Human Civilization is Doomed
Introduction:
Today, human civilization is doomed. There are many different reasons why human civilization is doomed, but the three main reasons are peak oil, population growth, and global warming. One of the most important resources that human civilization depends on is oil. Each human on the earth use a mass amount of oil in his or her daily life. “Nearly 80 percent of the world’s energy comes from oil, coal, or gas” (Rottmann). By using massive amounts of oil, not only are me going to eventually run out of oil but we are slow killing the earth. Human population growth keeps on increasing and is not evening out with the amount of deaths. So it’s just increasing more and more, which cause us to use more and more resources, and eventually we will run out of the resources we depend on in our every day life and then what happens? Another concern that we have to worry about is global warming. The reason global warming is a problem and can cause human civilization to crash is because global warming changes the climate temperature, and if a certain areas climate temperature changes drastically that can destroy that area because that area is not use to that climate temperature. The current way that we are living is not sustainable, which makes the human civilization doomed if we don’t change our ways of living.
Peak oil:
Oil is used in our everyday lives but oil isn’t going to be around for much longer, and when there isn’t any more all the human civilization is going to crash. There are some alternatives to oil, such as coal. Coal could be used instead of oil, but the coal found in the ground would be difficult to extract. On top of that it takes more coal to do the jobs that oil can do, so we would be using double or triple the amount of coal. Solar photovoltaics are renewable, but you can only get a small amount of electricity. We would need rapid growth of this technology in order to keep up with the current demands. Nuclear power is an option that not many are fond of because of its toxicity. Opponents to nuclear power are afraid it will cause accidents and terrorism. There are other unconventional petroleum resources, but if they were used then all the equipment already used to would stay the same and that doesn’t help the pollution problem.(Heinberg, Richard). All of these alternatives have some kind of but to them, which makes it easier for people to continue to use oil, because it’s so much easier.
Many scientists say that there is a big chance that in the next 50 years we will have peak oil. Meaning that we will get to the height of oil as a resource and then it will decline. People take advantage of oil and use it for a lot of useless things. After oil is all used up for things that aren’t essential for people to live, there will be no more oil. After all the oil is used up we cannot survive. To put it simply human civilization will be doomed because oil is essential to every ones everyday lives. Without oil a lot of people will die off because there won’t be enough resources to feed and shelter all the people living on the Earth. (How We Use Oil)
Population growth:
The population growth of our civilization is increasing more and more every second and is not going to be beneficial for the future. Three babies are born every second (Andy). According to the article called Rapid Growth, “The ripple effects of rapid population growth reverberate through thousands of communities: traffic congestion, noise, crime, housing shortages, spiraling costs, air pollution, rents and taxes increase as subdivisions stretch endlessly into lands that only a few years ago had been farms, ranches, and natural areas.” This quote shows how population growth affects everything. It causes resources to be consumed quicker, it causes a lot of use of energy, and it causes a lot of space to be used. Population growth affects everything. Our civilization cannot be sustainable with billions of people running around. It’s just causing our civilization to crash. The increase of population creates an increase in the following: pollution, cars, use of oil, people that need to be feed (more food being consumed), more use of energy, and the list goes on. Since it gets larger everyday, in a couple of years our population growth is going to be off the charts. In the year 2050, the population growth is expected to be 9.2 billion (Rosenberg). Our population growth is too extreme but it will continue. The U.S. is the third most populated country with 300,176,035 as of November 2006 (Source: U.S). What’s going to happen when there is more people then resources, oh yeah it’s already happening.
Global Warming:
Global warming is destroying the earth and is also harmful to our health. Humans continue to create Global Warming and do not realize the affect it is having on our earth and our health. It is creating an extreme change in climate. “Fossil fuels are also the main force behind the increasingly urgent problem of climate change” (Rottmann). The temperatures are rising high making it difficult for humans to live. The sunrays are being trapped on earth as the atmosphere thickens. This climate change is damaging our seas and wild life every day. Things that use to look so peaceful and beautiful are now being destroyed such as the reefs in the ocean. On Dec 6, 2004, “UN report says climate change is the single greatest threat to corals, with 20 percent of all reefs damaged beyond recovery and another 50 percent facing collapse.” (Assatourian) This quote shows how everything is being destroyed on the Earth. Reefs are considered a home to fishes and lobsters. Man continues to harm the earth while they are also harming themselves. Harming the oceans and seas limits the food that they may consume. If they keep harming the sea then there are going to be fewer fishes and lobsters to eat. It’s really having an effect on everything, which is going to cause a crash in human civilization.
