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Challenge to mankind
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Oh! World may End tomorrow
Wait a little!
Read on
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A LOST SPECIES
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Is There Hope for Me?
• Those Who Have Never Heard
• Those Who Have Heard the Word but
Are Scoffers
• Those Who Humbly Believe the „Bible‟
is to be Obeyed
Overpopulation, Global warming, Diseases and Warfare
The probability of the extinction of the human species in the near future is not deniable.
While technological advances encourage huge population explosions, they also bring new risks of sudden population collapse through industrial pollution, nuclear war, etc.
Often overlooked risks ranging from asteroid strikes to nanotechnology run amok and universe annihilation resulting from misadventures in the physics lab can also play the role.
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Enjoyed by the cheerful pessimists.
Think of the grim assessment of the odds
against human survival, and the effort and
restraint that will be needed to beat the
odds. Hello! It‟s O.K.
Argument does not imply fatalism, since
our efforts can change the probabilities?
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Can mankind survive by mitigating effect of global warming /
CLIMATE CHANGE due to greenhouse effect?
„Greenhouse effect‟
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„Greenhouse effect‟
A rise in Earth‟s surface temperature
because incoming radiation is less easily
re-radiated into space.
Global surface temperature increased 0.74
± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) between the
start and the end of the 20th century.
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The energy sector is by far the largest emitter of greenhouse gases (70%) followed by the land use sector (23%), waste management (4%) and industrial processes (3%).
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Scientists are making predictions about the
ill effects of Global warming and connecting
some of the events of the past few decades as an
alarm of global warming. The effect is an increase
in the average temperature of the earth.
A rise in earth‟s temperatures can in turn lead to
other alterations in the ecology, including an
increasing sea level and modifying the
quantity and pattern of rainfall.
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These modifications may boost the
occurrence of
• severe climate events, such as
• floods,
• famines,
• heat waves,
• tornados, and
• twisters.
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Other consequences may comprise of
• higher or lower agricultural outputs,
• glacier melting,
• lesser summer stream flows,
• genus extinctions and
• rise in the ranges of disease vectors.
Due to global warming various new diseases have emerged
lately: since the bacteria can survive better in elevated
temperatures and even multiplies faster when the conditions
are favorable.
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The global warming is extending
• the distribution of mosquitoes due to the increase
in humidity levels and
• their frequent growth in warmer atmosphere.
Various diseases due to
• ebola,
• hanta and
• machupo virus are expected due to warmer
climates.
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The marine life is sensitive to the increase in
temperatures. The effect of global warming will
definitely be seen on some species in the water.
A survey was made in which the marine life reacted
significantly to the changes in water temperatures.
Many species may die off or become extinct due to
the increase in the temperatures of the water,
whereas various other species, which prefer warmer
waters, will increase tremendously.
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Disturbing changes are expected in the coral reefs
that are expected to die off as an effect of global
warming. Global warming may cause irreversible
changes in the ecosystem and the behavior of
animals. An approach to mitigation is Carbon
capture and storage (CCS). Emissions may be
sequestered from fossil fuel power plants, or
removed during processing in hydrogen
production. When used on plants, it is known as
bioenergy with carbon capture and storage.
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There are key practices and technologies in
various sectors, such as energy supply,
transportation, industry, and agriculture that
should be implemented to reduce global
emissions.
Mitigation of global warming is accomplished
through reductions in the rate of
anthropogenic greenhouse gas release.
Destruction of the ozone layer
By chlorofluorocarbons or other things.
Massive increase in the amount of
ultraviolet light reaching the Earth‟s
surface.
Cancer runs riot? Death of trees,
grasses, plankton?
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Poisoning by pollution
And, at least in the short term, severe
pollution seems almost inevitable when
uncontrolled population growth is
combined with demands for
an acceptable standard of living.
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OVERPOPULATION
Myth A: The world is overcrowded and population growth is adding overwhelming numbers of humans to a small planet. In fact, people do live in crowded conditions, and always have. We cluster together in cities and villages in order to exchange goods and services with one another. But while we crowd together for economic reasons in our great metropolitan areas, most of the world is empty, as we can see when we fly over it. It has been estimated by Paul Ehrlich and others that human beings actually occupy no more than 1 to 3 percent of the earth's land surface.
