphere, chances are it would evaporate if processed right. The melting of the icebergs could raise air mercury levels as they rise also.

We also should dump planned obsolescence to make it so things last a long time and there is no remaking of things over and over.

I agree humans are very wasteful and something should be done about recycling better, but its not due to running out of land.

I work in northern Alberta, Canada and you can drive hour apon hour and all you see is plain after plain. There is lots of open space left on this planet. Although I do agree we are facing consequences.

reply to post by WeRpeons


The main dire consequence that mankind faces is his propensity to make war. Many nations have "doomsday" biological and nuclear weapons. It's just a matter of time until some paranoid despot uses one.


www.dailymail.co.uk...

Originally posted by WeRpeons

9. Prison over population. Hard core criminals and murderers should be euthanized. The prison system and expense of maintaining the life of the most hard core criminals is becoming a burden on law abiding taxpayers.

11. Population control. Families should be limited to how many children they’re allowed to have. The world is only so big with limited resources. We all have to become responsible for preserving it for future generations.

You had me up until these two. China does both of these, are you saying China is the shining light upon which all other countries should take example from?

Originally posted by Hopechest


New energy should always be something we are pushing. Subsidize the oil companies to research it and make it profitable for them. They have the tools and staff on hand to get this done the quickest.

Oil companies already get subsidies and they don't research the stuff.

Fresh water shouldn't be an issue. We can build desalinization plants to get all the freshwater we need, just have to pay for them.

Desalination is expensive, sea water quickly destroys the parts of the plant. This is an option on a local level, but it is not an option in the face of worldwide freshwater shortage.

These are all important issues, I read carbon just went over 400, so we might not even be around long enough to solve these problems.

reply to post by Kryties


No, but I personally think there should be a limit on how many children you should have. I think having more than 4 or 5 children is really causing unnecessary population growth. I can understand how some people can consider this infringement on a person's right to pro-create, but in the long run, it does influence the ability to feed and shelter the worlds population.

The main dire consequence that mankind faces is his propensity to make war. Many nations have "doomsday" biological and nuclear weapons. It's just a matter of time until some paranoid despot uses one.

reply to post by olaru12


I can whole heartily agree with that. War has no place in a civilized world. That could definitely be added to the list of dire consequences.

The cause lays in our individual minds - our uncaring, self centred greedy nature.

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101


We certainly can say greed, being self-centered and uncaring is the reason why we have so many problems in the world today. If our government officials would stop being so self-centered lining their pockets using taxpayers money, stop using corporate and lobbyist influences to change the direction and agenda of the country, maybe they could then take in the bigger picture that's affecting this world. Their priorities are not to live in harmony with the people of the world, but to push their own personal and corporate agendas.

In the mean time, the ecosystem is slowly dying, people are being killed because of religious or political ideology, and the problems of the poor and the world continue to go unnoticed.

reply to post by TOMFROMOZ


We control our own destiny. Until the population rises up and says enough is enough, we will continue to head down a path of destruction.

First of all, humanity has not the power to destroy the earth beyond its ability to rebuild itself. If we become dangerous enough that we could, then the planet, not by sentient means, but as a natural process, will remove us by way of destructive weather, massive continent cracking quakes and supervolcanic eruptions, tsunami of thus far unimaginable scale and so on.

After that, the the planet will rebalance itself, or reshape itself to a slightly different format, but continue none the less. The earth, therefore is in no danger. However, if we want to continue to live on this rock, then certainly there are SOME things we need to do. But in any change that needs to happen, there must be some caveats. First of all, no persons human rights must be infringed, changed, or presumed upon. Therefore there will be NO forced reduction in family sizes and similar. For a start there is NO need for that, since there ought to be more than enough energy and space for everyone, for a thousand years to come and more, as long as we learn how to reclaim desertified regions (perfectly possible and actually being done in Egypt and other places in the middle east, and in China, where some valleys have been so over farmed that they turned into dustbowls)

Futhermore, on the energy issue, we rarely use our energy as wisely as we might, and we certainly do not collect it as thoroughly as we could. There are areas in Australia, the Middle East, and the USA, which are totally uninhabited, have very little vegetation, and where so little fauna survive, that it would be sensible to lay VAST solar energy farms around them, to harvest the un-inhibited sunlight and convert it into electricity. Also, we misuse our fossil fuels, and use machinery for far too much these days, rather than relying on the sweat of our brows.

The idea that we have to take drastic and brutal and totallitarian measures in order to achieve a result in these matters, is just utterly ridiculous, and the only advocates of such, are either advocating such action because they wish to make people hate thinking about green issues, or because they have some sort of megalomaniacal segment to thier psyches. Either way, thinking such as this is neither helpful, nor realistic. There are ways we can improve our circumstances, but we must not do so in the mistaken belief that we are killing the Earth, nor should we accept draconian action and legislation on this matter, purely on the basis that a failiure to do so would be signing our own death warrants. These ideas are LIES, pure and simple.

