Please educate us and spare us from our ignorance m'lord, we are but uneducated peasant masses within the city's poorest districts and are incapable of having access to your clearly superior to everyone else on the internet resources,

Or be the sole contributor to the culling of humans in your local area.

Wow such wit in this thread. All he was saying was at least Google something before you pass it off as UNDENIABLE FACT (and no the Telegraph doesn't count as a source). I agree he could've been a bit more tactful since it's coming off as a bit high and mighty the way he said it, but all that he's saying is that there's a lot of false information being passed around in this thread, and I'm inclined to agree.

Oof, you immediately ridiculed Mungo0 when he made his point, which is merely his opinion, but you think it's alright to talk about tests done to organisms using radiation by researchers... What organisms? What http://www.pion.cz/_sites/pion/upload/images/a14cf10a5583d19f7cfdebd63cf64382_electromagnetic-spectrum.png? Which researchers? This is exactly the type of thing he was pointing out. He didn't single anybody out, so why are you attacking him?

Colonel Martyr why is it not ok for somebody to say that in the three pages of this thread there needs to be more factual information being passed around? Does that warrant you mocking him?

If there's anybody in this thread acting as though they are superior to others or above criticism, it's not Mungo0...

It happens a lot here with the oldies.

To be fair, I am superior to everyone in this thread and above criticism. I am infallible.

You know what denotation "radiation" has in everyday language. You're being pedantic just for the hell of it. And ya, I could have spent time tracking down sources, but I've been busy doing stuff. I did the next best thing, which is point people in a direction. They have Google, too.

Mungo0 didn't even do that.

I have a degree in comprehension and I declare you've comprehended me all wrong.

Did that add anything to this discussion? No? Well.

My point wasn't that he was acting superior. My point was that although he's ostensibly got the superior understanding he may as well not have commented for all he actually contributed.

I know that in everyday language radiation is usually talking about ionizing radiation, but how do I know you didn't confuse it with some other kind of radiation (which is obviously crucial for life)? Believe it or not I've also been busy doing stuff and I don't have time to sift through article upon article on your behalf. Googling your claims hasn't given me much either so you weren't very successful in pointing us in the right direction, but hey, maybe I just svck at internet searches, I'll let the other 50 people who browse this thread do their own research on your post, since you don't have time to back up any claims you make.

... Or maybe that's not clear enough? But "I read somewhere that some people did something with radiation and organisms" is? You don't even remember what type of organism it was?

___

I should've known better to have gotten involved in this thread, as usual, this isn't going to stop until the thread gets locked because everybody wants the last word and nobody could ever be wrong about anything, so I won't be replying to this thread again, feel free to ridicule me because who do I think I am, criticising people? The nerve of me.

Whoa, you're way too invested in this.

True, they do. But they actually tend to have a cooling effect on the climate because their ash clouds reflect a lot of sunlight.

Partial truth. The effects of the ash is short-term. The gas release is long-term. Brief cooling, sustained warming.

True, but the system could handle the odd eruption before the Industrial Revolution, since the baseline for greenhouse gases was much lower. The effects of the ash can be pretty large in the short term, too, off-setting the warming from the gases somewhat.

It isn't about saving the planet, it's about saving -us-. The way we're going is a certain doom for humanity as a whole, and I'm astounded by what evolution has created: Humans, completely different than any other species on earth and the known universe. I'd hate to see us going under simply because, despite how smart we are, we're oh-so-stupid, arrogant and careless. Maybe it's meant to be, as a lesson to all other intelligent species out there: Don't act like humans, be smart about being smart.

I actually see cockroaches and rats out living us.

Rats thrive because of humans, once we're gone they'll die in masses.

Cockroaches I'm not sure of though, naturally they're a less complex species and need less to live than humans, so it's a pretty safe bet to think they'll outlive us.

The question is, will tigers outlive us? Whales? Kangaroos? Etc. We won't go alone when we go, we'll be taking a lot of the earth's species with us.

I really like llamas, I think they rule. There was a document of sorts about house cats gone wild in Chernobyl, it was so nice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park_%28film%29

Calm down guys. No need to get offended and worked up. I didn't post this so we could be at each other's throats - I just wanted to point out how the largest nuclear disaster in the history of mankind has created the largest nature reserve to ever exist in Europe - it's kind of interesting how things work out. "Massive man-made disaster" = "Impenetrable Nature Reserve"

Unfortunately, collectively, we're no smarter than yeast in a petri dish. Every species will multiply and use up resources until it's limited by natural constraints or dies off when resources are exhausted. We're no different. Instead of utilising our intellect to plan ahead and live within our means on this small planet we've acted as if resources are limitless and the rest of nature totally expendable.

Beat on... what exactly? Population control and limiting modernization? Even so, I think it would take a collective effort that regulated the entire worlds population to really make a difference.

As third world countries turn into first world countries, their birth rates fall to sustainable levels - in some cases dropping so low that it has the potential to create a population crash because people aren't having enough kids. As for modernization - that's not as much of a problem as people would like to think - it's all about how we use our resources. With proper infrastructure and regulation we don't really have much of a limit on the population this planet can support - we could easily rise to ten times our current population, provided that we appropriated proper regulations, built the necessary infrastructure, and used renewable energy sources to maintain our quality of life.

This idea that we have to scale back our population or significantly degrade our quality of life to keep things stable is simply not true - the entire reason our planet is in peril right now is because the methods we use for power production and resource extraction are simply unsustainable - it has nothing to do with the number of resources we need or use, and everything to do with how we collect them.

Just compare the mining methods http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/solutions/greenmining.html, to strip mining where we dig a huge pit in the Earth, letting toxic metals accumulate and just never cleaning it up. The environmental problems we're having are not about the number or quantity of resources we're using - it's all about how we extract those resources from the surrounding environment, and whether we do so in a safe environmentally friendly manner, or just dig a giant toxic pit because that's faster and cheaper.

Ok. Hopefully one day we will get there. I think renewable energy sources that are reliable and dependable will be a big step in the right direction but the technology still has a ways to go, from what I understand.

Hmmm

http://survivalacres.com/blog/oxygen-levels-are-dropping/

Er, not that I deny that trees do help with the oxygen bit, but what of areas with no trees like the desert? Camels and other critters seem to do just fine without trees, so do the polar bears, seals, and penguins of the Artic and Antarctica.

<--- Is literally the last person who knows this stuff, so forgive me.

The trees put oxygen into the worlds atmosphere, similar to if you pee in the bath it isn't just the water near your bajoolies that ends up pee-ridden, forests aren't the only place with oxygen. And there are plants in the desert.