Connections:
There were many ancient civilizations that were known to be successful. These civilizations knew how to use their resources in order to preserve them and maintain a sustainable ecosphere. Our civilization was able to establish a “successful” government but we have failed to create a successful relationship with the earth, which means that it will only lead us to ecological destruction. “The Cuban people responded to the food crisis by largely abandoning their large scale agricultural system based on fluid fossil fuels and by developing a system of locally managed and operated farms and urban plots worked sustainable. Virtually every arable acre of land has been employed. Farmland that for years had been poisoned by over-reliance on oil-based pesticides and gas-based fertilizers and degraded by mechanized cultivation has been regenerated and replenished with soil-enriching organic farming techniques that require more individual labor but much less fossil fuels” (Cooper). This quote shows how the Cuban people learned how to survive without the use of fossil fuel. They began using “hand tools and human labor instead of oil driven machinery” (Quinn). If our civilization keeps using the fossil fuel to its advantage, then our civilization is going to wind up like Cuba. Our country can learn from Cuba. They had first hand experience and they lived through it. They were able to make their civilization more sustainable. The U.S. should use “Cuba as a role model to follow” (Quinn). If we don’t start taking charge now when it happens it might be to late to do anything.
OPV:
Exxon Mobile says, “Oil is a finite resource, but because it is so incredibly large, a peak will not occur this year, next year, or for decades to come. Earth was endowed with over 3.3 trillion barrels of conventional recoverable oil. Since the dawn of human history we have used a total of about one trillion barrels of oil.” How is this possible if since the dawn of human history we didn’t have access to the oil? They said that we have 3.3 trillion barrels of oil, but that will not last us more than a few years at the rate we are consuming it. Although Exxon might be using truth for their argument, they are not taking into account the fact that the demands for oil historically have not come anywhere close to the demands we face today (Exxon Mobile). Burning of fossil fuels creates great harm to the planet and to our health but there are those who don’t know how to control their need for profit. Civilization needs oil to operate the machinery in factories and home appliances. Our civilization is not sustainable and just because we have a big amount of oil, it does not mean that it is okay for us to keep looting on those resources.
Significance:
In conclusion, I have showed that if nothing is done or people don’t start realizing that human civilization is doomed. With in a certain amount of time human civilization is going to crash leaving nothing but the earth’s surface. I don’t think that even if people do start realizing that we are doom their really not going to do anything because people are lazy and are to in to making money, to care about saving the human civilization from crashing. Which means that in 50 or more years there will no longer going to be humans on earth.
Introduction:
Today, human civilization is doomed. There are many different reasons why human civilization is doomed, but the three main reasons are peak oil, population growth, and global warming. One of the most important resources that human civilization depends on is oil. Each human on the earth use a mass amount of oil in his or her daily life. “Nearly 80 percent of the world’s energy comes from oil, coal, or gas” (Rottmann). By using massive amounts of oil, not only are me going to eventually run out of oil but we are slow killing the earth. Human population growth keeps on increasing and is not evening out with the amount of deaths. So it’s just increasing more and more, which cause us to use more and more resources, and eventually we will run out of the resources we depend on in our every day life and then what happens? Another concern that we have to worry about is global warming. The reason global warming is a problem and can cause human civilization to crash is because global warming changes the climate temperature, and if a certain areas climate temperature changes drastically that can destroy that area because that area is not use to that climate temperature. The current way that we are living is not sustainable, which makes the human civilization doomed if we don’t change our ways of living.
Peak oil:
Oil is used in our everyday lives but oil isn’t going to be around for much longer, and when there isn’t any more all the human civilization is going to crash. There are some alternatives to oil, such as coal. Coal could be used instead of oil, but the coal found in the ground would be difficult to extract. On top of that it takes more coal to do the jobs that oil can do, so we would be using double or triple the amount of coal. Solar photovoltaics are renewable, but you can only get a small amount of electricity. We would need rapid growth of this technology in order to keep up with the current demands. Nuclear power is an option that not many are fond of because of its toxicity. Opponents to nuclear power are afraid it will cause accidents and terrorism. There are other unconventional petroleum resources, but if they were used then all the equipment already used to would stay the same and that doesn’t help the pollution problem.(Heinberg, Richard). All of these alternatives have some kind of but to them, which makes it easier for people to continue to use oil, because it’s so much easier.
