# What to prep for? This



## FrankW (Mar 10, 2012)

There are so many scenarios but one is a virtual certainty to occur in the next few decades .
not as a result of this study alone and it is certainly not "new" except for it's specificty.
in a general sense this has been well understood by those who track such things for a couple decades at least.
Other well vetted studies by multiple government and non goverment organizations also exist.

http://news.yahoo.com/2025-mankind-hits-point-no-return-075300027.html

A chilling new report suggests that the Earth may soon hit a tipping point that will do irreparable damage to the planet's ecosystems
The most important news of 2012 won't be the Wisconsin recall, the European financial meltdown, or the possibility of Iranian nukes, says James Fallows at The Atlantic. It'll concern a sprawling new report in the journal Nature, which claims that Earth may very soon hit a tipping point that could trigger huge, disastrous planetary changes - bad news for Earth's occupants. Here's what you should know:
What does the paper say?
The argument goes that humans have already converted roughly 43 percent of the planet's usable land areas into farms, livestock ranches, and citiescapes. As many studies have already suggested, when more than 50 percent of our natural landscape is lost, the ecological web that sustains humanity will collapse beyond repair. The new study suggests that this "tipping point" will be "marked by extinctions and unpredictable changes on a scale not seen since the glaciers retreated 12,000 years ago," says Stephanie Pappas at LiveScience. Under "business-as-usual conditions," this could take place as soon as 2025.

How did the researchers reach this conclusion? 
By sorting through piles and piles of data. The findings all point to the same conclusion: If humans continue to use up resources at the current rate, "there will be a reduction in biodiversity and severe impacts on much of what we depend on to sustain our quality of life, including, for example, fisheries, agriculture, forest productions, and clean water," says Anthony Barnosky, a professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley and the lead author of the paper. At that point "it really will be a new world, biologically." 
Will the report be presented to a wider audience?
A team of 22 scientists from the Berkeley Initiative in Global Change Biology assembled study in preparation for the Rio+20 global sustainability summit this week in Rio de Janeiro. Expectations for the gathering are low, but many environmental groups are "pushing for action," says Justin Gillis at The New York Times. At the original meeting 20 years ago, world leaders failed to meet "even a fraction of the promises" avowed, such as reducing global emission rates, which have since skyrocketed.
Is something catastrophic really going to happen?
The authors provide clear examples of large-scale ecological disasters that have already affected society, says Gillis, like the collapse of cod fisheries in the North Atlantic, outbreaks of invasive species, and extinctions penetrating the far corners of the globe. However, many scientists think that the event can be avoided, and the "ecological limits to human population and economic growth" can be solved through human innovation (though it isn't clear exactly what that would be). Says Barnosky: "Looking into the past tells us unequivocally that, yes, it can really happen. It has happened. The last glacial/interglacial transition 11,700 years ago was an example of that."


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## Ration-AL (Apr 18, 2012)

well there's three ways i see this going down....

#1, sure we're past the tipping point but that may mean another 100-200 years before the worst case hits us, it may take a long time for the decline to get world changing bad.

#2 what tipping point? the studies are crap as their sample size is too small or too short, depending on how you look at it, not enough info and more al gore propaganda 

#3 we hit the tipping point and the effects are almost immediate, the entire ecology of the planet changes, where things once grew , they grow no more, what was once a barren sea of dirt and rock in the deserts becomes a desert of snow and ice, long story short, we're all fubar'd and you better be making your way down toward the equator, nowhere more then a thousands miles from the equator will survive...and personally i don't prep for the "earth enders" or "semi-global human extirpation" i just don't see the point or the possibility of even prepping for such a thing.......


personally, i'd rather keep my eye on the more immediate threats that i can actually prep for, prepping for a 1 year long hike down to south America doesn't really cut it for me, lol

good read and appreciate the update!


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## FrankW (Mar 10, 2012)

No where did it say its an immmdiate earth ender..
Quite the opposite.

it just means change is accelerating and essentially irreversible.

You can make fun of a reality you dont understand as much as you like but eventually reality will come to you when your grandchildren are starving because there is a 10 year dustbowl in 80% of US arable land.

If you want toget a glimpse of our future imagine a Haiti or Somalia without outside aid......

How do we get there?...an inexorable slide towards lower and lower standards of living until finally a large chunk of humanity dies thru famine and resource wars.

how do you prep for it?

