Maybe this Coronavirus will be Human race's mass extinction?

If anything kills us it will be deforestation. It has such a HUGE repercussion to all the surrounding environments and yet people wont stop because they need that land to grow food and make money. It WILL kill us all though one day IMO. They estimate the south american rainforest only has about 50 years left before it hits a tipping point and does a environmental swing from rain forest to savannah which will kill the remaining rainforest (lack of rain will kill the trees).

NIML is killing us. (not in my lifetime)

Might thin out a few old crocks like me, relieving pressure on health care and pension funds. After all, everything is us 'Boomers' fault so we deserve it.

I heard honeybees are dying and once they are all gone, so will we and everything else on this planet.

people lived in desert and arid region just fine. its the WATER that is the problem, we consume way too much from a finite resource we dont even know where it comes from. there are fountains in the ocean and also sinkholes, but no one knows where they lead or come from. and we are still taugh as children that false assumption that, water comes from river, go to ocean come back as rain.....yeah, some of them sure, but not the ones we drink.

nah, something else will pick the slack, even birds are used for polinization by plants and i dont mean that fast one. plants use all animals to polinize

All that water in the ocean, why we haven't build enough plants worldwide to turn it into drinking water and water for bathing?

too expensive when you can just drill the ground or capture water from rivers. Ask israel.

Rivers and groundwater wells do run dry.

I kinda agree that it will be deforestation . I dont know if ground wells run dry , probably. but it costs to run elect pumps to bring up the water. In the long run man's mistakes and greed will leed to extinction Another example might be the , the Corona virus Man made or accidental it will probably infect us all and cause a change of some kind in society, Maybe of drugs conflict when cures are found ? or crowd reaction ( Solent Green ) if there are shortages or just behavioral changes ( like Aids ) or Mutate in some other kind of virus. ( Zombie Land ? } In any event, we now have in the future yearly, expectations of Colds, Flu, Corona virus.
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We're still here, and will be.

I have to agree. Humans are still the only species we know about that has adapted its environment to suit its needs instead of adapting to suit its environment. And while it can rightly be argued that this has significantly contributed to the situation in which we now find ourselves, I believe it will also be the trait that allows us to overcome that situation.

From my perspective, anything which pays for itself over time, and then some, is effectively free.

If you invest in the stock market this is a concept you already understand and utilize (I hope) when selecting a stock to invest in.

There may be an initial investment required, but the net result gives more back than you put into it at the start. If the net return is good enough, it makes a very good investment.

By the logic I'm seeing in this thread, you must also be opposed to stock market investment since it also requires capital investment before you see returns.

At least with renewable energy, if not for humanity and the environment's sake, you can actually invest in companies developing technology and get real money as your return.

If you really want to split hairs - renewable -energy- really IS free. The devices to harness it, at this time, may not be. But the energy is there, freely available, produced in abundance by the planet and universe, and the only thing stopping us from using it is the technology we use to harness it. Plants have made short work of photons. Researchers are looking at how to emulate this and improve the efficiency of conversion. This is the way of the future.


Let me get this straight - does anyone actually still think that utilizing a filthy, increasingly depleted resource like oil or coal, is better than developing infrastructure which once developed, can more than cover all of humanity's energy needs? Does the brown smudge permanently hovering over every city in the world not bother you? Is it a good thing to be fracking, building enormous pipelines which trash beautiful natural areas?

It doesn't even make sense anymore, be it a political, environmental or economic viewpoint. Renewable energy has been proven to be within reasonable grasp, and a number of countries that have made serious efforts to switch have achieved it.

Battery technology is getting better - electric cars accelerate faster than gasoline powered ones. Electric trucks are vastly more reliable than diesel powered trucks, and pollute far less. Airplane technology isn't there yet, but some day it will be. Within our lifetime, it will be possible to power every home in the world for a fraction of the cost of coal or oil based power generation, and with none of the environmental pollution or side effects. The creation of that infrastructure itself will replace oil and coal jobs - jobs which endanger worker health and safety (Coal lung, oil field accidents, etc. etc.)

What is the downside? Why the resistance?

You don't need to believe in man made climate change / global warming / whatever - the brown smudge of air pollution is undeniably visible to everyone. It is disgusting. All the energy money going to nations that aren't our friends bothers me. Renewable energy makes it all go away.

People point to solar panels as being expensive.

May I remind you that there are other sources of renewable energy, and that solar technology is rapidly advancing with new, CHEAP panel coating materials constantly in development.

Just a few off the top of my head:
Tidal Energy
Geothermal Energy
Wind Energy
HydroElectric Energy (And some clever folks in a few nations have linked up Hydro dams with Wind power to create closed loop systems - incredibly useful)
Solar Energy - not only solar panels, but all the variants - there are solar steam engines and turbines as well that do not require panels. There is also the emerging artificial photosynthesis technology which has been demonstrated in numerous research studies.
Bio Energy - Energy harnessed from things like algae growth

Oil drilling and production pays for itself, otherwise we would not do it.

Monetarily. The full price is yet unknown.

So does electric power. Think longer term.

Look what happens to those who gamble short term in business. Most fail.

Wind power is very inefficient for most applications, and probably has its own set of "environmental" trade offs (birds, change in wind patterns, etc.)
Hydroelectric is great where you can get it, but there is limited opportunity in a lot of parts of the world. Plus, according to more radical environmentalists, the environmental "damage" caused by hydroelectric dams is not acceptable.

Some of those others may work someday, but the technology is not yet available to make them workable and/or efficient today, either for power generation or transportation

You do no mention nuclear, which is quite environmentally friendly and should be what we are using to replace fossil fuel power generation plants.