Will our technological advancements keep up with our population increase?
9 billion by 2050? No prob!
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No, resources stretched thin!
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Impossible to answer with 100% confidence but I sure hope so! Human ingenuity has shown again and again that it is capable of overcoming great obstacles. However, I fear that the next 50-100 years will include some of the greatest challenges that we have ever faced. Global Warming definitely scares me the most. Side: 9 billion by 2050? No prob!
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If we continue to breed at the rate we are, then no. Peak oil is still a big obstacle to overcome; switching to renewable sources of energy would be a difficult task in itself. And that's just energy - we'd still have to find a substitute for oil in manufacturing the thousands of products that depend on oil (such as plastics, which alone encompass a massive portion of manufactured goods). Food items depend on oil as well, and shipping rations via air to starving regions of the world may prove to be infeasible if an energy source is not found to replace jet fuel. I hope that technological advancements can keep up with population increases. However, peak oil, land loss, and cropland destruction may prove to be formidable obstacles to stall scientific advancements. The fact is that we are reproducing at an unsustainable rate, and when the former science capital of the world has degenerated to a nation of couch potatoes, spending money on a pointless war and squandering money it doesn't have, things look grim. Side: No, resources stretched thin!
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I find that when I've been writing arguments, because this is the first time I've looked extensively into this subject, my thoughts are very scattered and disorganized. I can appreciate the knowledge and overall understanding of this subject-matter that you have. I think people fail to see that new technology does not equal new resources and that a strain on the resources will also result on a strain in the development of newer technologies. We can only hope we find technology that maximizes usefullness of the resources we have left. I had more to say, but I'm drawing a blank....time for sleep Side: No, resources stretched thin!
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