Only 2 ways:

1)become self sufficient ( as many here are doing) or 
2) make sure your abilities are unique and in demand even in a declining and compromised social, economic, and natural environment.

So try to get your kids to become doctors, chemical engineers (gasoline from coal liquification) , nuclear engineers. etc

that way they will always have a good income even if 10,20% of the population starves.
if you are a highly productive person you will be ok.

For those who have been paying attention the decline has already been happening one little step by another.

things that were normal 10 years ago.. say a 17 year old driving is now more rare.
in another 10 year it will be even more rare..

If your smart and educated that by itself no longer guarantees a good standard of living.
You also have to rely on serendipity now.

Blue collar workers making comfortable middle class salaries with simple tasks that only require a 10th grade education (old style UAW jobs)??
Going the way of the dinosaurs...

Step-by- step it is happening.
not with a bang but a whimper.


On top of that our system doesnt exactly guarantee leaders who will make hard decisions.

Instead we are making things worse by borrowing money from china to give it to our poor and old via entitlements... and so they can live in relative comfort 
This is insane and not sustainable even in an era of plenty .

the golden Age is ending. 
get used to it


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## Ration-AL (Apr 18, 2012)

BlueZ said:


> No where did it say its an immmdiate earth ender..
> Quite the opposite.
> 
> it just means change is accelerating and essentially irreversible.
> ...


ha, i think the golden age is over bud, and like i said, it could go down 1 of 3 ways, a long long slow decline till it's over was number one, and realistically anyway it goes down, the climate changing won't be the issue, it will be the economic and other issues that surround it, which honestly, we're already doing to ourselves regardless of the environmental concerns or tipping point or whatever, like you said in your original post, there's probably alot of other things alot closer to home right now to worry about as opposed to planet earth physically not being able to support the number of people anymore, in my reading we had another 50 years until we even started to see any effects....and then maybe another 50-100 before we get to all out war for resources...but those papers are always very speculative at best...

anyways, i already planned on my kid becoming president or an astrophysicist, so not much has really changed there either, like i said before, i'm not trying to take anything away from you, i personally just have alot more on my plate right now to worry about than climate change, but again i appreciate the info and is a good thing to keep an eye on, but i'm not going to worry about quite yet, maybe in another 10-15 years i'll start looking at it harder, lol, until then i'll just do like everyone else, reduce,reuse,recycle 


also something to make you feel better:
http://www.popsci.com/science/artic...arepants-shroom-sneezing-monkey-and-worm-hell


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## Pixelphoto (May 31, 2012)

never happen


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## OldCootHillbilly (Jul 9, 2010)

Mankind may destroy itself, the planet won't care one eye ota, mother nature will start the repairs as soon as we all be gone. 

Species come an go, man will be no different. I guess I ain't gonna worry bout it much, I try an help ma nature whenever I can. I ain't gettin ready fer the end a the world cause if that happens, no amount a stuff will save it. I work on things that are in the nearer future. Storms, food shortage an what not.

I don't put alotta faith in studies no more, the can be done so ya get the answer yall be lookin fer. But bein a free country folks can get ready fer whatever they think will be their concerns, I won't tell ya what ya need ta be ready fer. I think long before this "tippin point" a pandemic er somethin like that will thin out the herds.


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## Padre (Oct 7, 2011)

*What'ya gonna do...*



OldCootHillbilly said:


> Mankind may destroy itself, the planet won't care one eye ota, mother nature will start the repairs as soon as we all be gone....
> 
> I don't put alotta faith in studies no more, the can be done so ya get the answer yall be lookin fer.


We think a lot of ourselves and our abilities. Maybe we will destroy the planet, maybe not, maybe nature's God will fix the issue before we have a chance to destroy the planet, I don't know.

But to echo OldCoot these studies have been coming out for the past 100 years predicting the end of the world in 20 years, and yet we are still here. Before that religious nuts (and I am a very religious person) did the same, its all gnostic superstition or plan old greed. As they say it sells news papers....

Fact is even if the science was right, what can you do about it? Are you going to fix the problem? Neuter everyone by force, or open up your own ovens and gas chambers. I hope not, all that drama is getting a little old!!!

We need to sit back and accept the fact that we are not God, we can prepare for what we can prepare, and to the rest find peace in saying: thy will be done.


