If you do not stop the deforestation, our civilization will fall over the 40 years
In the midst of global health crisis, we all need good news. But the reality is that news today is more alarming and cannot be ignored. Even some 30-40 years ago, our parents with optimism and confidence looking to the future, but we can't afford it for a number of reasons, the first and the most important of which is climate change. Whether we like it or not, the world is on the brink of environmental disaster – these are the words in an interview with Vladimir Pozner said a prominent intellectual of our times, the linguist Noam Chomsky. His words were confirmed by the new work of theoretical physicists, published in the journal , according to which the probability of death of human civilization in deforestation is 90%.
Well, it's time to talk about the future of the planet. Physics of the Alan Turing Institute in London and the University of Tarapaca in Chile, I spent a couple of statistical studies which came to the conclusion that unbridled consumption is leading mankind to the «quick catastrophic collapse», which can happen in the next two to four decades. Of course, this theoretical work with a number of restrictions – for example, the immutability of deforestation and consumption of the planet's resources, but its conclusions are worth considering and here's why.
In the past, before one kind of animal became dominant on our planet (we are talking about Homo Sapiens), forests covered at least 60 million square kilometers of land. Currently, however, less than 40 million square kilometers of Land can be called a wooded area.
The Calculations showed that at the current rate of population growth and consumption of resources, in particular forest, our civilization is only a few decades before the irreversible collapse.
Gerardo Aquino (Gerardo Aquino) and Mauro Bologna (Mauro Bologna), the authors of scientific work.
With the researchers it is hard to disagree – density forests, or the current lack thereof, is catastrophic. Forest fires in Brazil and Siberia, which , accelerated the already rapid and dangerous process of deforestation. Comparing the rate of deforestation with a rate of consumption of mankind, Bologna and Aquino has determined that even the most optimistic estimates, there is a 90% probability that our species in the decades to sink into oblivion.
Deforestation of the Amazon rose by a record 25% in the first half of 2020.
Note that in the last few decades has acquired a global significance, which is reflected in national and global politics. As possible causes of the observed changes, scientists consider a number of factors caused by human activities: most frequently mentioned pollution of water and air (mainly greenhouse effect), and deforestation. Although the extent of the human contribution to the greenhouse effect and temperature changes still remains a matter of debate, deforestation is an indisputable fact.
Based on current rate of consumption of resources and the assessment of technological growth, the results of the study show that in the coming years, nothing will change – we are talking about deforestation, fossil-fuel, polluting the planet with plastic waste etc. – a chance for our civilization to survive is less than 10%. And that's the optimistic assessment. While much attention was given to how greenhouse gases have contributed to the death of our species, Aquino has focused on mathematical models of “indisputable fact” of deforestation, caused by human activity.
Note that the aim of this work is not a prediction of a terrible future (as you might think), but just the opposite – the researchers wanted to understand what can be done to avoid self-destruction. The researchers introduced into the variables of the infamous «the Fermi paradox», which refers to the theoretical discussion of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations. Read more about are we alone in the Universe,
the Most optimistic forecasts predict that our civilization is no more than 20-40 years of life.
One aspect of this discourse is the idea that self-destruction is caused by unsustainable exploitation of the environment, may be the inevitability of intelligent life and, hence, a potential reason why we still have not met our galactic neighbors. In order to avoid self-destruction of an alien society was to give priority to «consumer culture» that the research fair is considered unlikely, based on human experience.
The Researchers note that even if intelligent life forms was a common phenomenon in the Universe, very few of them would be able to achieve a sufficient level of technological development to colonize their own Solar system, before the crash due to excessive consumption of resources. It turns out that the answer to the question «where is everybody?» can be unfortunate. What do you think about this? Response as well as inthe comments to this article.
