technologyvista.in: NASA-Backed Study Says Humanity Is Pretty Much Screwed Hope youve enjoyed civilized life, folks. Because a new study sponsored by NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center says the worlds industrial societies are poised to collapse under the weight of their own unsustainable appetites for resources. There goes the weekend . . . and everything after it for the rest of our lives. The research article appears in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Ecological Economics, but Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development, has a more understandable (but no less harrowing) summary over at The Guardian. Either way, the news isnt good—as the researchers point out, history doesnt seem to hold out any favor for advanced societies. The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent. Whos to blame? You. Me. Everyone walking around outside your window. Even the technology we invented to save us from ourselves is contributing to our decline. Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use. Read the full article: bit.ly/1kU6jS4
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 04:30:37 +0000
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