Armageddon

There are quite a number of threats to the survival of our culture ... even our people. Whether they actually mean that the Earth will turn into Mars is dubious, but some actually might pose this menace. I have listed below real and imagined Armageddons ... in a descending order I consider reasonable. Each deserves its own extensive blog entry ... which I may well do. You may differ with the sequencing, but I doubt that you will dispute these items themselves:

Nuclear Proliferation — Nukes in the hands of lunatics

Top-dog Hegemony — China vs. Russia vs. USA vs. radical Islam ... unless the U.S. wins, things will be over

Plague — Biological weapons or natural pandemics might easily wipe out huge numbers of people

Artificial Intelligence — The nutroots are constantly predicting that robots will rule us. I am dubious.

Climate Change — the Earth has been getting warmer since 1750. Will it burn up as many predict? Maybe in a few million tears ... but not tomorrow.

Green Energy — I think that capturing energy from the wind and tides may present some unintended consequences.

Recreational Drugs — opium once almost took down China. It is conceivable that the legalization and propagation of mind-altering drugs could profoundly affect our future outlook.

Designer Babies — DNA-altering medicine will be changing our offspring and lives in ways not fully understood. Are we in for a planet full of Frankensteins?

Population Bomb — thirty years ago this was close to the number one fear. However populations are leveling off and declining everywhere bu Africa. Thus threat is therefore small.

Famine — the reduction of population pressure combined with higher crop yields reduces the possibility of widespread famine.

Big Data — although not threatening the end to civilization, the collection of massive amounts of personal data through social media and otherwise does pose a serious danger to our freedoms.

UFOs — Sorry Tucker ... not a threat.

Population Bomb

The United Nations Population Fund has stated that the population of the world will hit seven billion people this coming week, see: U.N. Prediction.  Now this seems like a bodacious number and, I'm sure, will bring many Malthusians out of the woodwork with their hair on fire ... predicting the end of everything.  May I suggest that you, dear readers, follow the Clintonians' advice and "step back and take a deep breath." 

This is really not as many people as one might think.  There has been some analyses that put this number into more rational perspectives.  See a little older analysis: Overpopulation.com and a much better newer one: Detailed Analysis.  Both these studies indicate that the world's population could relatively easily reside inside Texas with enough room to move around (not counting food production and water availability.)  I have also heard two other comparisons that I have not yet found detailed on the Internet, but I believe to be somewhat factual: 1) all the world's population could be crowded (ala a New York subway car) onto the area the size of Cape Cod and Nantucket, and 2) this same population, if stacked like cord wood would fill something like a mile of the Grand Canyon.

I think that these images place this seven-billion-person world population figure into a less frenetic perspective.  More interestingly, one can also think of this "population bomb" in terms of "biomass" (see: Biomass Definition).  It is estimated that the total human biomass is 250 to 450 million tons (see: Democratic Underground and Google Reference).  This is maybe less than one percent of the total biomass of the world (an estimated 44 billion tons) ... whereas termites, by themselves, represent about an astounding 17% of the world's biomass!

I hope that these numbers will allow you worrywarts out there to now rest easier.

ADDENDA: Read what some countries have done to control their populations: Powerline Part1 and Part 2