Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Type I civilization: can we make it?

Don't reckon many nations are going to wait for significantly better use of fossil fuels and mastering the carbon cycle. Sure, something's got to be done about it, and urgently (I disagree with ImagingGeek on that), but most likely there'll be rapidly increasing dependence on nuclear fission, like it or not, terrorists or not. I think that's going to become the mainstay, with alternative renewable sources being a small slice of the pie. Until/unless fusion arrives.

The question was: can we make it to Type 1?

I recently read about a study that attempted to predict how long it might take to reach that status given the data at hand regarding our progress up the Kardashev Scale. The answer is: anything from about 200 years to 6000 years! So, can we make it? Yes, I guess so, IF a technological civilization can be sustained long enough.

With what in particular?

Bryan

Hi Bryan


- refers to:


I suppose it depends on what you mean by "minimal mess". Actually, something would be done about it, and with minimal mess from us, using nuclear power. I know that has its own problems but, as I said, I think it's coming anyway.

By "minimal mess", I meant minimal carbon contributions from us. I can see where the confusion could have come from...

Bryan

Yes, I see. My mistake.

We've already "messed up" the carbon cycle beyond anything seen on this planet before (not more extreme than any previous climate mode, but just different than any previous mode). It will take decades at least (hopefully) for the changes to fully register and affect the various systems that compose the climate, but we live on a different planet now than we did a few hundred years ago. We have a small chance to restore the carbon cycle to within baseline parameters, but it will still take decades for those effects to restore and stabilize the climate.

Even the crust of the planet has heated up very rapidly over the past 60 years when compared with the past 500; it's like a hockeystick! google: Beltrami & "crustal heating"

In that "Restoring the Biosphere" thread, my most recent posts talks about how the carbon cycle is broken, and ways of fixing the carbon cycle.
http://www.scienceagogo.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=36396#Post36396

So my point is that we've gone way beyond "minimizing" our distortion of the carbon cycle. We need to learn to work with the carbon cycle, rather than transcending Nature, and aspire to be as good as Nature. We have finally learned about the complexities of the carbon cycle, so when will we stop acting as if we did not know. When will we stop shunting long-seqestered carbon from its hallowed grave and up into the air, and start shunting carbon back into the soil so as to restore a more stable climate and the planet's biodiversity.

It took millions of years for the planet to build enough biodiversity to draw down all the CO2 now stored in peat, humus, kerogen, lignites, coal, and oil... and finally make this planet a habitable place for the likes of us. And within a few hundred (or thousand) years we have completely undone much of what evolution accomplished over that long span. Is that moral? When our children look through the eyes of their grandchildren, what sort of world will they see. What will their ancestors see and think?

It is a moral imperative to restore the soils, seas, and skies of our mother, to restore Gaia's achievement of life everlasting.

There is a lot of work to do:
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/oceanography/faculty/mackenzie/mackenzie_TOTEM.html



Fortunatly, there is a lot of us to learn about it and to do it.... It's not about surviving until we get to be Type I, but having a habitable place to enjoy once we get there. Plus we won't get there at all, without starting over again (the 6000 years scenario), unless we have a very habitable place from which to progress (the 200 year scenario).

In addition to all the high-tech solutions to reduce emissions such as nuclear, solar, tidal, clean coal, wind, geo, desalination, etc....
Restoring biodiversity and the richness of the carbon cycle seems like the fundamental way to go.

Is the world evolving or devolving? R u a foolishly smart cynic or a wisely stupid optimist? N if u've already chosen ur position, how easily can u b convinced of the other point-of-view? This fascinating debate is so insidious it's almost like the battle of good vs evil. Earlier in the thread there were a lot of comments being made that not-so-subtly expressed which team the author was on. All my life I can remember cranky ole curmugeons grumbling that the world is going to hell. Those people made me feel mad n rebellious n self-righteous, n still do, but I've also been humbled by the many times I was wrong.

This thread is so tempting for fringe lunatics like myself to come out yapping n foaming at the mouth. I shud've expected that a lot of "Ancient Astronaut" n "God Is an Alien" sort of freaks wud have jumped all over this topic, but none did, so I guess I will. Dr Kaku's thesis insinuates that Type III's r already out there. Can we make it to Type I? Well, does some bigshot have our back?

Here we r in our infantile state of barbarism, n I c a lot of people investing a lot of time n energy caring for the youngest of our species, even the ones that don't individually belong to us. I feel like latching on to the giant assumption that this sort of nurturing behavior is exactly what is needed to help us secure a more spectacular future.

Seems reasonable to propose that a Type III civilisation wud take a quiet observation approach to dealing with us, us babies in our crib. But to just let us slaughter each other without divine intervention might b seen as unacceptably cruel.

Solution? Teach the locals to develop morals faster than they develop tools by sneaking in a few well-calculated prophets. "No, Kthulu! U're supposed to snip off Jesus' attenae so He can blend in with the regulars!" "U're right, Jor-El! Boy, that wudda been embarrassing!"

K, I'm done now.

So, mason, your argument is that encouraging a few alien types to suggest 'morals' in the guise of codes of conduct which eventually surfaced as a mulitude of belief systems was part of a PLAN? (Sorry about the shouting--- I got a bit squeaky there.)

Well---
a) This argument is probably better catered for in NQS.
and---
b) I heartily agree with your suggestion that, with alien help or not, we are indeed headed for a spectacular future already, more spectacular sounds terrifying!