Many scientists say that there is a big chance that in the next 50 years we will have peak oil. Meaning that we will get to the height of oil as a resource and then it will decline. People take advantage of oil and use it for a lot of useless things. After oil is all used up for things that aren’t essential for people to live, there will be no more oil. After all the oil is used up we cannot survive. To put it simply human civilization will be doomed because oil is essential to every ones everyday lives. Without oil a lot of people will die off because there won’t be enough resources to feed and shelter all the people living on the Earth. (How We Use Oil)
Population growth:
The population growth of our civilization is increasing more and more every second and is not going to be beneficial for the future. Three babies are born every second (Andy). According to the article called Rapid Growth, “The ripple effects of rapid population growth reverberate through thousands of communities: traffic congestion, noise, crime, housing shortages, spiraling costs, air pollution, rents and taxes increase as subdivisions stretch endlessly into lands that only a few years ago had been farms, ranches, and natural areas.” This quote shows how population growth affects everything. It causes resources to be consumed quicker, it causes a lot of use of energy, and it causes a lot of space to be used. Population growth affects everything. Our civilization cannot be sustainable with billions of people running around. It’s just causing our civilization to crash. The increase of population creates an increase in the following: pollution, cars, use of oil, people that need to be feed (more food being consumed), more use of energy, and the list goes on. Since it gets larger everyday, in a couple of years our population growth is going to be off the charts. In the year 2050, the population growth is expected to be 9.2 billion (Rosenberg). Our population growth is too extreme but it will continue. The U.S. is the third most populated country with 300,176,035 as of November 2006 (Source: U.S). What’s going to happen when there is more people then resources, oh yeah it’s already happening.
Global Warming:
Global warming is destroying the earth and is also harmful to our health. Humans continue to create Global Warming and do not realize the affect it is having on our earth and our health. It is creating an extreme change in climate. “Fossil fuels are also the main force behind the increasingly urgent problem of climate change” (Rottmann). The temperatures are rising high making it difficult for humans to live. The sunrays are being trapped on earth as the atmosphere thickens. This climate change is damaging our seas and wild life every day. Things that use to look so peaceful and beautiful are now being destroyed such as the reefs in the ocean. On Dec 6, 2004, “UN report says climate change is the single greatest threat to corals, with 20 percent of all reefs damaged beyond recovery and another 50 percent facing collapse.” (Assatourian) This quote shows how everything is being destroyed on the Earth. Reefs are considered a home to fishes and lobsters. Man continues to harm the earth while they are also harming themselves. Harming the oceans and seas limits the food that they may consume. If they keep harming the sea then there are going to be fewer fishes and lobsters to eat. It’s really having an effect on everything, which is going to cause a crash in human civilization.
Connections:
There were many ancient civilizations that were known to be successful. These civilizations knew how to use their resources in order to preserve them and maintain a sustainable ecosphere. Our civilization was able to establish a “successful” government but we have failed to create a successful relationship with the earth, which means that it will only lead us to ecological destruction. “The Cuban people responded to the food crisis by largely abandoning their large scale agricultural system based on fluid fossil fuels and by developing a system of locally managed and operated farms and urban plots worked sustainable. Virtually every arable acre of land has been employed. Farmland that for years had been poisoned by over-reliance on oil-based pesticides and gas-based fertilizers and degraded by mechanized cultivation has been regenerated and replenished with soil-enriching organic farming techniques that require more individual labor but much less fossil fuels” (Cooper). This quote shows how the Cuban people learned how to survive without the use of fossil fuel. They began using “hand tools and human labor instead of oil driven machinery” (Quinn). If our civilization keeps using the fossil fuel to its advantage, then our civilization is going to wind up like Cuba. Our country can learn from Cuba. They had first hand experience and they lived through it. They were able to make their civilization more sustainable. The U.S. should use “Cuba as a role model to follow” (Quinn). If we don’t start taking charge now when it happens it might be to late to do anything.
OPV:
Exxon Mobile says, “Oil is a finite resource, but because it is so incredibly large, a peak will not occur this year, next year, or for decades to come. Earth was endowed with over 3.3 trillion barrels of conventional recoverable oil. Since the dawn of human history we have used a total of about one trillion barrels of oil.” How is this possible if since the dawn of human history we didn’t have access to the oil? They said that we have 3.3 trillion barrels of oil, but that will not last us more than a few years at the rate we are consuming it. Although Exxon might be using truth for their argument, they are not taking into account the fact that the demands for oil historically have not come anywhere close to the demands we face today (Exxon Mobile). Burning of fossil fuels creates great harm to the planet and to our health but there are those who don’t know how to control their need for profit. Civilization needs oil to operate the machinery in factories and home appliances. Our civilization is not sustainable and just because we have a big amount of oil, it does not mean that it is okay for us to keep looting on those resources.
Significance:
In conclusion, I have showed that if nothing is done or people don’t start realizing that human civilization is doomed. With in a certain amount of time human civilization is going to crash leaving nothing but the earth’s surface. I don’t think that even if people do start realizing that we are doom their really not going to do anything because people are lazy and are to in to making money, to care about saving the human civilization from crashing. Which means that in 50 or more years there will no longer going to be humans on earth.
posted by Teresa at 8:36 PM
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