The Earth will take care of itself and wipe out as many people as needed via a pandemic and/or natural disaster.
Yep. Yellowstone park is the only one I've read about and when it blows up the world is in for a huge surprise. Also read up on The Toba catastrophe theory
I meant planet EDIT: Isaac Newton predicted the end of the world in 2060 Here's something to chew on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_of_civilization
Yeah, kinda reminded me of the 70's disaster movies... Man I miss that stuff.. Doom and Gloom is soooo friggin cool!
Is there such a thing? I prefer National Geographic though.. discovery has become too mainstream... motorcycles, cars and game shows... what kinda crap is that?
Actually its worse for the earth since its more of a closed system than easter island. Easter Islanders could still go fishing in the sea and it was far more feasable for them to leave the island and go elsewhere to access new resources.
Looking at an island your faced with several problems, lack of space, small governments, lack of natural resources. Easter island began with all types of resources, but with its small size it eventually ran out of these resources. They were left with a string of military prone leaders who further destroyed society. One big problem for easter islanders is they had nothing left to trade. This shouldnt be as much of a problem in the modern age when countries with little to trade tend to diversify into tech heavy sectors which allow an increase in economy without large natural resources. Another problem in easter island was a lack of good ground for farming. With modern farming methods farm lands can be replenished and continue supporting good crops year after year. New genetically altered, and cross bred crops give greater yields per/acre then before. Also We're talking about an entire world worth of space compared with easter island's rather small size. I heard a few years ago that a farming area the size of texas could feed the entire world if appropriate modern farming methods are used. How many texas sized chunks fit into our world? Switching to fish was not exactly feasible.. they already fished, however a single food source was not enough to feed their society. As for easter islanders leaving.. perhaps its true they could have left (if they could have built boats with no wood left on the island, and if those boats could make a journey to other islands). Remember Easter Island is considered one of the most remote inhabited islands. And your right about us not being able to leave earth at this point.
Look, there are finite resources in the world. These include the atmosphere and water. Human population growth, economic growth, and resource USE are all increasing exponentially. Resources supplies are finite. The Earth is a finite system. At some point of exponential human population growth there will be breaking point and resource supplies will collapse. In this analogy the entire Earth is like Easter Island. The world population is like Easter Island's population. Do you know of any nearby inhabitable planets? Earth is a pretty remote Island too.
Just think if Benji had his way the Turkey would have been the national symbol in the US and we'd all be eating Bald Eagles at Thanksgiving.