and perhaps where we'll be at the end of this century.
Today's quote:
"We are Earth. We are the planet. We are the biosphere. We are not distinct from nature. Yet, at the same time, we are, as life — as living things: ourselves, the redwoods, the birds overhead — we are the pinnacle of complexity in the universe, from the Big Bang until now. It took 13.7 billion years for the atoms to come together to form this portal of self-awareness that is you. […] Given this ephemeral existence that we have, of self-awareness, what are you going to do with your moment? What are we, as a species, going to do with our moment?
Astronomer Natalie Batalha, who led the epoch-making discovery of more than 4,000 potential cradles for life by NASA’s Kepler mission and now continues her work on the search for life beyond our solar system with the astrobiology program at UC Santa Cruz.
It really is startling.
ReplyDeleteI'm really quite tired of it, actually. But it's not over yet.
DeleteI was interested to see the future projections for the rest of the century. They are pretty close to what we figured out in my high school classes (the ones that I taught) 20-30 years ago. We knew that fertility rates were falling even then. It just takes awhile for the growth to stop after fertility rates decline because there are so many people reproducing. Once the fertility rate falls below 2, there might be a very significant decline.
ReplyDeleteThat was me — AC. 🤓
ReplyDeleteInteresting that your blog identity didn't come up. Yes, I have friends who are positive that the population growth is the end all of our civilization.
DeleteJust think how many problems would be solved if there were fewer people. We are too many, chasing too few resources. Man is the greatest natural disaster.
ReplyDeleteQuite complicated.
ReplyDelete