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## mojo4 (Feb 19, 2012)

I agree coot and padre. I prep so that I can be self sufficient no matter what happens. If the earth becomes unliveable for humans then no amount of preps will change that. Like in another thread about the nuke disaster in Japan, how can you prep for that?? If a nuke plant melts down halfway around the world and now all the food I can grow and all the soil is hopelessly contaminated for hundreds of years? There is no prepping for that. No amount of food and nuke suits will help. Hell, you can't prep for nuke contamination for a year anyway. You would need a carved out mountain filled with radiation suits and gas masks. Nope, there are things that are just a game over. Either you adapt and survive or adios muchachos!!


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## chris88idaho (Apr 30, 2012)

I agree. I am not sure what exactly is going to happen first, i try to stay open and prepare for as much as i can. Media tries to down play the odds of an incident occurring, but when you consider the odds of everything that could go wrong the probably of "something happening" are almost certain. 

History teaches us the poop always hits the fan eventually. 

I would hate to focus on preping for a pandemic just to have hyperinfation or earth quake to hit.


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## bahramthered (Mar 10, 2012)

Shit Happens, just because we're around to think it's bad is kinda beside the point.

For 20 some years we're had the technology to skid putting our crops in the dirt outside. If a seriously bad thing happened we'd adapt. I just shudder to think who might be in charge of the selection of who gets to eat and who starves as the capacity is built.


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## Kenny78 (Jul 12, 2011)

I guess we caused the Little Ice Age too. Look at the graph of sunspots in the link. Increased activity leads to hot temperatures and low activity leads to icing in the north atlantic and the disappearance of most viking colonies. I wonder if thier old chevy trucks and coal fired power plants caused that too? I  do think we should be responsible with the environment, but climate change is far from proven fact

http://www.eh-resources.org/timeline/timeline_lia.html


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## prepare_survive_thrive (May 7, 2012)

I agree with most here in not worrying about things we can't change. I think that most everyone on here started "prepping" because they hate feeling helpless to change or affect their own future. None here will roll over and simply accept a fate that men, government, foreign enemies, or even mother nature tries to impose on us. God put in every living thing in nature a fight to survive. Now if God wants the slate wiped clean i will accept his will whole heartedly, but science be damned Im not giving up just cause a study says its not worth the struggle. Now i say a prayer to God that his will be done and look forward to a better time from days gone by. To quote a song," we will fight or we will fall till the angels save us all."


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

OldCootHillbilly said:


> I don't put alotta faith in studies no more, they can be done so ya get the answer yall be lookin fer.


So true. :beercheer: And coming out of UC Berkeley makes it even more suspect.


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## Ration-AL (Apr 18, 2012)

UncleJoe said:


> So true. :beercheer: And coming out of UC Berkeley makes it even more suspect.


that and it was funded by the WWF (the world wildlife fund)
http://www.worldwildlife.org/science/LivingPlanetReport/index.html



> We're gobbling up the planet's resources at such an alarming rate that by 2030, even a second Earth wouldn't be enough to sustain us, claims the World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) 2012 Living Planet Report. The research will be presented next month at a United Nations conference in Rio de Janero,


http://news.yahoo.com/2025-mankind-hits-point-no-return-075300027.html


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## UncleJoe (Jan 11, 2009)

Ration-AL said:


> that and it was funded by the WWF (the world wildlife fund)
> 
> *Quote:*
> We're gobbling up the planet's resources at such an alarming rate that by 2030, even a second Earth wouldn't be enough to sustain us, claims the World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) 2012 Living Planet Report. The research will be presented next month at a United Nations conference in Rio de Janero,


WOW! Only 18 years left. Sounds to me like it's time for a big party.  :nuts:


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## *Andi (Nov 8, 2009)

UncleJoe said:


> WOW! Only 18 years left. Sounds to me like it's time for a big party.  :nuts:


Your house or mine!!! :2thumb:

I been doing a lot of reading of late on Mother Earth and her resources ... many in our own backyard that most folks don't give a second glance to ... other to spray them with a weed killer.


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## bahramthered (Mar 10, 2012)

I love how people just say that global warming isn't proven and just don't have any evidence or just reference science bought by big oil. That's like taking cigarette companies claims about the relation between cancer and smoking. 

Just the huge loses of ice sheets across the world should worry most people. The US goverement just this year released a new mapping of what crops are growing across the country. Warm weather ones are moving north in a extreme pattern. 

So It's getting warmer. Now if you look at a long term range based mostly on secondary indicators ice cores, tree cores, etc things get complicated. The temperature has fluxlated all over. Both higher and lower long before the industrial age. Why? Well obviously all natural before the last 100 years. 