There are ways we can continue to live decent lives, ALL of us, while at the same time improving our level of balance with nature, and there are ways we can improve the way we use our resources without torturing ourselves with hateful, and oppresive legislation. The reason we do not enact these, as a species, is because to do so would be damaging to economic policy throughout the developed world according to the oil giants, gas magnates, and energy companies which have HIJACKED our nations, and thier governments.

reply to post by WeRpeons

I really really really shouldn't reply to this, I know, but there are so many things wrong with this OP I simply have to say something... starting with the very first line....

Dire earth problems should be a priority for all world governments.

How about a priority for the people? Why is it that so many want a government to fix something, when history clearly shows that governments tend to break things rather than fix them?

Researchers spend more time creating electronic gadgets and toys for the consumer instead of solving problems that are a threat to life on earth.

Yes, they do. That's because they have a choice: create gadgets and toys that people want and be rewarded with wealth and prestige, or work on the problems you mention and live in abject poverty, spat on by those who have wealth, only to finally be forced to abandon their work because they don't have the resources to finish it. That's the real-life decision engineers and scientists face. Don't blame them for making such a decision; if anything blame the people who determine their choices.

Now for the specifics:

1. Recycling machines that will eliminate Landfills.

Such a machine is impossible at this level of technology. Each category of waste has to be treated in a different way to recycle it; that's why recycling containers are labelled with their contents. Plastics must be shredded and processed under specific conditions, and these conditions vary greatly depending on the type of plastic. What reclaims one type will destroy another. Now consider hazardous organic waste versus ordinary organic waste: what kills the hazardous organics will also kill the bacteria which is necessary to decompose simple organic waste. Metals must be smelted under high heat to remove impurities. Paper burns at a tiny fraction of the temperature needed to do so.

2. The elimination of cemeteries.

Thank you for volunteering to tell grieving children and parents that their loved ones are not worth a 4x7 foot spot of land that they paid for.

3. Clean new sources of energy.

Feel free to let us in on what these sources are.

4. New technology that creates electricity on the premises of individual homes and businesses instead or power plants.

People have been trying to do this for centuries. Feel free, again, to show us how it is done.

5. New programming technology that eliminates computer hacking and viruses.

A computer executes programs. If that program tells it to conduct a secure legitimate transaction, the computer will do so. If that program tells it to take all the money form one account and deposit in another, it will do so. What you are asking for is a computer that executes only the programs we want it to execute'; that is simply not possible, since the computer would have to be self-aware in order to determine the difference.

6. Technology that can tap into fresh water from icebergs in the arctic to be transported to areas in the world that lack or need fresh drinking water.

So we now want the icebergs to melt, and we want to install piping from a floating mountain of ice to some place like the Sahara? Completely implausible.

7. Designing modular homes that can withstand catastrophic winds during hurricanes and tornados.

Another implausible pipe dream. Sure, we can strengthen homes to withstand set limits, but there is a cost involved that increases exponentially with the load limit. Since tornadoes and hurricanes really have no upper force limit, this is also implausible.

8. A cure for cancer and other devastating diseases.

Today, there are thousands of researches working on cancer cures. Will another thousand make a difference? Technology is not about wishful thinking; it is about applying the laws of physics to solve a problem and is not as simple as just saying "I am going to do this today."

9. Prison over population.

No argument on this one.

10. World hunger.

Would be nice, but the simple fact is that the very governments you say need to fix this are often the reason this problem exists.

11. Population control.

Already addressed. There is no global population problem, only a global distribution problem.

12. Technology that can cleanse the oceans and fresh water lakes of chemical pollution and garbage.

It exists. Who is going to pay for it? It's tremendously expensive.

The bottom line is that most of what you propose is either already being worked on, is impossible with present technology, or is extremely impractical. But again, feel free to show us all the way; develop one of these yourself.

~continued~

To clarify my remarks above, it is not my intention to belittle any of these ideas; all sound noble. But it is my intention to show clearly that these are simply wishing, which has never solved a single problem in history. If one wants a free home-based power source which does not exist at present, the only way to get it is to make it; wishing it existed is fruitless. If one wants the oceans cleaned beyond what is being done at present, the only way to get that done is to do it or at least get involved in helping others do it better: raise money, develop technology, organize. If one wants a cure for cancer which does not exist, one must study cancer, learn why it exists in the first place, and then develop a way to prevent or cure it.

Wishing these things into being does not work. People have been wishing for things without success since they lived in caves and hunted with sharp sticks. We have the technology we have today not because people wished it into being and not because people asked someone else (a government) to create it, but because people created it themselves.

DO SOMETHING! Develop those things that you want to see. Place your time and energy into actually creating the things you want, not into wishing they existed. Technology is stalling; our devices are getting faster and more powerful, but there has been a marked decline in truly new scientific breakthroughs in recent years, all because, IMO, we wish instead of do.

Pick one of these tasks, just one, and fix it. Much more will be accomplished doing that than wishing for all these and dozens more.

TheRedneck

The city of London currently recycles its garbage entyirely.
The cost of doing so is payed for entirely by the amount of precious metals they recover....not counting the other resources....
If they can do it and make money why cant everybody?
Most of the problems you name already have solutions....just nobody willing to implement them....