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It’s easy to be a doom-and-gloomer these days. But the glass-half-empty take on the world has always been an easy one to adopt. I mean, living in caves must have been hard. Later there were plagues. All those centuries with no TV. But Ted Turner did more than just dip a toe in the pessimistic water glass this week when he said global warming is apt to lead us to cannibalism.
On PBS’s Charlie Rose show, Turner said the planet will be scorching in 30-40 years if nothing’s done.
“Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals,” he said. “Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state — like Somalia or Sudan — and living conditions will be intolerable.”
(For the record, Neanderthals, who were 99.9 percent human , apparently turned to cannibalism when the climate got tough. Clearly, that’s a failed strategy.)
It’s tempting to jump on this “we’re all going to die” bandwagon, but that’d make life kinda pointless, no? Technology is on our side, if only we’d use it more effectively. Meanwhile, don’t discount the interconnected global problems we face, from (as I noted the other day) climate change to water shortages (the glass really is half empty on this front) and the sudden and dire food shortages that are already causing unrest and violence.
To his credit, let’s assume Turner is just sounding the alarm so we don’t end up like he threatens. And also some credit for having the bottom-line cause of all this right: “We’re too many people,” he said. It’s an amazing thought that the 6,658,984,843 (that’s 6 billion+) of us now (a number that went up 100 as I typed it!) compares to a mere 310 million just 1,000 years ago. Not sure exactly what we should do about that one…
(An aside, from AP: Turner, who once called Christianity a “religion for losers,” launched a $200 million partnership Tuesday with Lutherans and Methodists to fight malaria in Africa, apologizing for his past criticism of religion and calling faith a “bright spot” in the world.)
April 4th, 2008 at 8:58 am
Christainity has afforded Ted Turner the ability to have his own opinions
He still thinks like a Neanderthal so no wonder his
opinion voices like this. And yes Ted people have watched how you handled your buisness and personal life
April 7th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
I went to grammar school with a few Neanderthals. I just didn’t sit with them at lunchtime.
I seem to remember that chimpanzees are also over 99% genetically identical to humans, so another possible scenario is that we could learn to use sticks to get termites out of hollow logs and that we could learn to enjoy termite-on-a-stick as a wholesome snack.
But I have the completely unfounded idea that the 0.01 percent of us that is different from all non-human creatures is the part of us that can solve complex problems if we really try.
After all, I just learned how to comment on a LiveScience blog–something that seemed impossible a few days ago.
True optimism isn’t in denying that the glass really is half empty. It’s in hoping that there must be SOME way to get a refill.
April 9th, 2008 at 2:21 am
Turner may be correct in his assessment about our planet being too hot to survive on. The way we pollute the water, lands, and air can’t be too good for the ecology, and our efforts to reverse these pollutings always seem to be awareness campaigns, that milk our wallets along with recovering from disasters like tsunamis, tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, and so on.
Being stupid enough to see that wiped out buildings, structures, and cars, and the contents of each costs a lot of money to replace, I must be stupid enough to pinpoint a common theme in what these disasters destroy first, and that is the frames and bodies of the buildings, etc. After the frames/bodies go out, things like 8 million cans/bottles of motor oil were deposited in the soils and waters along the path of hurricane Katrina, along with tons of other non-biodegradeable liquids, gasses, and products, for example.
I fully believe that the start point to economic, ecological, and environmental recovery and balancings, is at the first common location, the buildings, etc; frames and bodies. Upgrade them, less pollutants, upgrade them, more money in all our pockets, uprade them, better standards of living, inside and outside of the buildings!!
Upgrading the structural efficiencies of frames and bodies requires a change in the basic principle of building (etc.) design and assembly. All building, etc; frames and bodies are of Anchor and Braced concepts, and can easiliy be switched over to Dual/Triple Netted Structures/Systems, with little development costs, assembly techniques, and design methodologies changes. The resulting changes are proving out to be quite impressive, as all Closed-Netted Structures/Systems can withstand hurricanes, etc.
The amount of changes in reductions of lost property and lives from hurricanes alone, pays for all transitional changes in development, and you haven’t even purchased one of these systems yet!! Robert, interested in doing a story on this new technology?