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OVERPOPULATION Myth B: Overpopulation is threatening the world food supply. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, world food supplies exceed requirements in all world areas, amounting to a surplus approaching 50 percent in 1990 in the developed countries, and 17 percent in the developing regions. "Globally, food supplies have more than doubled in the last 40 years… between 1962 and 1991, average daily per caput food supplies increased more than 15 percent… at a global level, there is probably no obstacle to food production rising to meet demand," according to FAO documents prepared for the 1996 World Food Summit.
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Of Overpopulation?
Disease. • As was shown by the Black Death of the Middle
Ages, diseases can wipe out very large
proportions of those exposed to them.
• They can now spread world wide very quickly,
thanks to air travel.
• Many remain incurable.
• Tuberculosis, already killing about three million
people annually, has recently developed strains
resistant to all known drugs, and
• antibiotics are useless against viral diseases.
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Natural disasters
1 Volcanic eruptions.
2 Hits by asteroids and comets.
3 An extreme ice age due to passage through an interstellar cloud?
4 A nearby supernova
5 Other massive astronomical explosions
6 Essentially unpredictable breakdown of a complex system.
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Man-made disasters
1 Unwillingness to rear children?
2 A disaster from genetic engineering.
3 A disaster from nanotechnology.
4 Disasters associated with computers.
5 Some other disaster in a branch of technology, perhaps just agricultural, which had become crucial to human survival.
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Risks already well recognized Nuclear war
Knowledge of how to build
nuclear bombs cannot be eradicated.
Small nations, terrorists and rich criminals
wanting to become still richer by holding the
world to ransom can already afford very
destructive bombs.
Production costs are falling and the world
has many multibillionaires. 27
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• The effects of large-scale nuclear
destruction are largely unknown.
• Radiation poisoning of the entire globe?
• „Nuclear winter‟ in which dust and soot
block sunlight, so that temperatures
everywhere fall very sharply
• Death of trees and grasses? Of oceanic
plankton?
Biological warfare or terrorism or criminality
Biological weapons could actually be more
dangerous than nuclear ones:
less costly, and with a field of destruction
harder to limit because the weapons were
self-reproducing organisms.
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Visitors view the carnage of war through the sheer number and scale of military cemeteries dotting the countryside. For example, in the Somme River valley of northern France, many crossroads are marked with small signs directing the traveler to World War I cemeteries. In Europe, cemeteries provide the principal link to 20th-century wars; subsidiary ties include cultural resources such as memorials, trench lines, pill boxes, and statues.
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The continued career of the human race is endangered
by
• greenhouse-effect overheating (conceivably of a
runaway kind in which warming releases more and more
methane, a powerful greenhouse gas), by
• destruction of the ozone layer, and by desertification
and pollution of land and sea, by
• loss of biodiversity, by
• diseases and chemical, biological and nuclear war.
Overpopulation, a main cause of the deterioration of
the environment, may also lead to global warfare.
Will the human race become extinct fairly shortly? Have the dangers been underestimated, and
ought we to care?
Humans may well spread right through their galaxy.
Come what may, some will survive, they will rejuvenate civilized life on earth.
It would be hard to kill off absolutely all humans (none will attempt it, we hope), and that from a few thousand survivors new billions would grow.
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“The world has reached that point in history where
mankind‟s role can be decisive. This intelligent
creature, a product of evolution, has become
capable of obstructing, perhaps destroying,
the very process which produced him. For
evolution to have a future on Earth it is imperative
that each man and woman extend his or her
responsibility beyond their immediate
concerns to the destiny of mankind and their
planet” - PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN
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Why do people engage in the deadly and destructive activity of fighting? Is it rooted in human nature or is it a late cultural invention? Have people always engaged in fighting or did they start to do so only with the advent of agriculture, the state, and civilization? How were these, and later, major developments in human history affected by war and, in turn, how did they affect war? Under what conditions, if at all, can war be eliminated, and is it declining at present? [See next slide for reference book.]
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