NASA Predicts The Apocalypse. And It's Soon...

[humble3d]

NASA Predicts The Apocalypse. And It's Soon...

MEDIA AND MORE VIA THE LINK(s) below...

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1jk7go_nasa-predicts-the-apocalypse-and-it-s-soon_news

I’ve never been one for apocalyptic theories. I scoffed at films like The Day After Tomorrow and sucked my teeth at the doomsday theory of 2012. However, when a NASA-funded study comes out stating that civilization will end in the next few decades, even I have to stop and pay attention.

The report, written by applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei and a team of natural and social scientists, breaks down how and why civilization is, essentially, doomed. The team analyzed five risk factors for societal collapse: water, climate, agriculture, energy, and population. The report explains that over the past 5,000 years societies have collapsed when all of these factors converged to create two important criteria: “the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity” and “the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or “Commoners”) [poor].”

So basically, this all boils down to the fact that a) we have very limited natural resources that we already use at a rate that is above that at which the earth can produce them and b) of those already strained resources, the rich are hoarding them to their advantage leaving even less for those without money. The elites will be able to hold out longer than the masses, due to their monopoly on resources, allowing them to continue on with business as usual, despite impending catastrophe. The scientists predict that this will all result in the deterioration of society. Ain’t that grand?!

There are many who would argue that technology will save us from this terrible fate, but the study gives a Dikembe Mutombo finger wave to that one:

“Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use.”

More or less, technology, although it promotes efficiency, does more harm than good because it tends to increase the rate at which we use the resources. Oh. Great.

But wait! There is a bright light at the end of this tunnel. Motesharrei provides solutions!

“Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion.”

Oh, so stop using resources at a rate that’s not sustainable and have the elites relinquish some of their power and resources as so to provide an equal playing field for everyone? Is that all?

We’re screwed.

Even Motesharrei recognizes the improbability impossibility of the world waking up and the rich suddenly being generous to the poor. He concludes the paper by stating, “closely reflecting the reality of the world today … we find that collapse is difficult to avoid.”

Well, I hope that sobering reality went down nicely with your morning cup of coffee. Enjoy the next few decades before certain societal collapse folks! I, for one, am going to start paying closer attention to “The Walking Dead” and will be looking into learning how to farm and hunt … in New York City.

UPDATE

NASA is distancing itself from a new study that investigates how unsustainable resource exploitation and rising income inequality could potentially lead to the collapse of human civilization as we know it.

NASA officials released this statement on the study today (March 20): "A soon-to-be published research paper, 'Human and Nature Dynamics (HANDY): Modeling Inequality and Use of Resources in the Collapse or Sustainability of Societies' by University of Maryland researchers Safa Motesharrei and Eugenia Kalnay, and University of Minnesota's Jorge Rivas, was not solicited, directed or reviewed by NASA. It is an independent study by the university researchers utilizing research tools developed for a separate NASA activity. As is the case with all independent research, the views and conclusions in the paper are those of the authors alone. NASA does not endorse the paper or its conclusions."

The study, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Ecological Economics, received a lot of attention recently. For example, a story about it that ran last Friday (March 14) in the British newspaper The Guardian had been shared more than 113,000 times on Facebook as of today (March 20) and was picked up by Gizmodo and other media outlets. Many of the media reports about the forthcoming paper have made much of NASA's involvement. The Guardian's story, for example, sports the following headline: "Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'?" Such accounts motivated the space agency to issue the statement as a clarification.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1jk7go_nasa-predicts-the-apocalypse-and-it-s-soon_news?from=campaign_Outbrain&utm_source=Outbrain&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=OB_NowThisNews

http://uptownmagazine.com/2014/03/apocalypse-soon-nasa-predicts-end-world-know/

[CODYQX4]

WW3 before 2040, you can take that to the bank.

[Boops]

Finally I can rid myself of the mortgage of my house.

[smallhagrid]

Already in progress, but different than others before it:

WW3 before 2040, you can take that to the bank.

It broke out 3/11/2011 and has been going on non-stop ever since.

The central fact in this new 'war' is that everyone living openly in the biosphere is already a casualty to some degree.

Death of the world ocean - though currently viewed as 'mysterious wildlife illnesses' is already the 1st clearly visible, major mortality.

[dMog]

putin is doing his best effort forward to start it tomorrow

[Ballistic Gelatin]

I guess I won't bother making my bed tomorrow morning.

[dMog]

I guess I won't bother making my bed tomorrow morning.

just remember to wear clean underwear every day...just in case

[smallhagrid]

It is really very odd to see & hear folks joking about serious stuff whilst not really being interested at all in what threatens their very own lives.

Of course there's always some fear-porn going around that sounds so very serious (like 'ebola' right now); but the real threats are all beneath the notice for most folks.

As posted in my previous reply in this thread - we are all under threat from the death of the world ocean.

That is just 1 of the THREE serious things already well in progress that threaten almost all living creatures on this planet right now.

If more info is desired - have a look here:

//www.nsaneforums.com/topic/198471-google-buys-boston-dynamics-maker-of-wildcat-robot/?do=findComment&comment=703522

And here:
//www.nsaneforums.com/topic/198471-google-buys-boston-dynamics-maker-of-wildcat-robot/?do=findComment&comment=703591

It's sad & funny to me that I've got an old buddy who lives very near where the worst of the ocean stuff can be seen with his own eyes - and yet he denies it; his daughter & her family actually moved to Japan AFTER 3/11 too - and they all deny there is any danger in that at all besides.

(People sure are funny...)