We have only one Earth to live on

[DesiPower]

I totally agree with OP, we can have progress in a responsible way, its our greed that killing the planet. We want everything to be cheaper and cheaper and in that rush we don't care how much pollution we are are creating and how much greenhouse gases we are releasing. 10 - 15 years ago we used to be more responsible, goods that are manufactured for our consumption were produced with much cleaner energy, right now most of the factories building good for us are powered by burning raw coal and diesel. We need to stop now, its already too late but we can still delay the impending doom.

 

[skimple]

i dump used motor oil in the ocean just to piss off the hippies.

lmfao!

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Yup, we just need to figure out how to create a massive gamma ray event. DNA deteriorates quite rapidly under any length gamma ray bombardment.
And though we may not currently be reliably capable of doing that, it's probably the most likely way to destroy all life.
All we'd need to do is to figure out how to turn the energy of thermonuclear reactions primarily to high energy gamma rays, as opposed to just a bunch of heat, and to keep the bombardment up for a few minutes.
Even a bit of hard UV kills those Waterbears, gamma rays sterilize that much more efficiently.

You said it yourself; the only option available that would reliably threaten all life is also one we can't do. And even if we could, even with a prolonged gamma radiation burst, there's no guarantee that you'd get every last bacterium and single-celled organism everywhere on Earth. And even if you did, bacteria have been discovered in satellites that we sent into orbit; eventually those orbits decay, they crash back to Earth, and the bacteria may well survive. And if even one cell survives our gamma blast, life goes on. It may take another billion years to reestablish, but it's survived.

There is nothing we as humans could do that would guarantee a 100% extinction of all life on Earth. Not that that's a bad thing; that's really not a power we should be trusted with.

 

[DesiPower]

Another area is population, the entire world needs to adopt the Chinese one child policy. Our culture, mostly fueled by religious belief, promotes having more and more children, children are gifts of god. Well, back in the days child mortality was very high and population was very low so countries and sects wanted more children to grow themselves, All religions wanted to more children so that their religion could become the biggest and strongest, countries and their kings needed armies to fight, local leaders needed more workers to work in their farms and occupy more land. Not anymore, right now we don’t need more people, we need less, we need to stop procreating.

 

[Lepton87]

Another area is population, the entire world needs to adopt the Chinese one child policy. Our culture, mostly fueled by religious belief, promotes having more and more children, children are gifts of god. Well, back in the days child mortality was very high and population was very low so countries and sects wanted more children to grow themselves, All religions wanted to more children so that their religion could become the biggest and strongest, countries and their kings needed armies to fight, local leaders needed more workers to work in their farms and occupy more land. Not anymore, right now we don’t need more people, we need less, we need to stop procreating.

We already have negative natural growth rate, not so good for our retirements.

 

[DesiPower]

We already have negative natural growth rate, not so good for our retirements.

We are in trouble anyways, even if we had positive growth, the ratio of freeloader to taxpayer is too high

 

[raildogg]

We have to also realize that science and its way of manipulating nature has played a big role in how things have and are transpiring. One reason for the population increase has to do with how much food we are growing artificially. I know its bad to say that but without so much food being grown, the population will not be as high.

Additionally, one technology leads to another technology and its a never ending cycle. You can reduce the carbon footprint in one area but in another area, you have a lot of catching up to do. It's a battle that cannot be won.

A price has to be paid for everything. Science cannot advance without paying a price for it.

But then, it's the human mind that creates this stuff. Science cannot exist by itself. So maybe, it's the human mind and its desires that are the root cause of all the issues we're dealing with.

Some may suggest that I'm saying we ought to go back to the Stone Age and they will be not be right. We cannot do that without literally destroying everything. It's that humans have to learn to live a certain way that respects nature. Drilling endlessly for oil, drilling endlessly for resources is not a respectful way of living.

When these natural disasters occur, we always cry. Yet, do we ever realize the natural disasters, in the form of taking out the natural resources, we create upon the Earth?