Earth 2100

[Kyon]

This is a really compelling documentary that pretty much shows that if we don't fix problems with energy, climate change, etc that this is pretty much our future.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI31a2L1Olw

 

Here is the link to the first part, I'm pretty sure you can find the rest through Youtube.

[Ross Scott]

This looks interesting, but is this available at higher quality anywhere? I'm normally not too picky, but this is rough to watch full-screen.

[Vapymid]

This is fund-raising propaganda. Raising funds to finance their lobbying. Lobbying to promote their business interests. To make more money... this time for themselves.

 

There is a legitimate debate about anthropogenic changes to the environment and whether they are ultimately good or bad but, please, don't be deceived by cheap scaremongering, people...

 

Regards

Edited September 28, 2011 by Guest (see edit history)

[Doom Shepherd]

The phrase "really compelling documentary" should NEVER be used in conjunction with a YouTube video.

[ProHypster]

These predictions failed again and again beginning with the 1972 when an international party started predicting this stuff every ten years.

[Ross Scott]

I finally got around to watching this. I think around 2050 in the video, they get extremely speculative, but most of what they say before that sounds pretty plausible to me. I especially like how they also predict the beginning of oil problems in 2015 (like I do) and included some small segments with James Howard Kunstler, an author whom I think has some good predictions for where civilization headed:

 

Vapymid: This isn't propaganda, the entire thing is a prediction based on our current observations. There's no guarantee any of this will be true from the get-go. I did think they were a little heavy-handed in their talk about solar power, but beyond that, they look a lot of different variables that are affecting the planet and I think some of their conclusions were pretty good.

 

Doom Shepard: It wasn't created for Youtube, it was a production put out by ABC. But I agree that it's not really a documentary, but just a possible interpretation of the future.

[ProHypster]

Ross, seriosuly take into consideration the "Limits to growth" theorists who do this from 1972 and how they failed even with the best computer predictions and best scientists from the league of rome...

 

The Limits to Growth has been reported to have predicted that oil supplies would "run out" by 1992. What The Limits to Growth actually has is the above table, which has the current reserves (that is no new sources of oil are found) for oil running out in 1992 assuming constant exponential growth

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth

[Ross Scott]

I'm unfamiliar with this book, but reading the wikipedia article it sounds like they were looking solely at the differences between exponential and linear growth, and weren't accounting for much beyond that. I don't know of any reputable scientists who made predictions back in the 70s that we would "run out" by 1992. One of the more respected ones in the oil industry was M. King Hubbert. Hubbert predicted we would start peaking in 1995, though that was about 10 years off (all evidence I've seen suggests we've been peaking since 2005). He also correctly predicted when the United States would start peaking in production. Here's some information about how some of the better educated guesses are made on this today:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicting_the_timing_of_peak_oil

 

Anyone who says we're going to "run out" of oil by a specific date doesn't know what they're talking about. Decline in production won't work that way. There will still be some oil around for the rest of our natural lives. What I think will happen however, is that once we start seeing a decline in production, it will have a massive, massive negative economic impact on our society, the United States is especially structured around having cheap oil and having the price double or triple would be extremely disruptive. I really don't think our society is prepared at all for this kind of transition, which unfortunately makes the situation that much worse.

[Very7684]

We aren't ready for this...sure there will always be some of everything

but if we run out of oil because of industry then we're fucked