Why the Gulf Spill could cause Extinction

Why I do believe that the oil spill is bad, I don't believe its gonna be anywhere near as bad as PTE. PTE was the result of many thing including a meteor impact. I don't think oil is as destructive.

Also PTE took place over thousands of years.

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


Well, in the states, people still consider 18-24 or so as a kid for the most part. I look anywhere from that age range. On a good day, when I'm all smiles and shaved, I probably look 18 or 19. Did you once mention that you're Asperger's, too? We usually look a bit younger. I recently read an article which goes into some detail about a theory that Asperger's is the result of hybridizaiton between Neanderthal and modern man. It seems that a lot of the oddities of eccentrics may be because of the remnants of this lost species in our blood.

I truly hope you're correct about the population stabilizing as a result of going back to a community-based, localized lifestyle. It would most likely bring the standard of living way up from a spiritual perspective, and this would most likely lead to a stabilized, and perhaps decline in population.

Where is YAD? We're hogging his thread!

He must be living the dream life out and about the universe.



Such a vividly imaginative chap.

unitymission, I liked what you had to say

It's not the actual possibility of disaster which bothers me, it's the inability of mankind to address the issue as it is, and save ourselves from possible extinction or at least a highly dystopian future.

What a thrill ride this thread has proven to be!

reply to post by antar


Thanks, antar.

I try me best.



Ya know, it's about time I added you as a friend as well.

Cheers !!

reply to post by unityemissions


Well... I'm 27 to.

Shaved and smiling I can't even buy a pack of cigs or a beer without proving I'm old enough.

I'm going to google asperger now
The population stabilization is because of the western lifestyle.
Where 2 kids usually are enough. This only happens when wealth is wide spread among the people.

reply to post by Sinter Klaas


I think it's actually just a little deeper than that. The real reason seems to be instinctual. When times are bad, people's stress levels rise and I think this triggers hormones to go out of whack in order to have enough kids so that some will actually make it through childhood. The lower in socio-economic status, the larger the families.

I'm same way with buying lighters. People card me all the time, and if it's my first time going into a particular bar, the staff will confront me like a bunch of bouncers and demand I show ID !! I swear it takes them a good 10-15 seconds before giving me back the card each time.

I guess it's better to look 18 or so at our age than looking 44 !!

[edit on 15-6-2010 by unityemissions]

reply to post by unityemissions


You could be right. Western lifestyle has a build in old age safety net. So you do not need more children either.

I just read the the Wiki on Asperger. I'm actually quite shocked. nearly halve I do recognize. Fortunately most of the negative I do not.

reply to post by chorizo4
Hate to tell you. There is a big fooking problem here.

Nobody knows? What makes you think that? How did that happen? This wasn't suppose to post in this thread. Of course there's a Big Fooking Problem! I will have to talk to my evil twin about his sleep walking.

I've actually been in lurk mode due to work load. Suffice to say that suddenly isn't going to well because they have no money for my paycheck today.

As for the GOM spill, I am not saying it's going to match PTE, but it will certainly contribute to the Holocene extinction. Unity is right about the attitude of people on the planet, we are for the most part zombified.

The biggest problem with the GOM is all the disinformation and BP trying to censor the news, not that I want to over-exaggerate the problem, however I really want to know the facts as to what we are up against.

The speculation is all over the map, from a total fissure opened up, to a much larger oil reserve then what BP first claimed. What a mess of information.

Change has to start with the individual, I know my wife and I stopped eating fish and sushi last year due to the hard reality of what is happening to the Ocean with mass consumption of fish. It seems more and more, the Ocean is being murdered and massacred by our greed.

Hard to imagine something so big and vast being so vulnerable to just one of Earths dominant species.

I looked up briefly this possibility yesterday when it was mentioned in another thread. I believe the theory involving methane hydrates is called the Clathrate gun hypothesis:

The clathrate gun hypothesis is the popular name given to the hypothesis that rises in sea temperatures (and/or falls in sea level) can trigger the sudden release of methane from methane clathrate compounds buried in seabeds and permafrost which, because the methane itself is a powerful greenhouse gas, leads to further temperature rise and further methane clathrate destabilization – in effect initiating a runaway process as irreversible, once started, as the firing of a gun. Source

And the source for the external content:

James P. Kennett, Kevin G. Cannariato, Ingrid L. Hendy, and Richard J. Behl, (2003) Methane Hydrates in Quaternary Climate Change: The Clathrate Gun Hypothesis, Washington, DC: American Geophysical Union. ISBN 0875902960

Google Books, for the source itself:

The Clathrate Gun metaphor refers to the sequential and repeated steps of loading the methane hydrate reservoir, triggering hydrate dissociation by changes in intermediate-water temperature, and energetically discharging CH4 into the ocean/atmosphere to amplify late Quaternary climate warming events that were strongly reinforced by other greenhouse gases, especially water vapor. Methane hydrates in Quaternary climate change: the clathrate gun hypothesis, by James P. Kennett

And a link to an article that debates the Clathrate gun hypothesis: Methane Burps Disproved? - Feb 09, 2006.

I would include some external material from the source, but they do not allow any part of the article to be redistributed. I'm not sure what to make of any of this information: I'm just passing it along.

reply to post by Dewi Winters


Thank you for this article.

As the climate gets warmer it make sense that surface methane is released from swamps and forest fires and so on. Methane clathrate from the ocean is only stable within a certain temperature range, the oceans warm up much slower then the surface and the pressure can even make the melting temp. a little higher. I don't know.

If this article is true then we are in for the worst, I think. I mean if it didn't happen during the times we thought it did... It happens now... I'm going to hold my breath for a while...

Whoopsy

[edit on 6/16/2010 by Sinter Klaas]