The biggest problem is the current rising trend is faster and steeper than any previous record. Then again we also have the best technology for monitoring it now as it happens over chemically analyzing ice cores and tree rings. 

Are humans causing it? From the last graphs I saw we where headed into a rise right as the industrial age began, from a low. Now due to the speed of the climb I think we're contributing to it. I also think it is mostly natural, but that doesn't mean it'll be good for us. If we can buy it back that would be good for us, for all kinda of reasons. If we don't I think we'll be in for a load of pain. But life is full of pain on this planet.


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## *Andi (Nov 8, 2009)

bahramthered said:


> Well obviously all natural before the last 100 years.




So it was all natural before the last 100 years ... interesting. As by my habit, Noaa is giving me our weather report for the day.

Our normal high is 83, the record was 95 back in 1926.
Our normal low is 62, the record is 44 from 1933.

Our drought from a few years back ... as bad as it was, did not set a weather record. The heavy, wet snowy winter we had back a few years ago, again did not set any records.

Should we be kind to Mother Earth? Yes ... but we didn't get here over night and we will not get out that quick either.

Dear ol Al's Carbon Footprint ... should we start with his reported $30,000.00 
utility bill... I think it is time for a different spokesperson. (but that is just me)


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

OldCootHillbilly said:


> ... I don't put alotta faith in studies no more, they can be done so ya get the answer yall be lookin fer. ...


Amen to that!


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## musketjim (Dec 7, 2011)

I recycle, ride my bike as much as possible and do what I can to take care of old mother earth. But I also hunt, trap and fish, burn wood and replace what I can. I don't prepare for eow scenarios, we're all toast at that point. Work hard, take care of your family and whatever friends you can:kiss:. Enjoy life and take care of yourself that's the best prep.:flower:


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## CulexPipiens (Nov 17, 2010)

OK, I gotta pour some gas on the climate change fire.... 

"USDA upgrades Plant Hardiness Zone Map"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/local/planthardinesszones/index.html

Use the slider bar in the middle of the map to show 1990 vs 2012 planting zones. Obvious migration northward of the growing zones... I'll leave it to you to decide what (if anything) is the reason for this shift.


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## OldCootHillbilly (Jul 9, 2010)

The earth runs a cycle all its own, were long fer the ride. Be why we had ice ages, then warm cycles. Man ain't been round fer most a it.


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## *Andi (Nov 8, 2009)

LOL ... I thought I had killed yet another thread!!!


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## Zanazaz (Feb 14, 2012)

Yeah, I have to agree with OldCoot, how arrogant is mankind that it thinks it can affect the climate of the Earth? Really? Really? You are going to listen to one or more scientists? And their statistics? Scientists have been wrong before and have admitted it. Show a little intelligence, and think for yourselves. Can you DO THAT?


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## Kenny78 (Jul 12, 2011)

Anybody remember this? I cant find a good picture without a link, but
http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/03/halfway-to-doomsday/

That clock puts a smile on my face every time I think about it. I also like how these revered scientists have the sun in a peak activity now but advocates wont even consider that it could be a contributor


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## *Andi (Nov 8, 2009)

CulexPipiens said:


> OK, I gotta pour some gas on the climate change fire....
> 
> "USDA upgrades Plant Hardiness Zone Map"
> 
> ...


Follow the money ...


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## dirtgrrl (Jun 5, 2011)

Zanazaz said:


> Yeah, I have to agree with OldCoot, how arrogant is mankind that it thinks it can affect the climate of the Earth? Really? Really? You are going to listen to one or more scientists? And their statistics? Scientists have been wrong before and have admitted it. Show a little intelligence, and think for yourselves. Can you DO THAT?


Show a little intelligence and think about this:

How much smallpox virus would it take to make a person very, very ill?

The answer is, very, very little.

Some organisms create effects way out of proportion to their numbers or mass. Humans are one of those organisms.

_Of course_ the earth's climate has changed over time, warming and cooling in turn. No one denies that. The problem is that we (human activities) are foot pumping the swing, going higher and higher with each arc. Eventually we're gonna tip the swing set.

And none of this would matter much at all, except that all of human civilization, including agriculture, was developed during a period of relative climate stability. Our way of life was founded on conditions that are changing. Whether one believes it is human-caused or not is irrelevant now, the point is, we should be preparing for that change.


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