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Which do you believe is the biggest immediate threat to mankind?

Which do you believe is the biggest immediate threat to mankind?

  • Global Warming

    Votes: 11 50.0%

  • Bird Flu

    Votes: 11 50.0%
  • Total voters
    22
You guys, I really don't think we have to worry about bird flu killing millions. If we didn't have any modern medical protection, I'd say yeah, we should be worried. But if something was going to wipe us out, surely it would have been SARS. Really, I don't think we have anything to worry about. I'd be more worried about terrorists, much more so.
 
steen said:
And then we will ALL die, just like with the Spanish Flu. Oh, wait, most people DIDN'T die, they developed immunity :doh
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...except I didn't say we would all die. We wouldn't ALL die from global warming either, and we probably wouldn't ALL die from nuclear war. What's your point? I fail to see where you're going with this line of thinking.

Perhaps your definition of something being a "threat to mankind" differs from mine, but it hardly has to be the extinction of the species.
 
That some people here think global warming is the worst threat shows how much hysteria has been generated by that. During the flu pandemic of 1918, and the Black Plague in the 14th century, people fell dead in rows. The avian flu has the potential to be by far the biggest threat now.
 
"Global Warming" signifies nothing more than the fact that currently, the earth is in a warming phase. Goes through those a lot.

I think what you meant to put as an option was "Greenhouse Warming," which is the theory that human actions are resulting in a warming of the earth that will have significant long term effects on the planet.

Unfortunately, there's not a shred of evidence to support the theory of "Greenhouse warming." So I'd have to say Bird Flu.
 
alphamale said:
That some people here think global warming is the worst threat shows how much hysteria has been generated by that. During the flu pandemic of 1918, and the Black Plague in the 14th century, people fell dead in rows. The avian flu has the potential to be by far the biggest threat now.
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You are exactly right..Bird flu could destroy mankind if no cure is found.....

I hate to scare people but that is a fact........
 
alphamale said:
That some people here think global warming is the worst threat shows how much hysteria has been generated by that. During the flu pandemic of 1918, and the Black Plague in the 14th century, people fell dead in rows. The avian flu has the potential to be by far the biggest threat now.
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Well, to be fair, during the Plague (it's either the Plague, or the Black Death, not the Black Plague...sorry, a teacher in high school was neurotic about that), people died of a bacteria, not of a virus. If the Black Death were to resurface today, it could be easily killed with regular old penicillin. It's the viruses that are a problem, and those had much lower mortality rates.
 
RightatNYU said:
"Global Warming" signifies nothing more than the fact that currently, the earth is in a warming phase. Goes through those a lot.

I think what you meant to put as an option was "Greenhouse Warming," which is the theory that human actions are resulting in a warming of the earth that will have significant long term effects on the planet.

Unfortunately, there's not a shred of evidence to support the theory of "Greenhouse warming." So I'd have to say Bird Flu.
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There's plenty of scientific evidence to suggest that human actions are causing global warming. But I agree that the threat is wildly overblown.
 
Navy Pride said:
You are exactly right..Bird flu could destroy mankind if no cure is found.....

I hate to scare people but that is a fact........
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Let's not get carried away. It has the potential to kill millions of people, but it does not have the potential to destroy mankind. Mankind has survived much worse.
 
RightatNYU said:
Well, to be fair, during the Plague (it's either the Plague, or the Black Death, not the Black Plague...sorry, a teacher in high school was neurotic about that), people died of a bacteria, not of a virus. If the Black Death were to resurface today, it could be easily killed with regular old penicillin. It's the viruses that are a problem, and those had much lower mortality rates.
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I know that the avian flu is a virus. I was merely pointing out the consequences of a deadly, incurable, contageous disease. And such a contagion would probably be FAR worse in its consequences today, because people, the carriers of a person-to-person mutated virus, are far more mobile than in the middle ages, and viruses quickly mutate and are a far more formidable enemy than a bacterium.
 
Kandahar said:
There's plenty of scientific evidence to suggest that human actions are causing global warming.
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Well, no. What is available is questionable simulations and correlation studies, no proof.
 
alphamale said:
the carriers of a person-to-person mutated virus, are far more mobile than in the middle ages
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A very true point. In today's world, the virus would spread far quicker than we could hope to contain it.
 
RightatNYU said:
Well, to be fair, during the Plague (it's either the Plague, or the Black Death, not the Black Plague...sorry, a teacher in high school was neurotic about that), people died of a bacteria, not of a virus. If the Black Death were to resurface today, it could be easily killed with regular old penicillin. It's the viruses that are a problem, and those had much lower mortality rates.
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You're right on all points except one. Some bacteria have evolved enough resistance to antibiotics to re-emerge as health threats. So I wouldn't rule a bacterial plague out as a menace.

The bug doesn't have to kill all of us to be a menace, I'm sure global 3% mrotality rate would be devastating - just the expense of disposing of 180,000,000 bodies would beggar us. 10% is probably beyond imagination, and a 50% mortality rate would probably forever change human society.

Scenarios like "Earth Abides" or "The Stand" with 99.9+% is probably impossible, though Stewart does mention that effects besides plague would act to wipe out the survivors. He mentions accidents, depression, alcoholism in a world of unlimited free booze, and wild animals all acting to prey upon the isolated social animal. He doesn't mention war, which I see as a distinct probability well before the numbers of infected dead reached a quarter billion.
 
Let me get this right: hundreds of thousands of people every day die from malnutrition and you're worried about chickens with colds? :lol:
 
vergiss said:
Let me get this right: hundreds of thousands of people every day die from malnutrition and you're worried about chickens with colds? :lol:
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Of course. The people posting on this forum don't stand a chance in Hell of dying of malnutrition-- most of us can't even imagine it.

Bird flu? That can get any one of us.

Not that I'm real worried about it, myself. More likely to be struck by lightning.

RightatNYU said:
"Global Warming" signifies nothing more than the fact that currently, the earth is in a warming phase. Goes through those a lot.

I think what you meant to put as an option was "Greenhouse Warming," which is the theory that human actions are resulting in a warming of the earth that will have significant long term effects on the planet.

Unfortunately, there's not a shred of evidence to support the theory of "Greenhouse warming."
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Just because it's a natural phenomenon doesn't mean it isn't a threat.

After all, it's not like the dinosaurs had an industrialized society pumping hundreds of metric tons of various crap into the atmosphere every year, or they doused themselves with "meteor bait". The world changed and they all up and died, just like that.

Of course, I also think that's another ridiculously overblown threat.
 
Global warming, without a doubt. The virus has not yet mutated into a form which can spread from person to person, and it may never mutate. Meaning that it's not as bigger deal as people are insistant on making it.
 
Terrorism, in my view, is the biggest threat to mankind. Terrorism is the disease that can trigger armeggedon in my view.
 
ladyflash said:
Global warming, without a doubt. The virus has not yet mutated into a form which can spread from person to person, and it may never mutate. Meaning that it's not as bigger deal as people are insistant on making it.
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I've heard epidemiologists on TV saying that either this virus, or some other like AIDS or ebola, causing massive world-wide contagion is just a matter of time - it's when not if. Global warming means mostly things like the island of ooga-booga in the south pacific floods, and siberia becomes suitable for farming.
 
Kandahar said:
Perhaps your definition of something being a "threat to mankind" differs from mine, but it hardly has to be the extinction of the species.
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it is pretty much ALWAYS the case that habitat destruction or degredatiion is a greater threat to a species than hunting or killing off individuals.
 
RightatNYU said:
A very true point. In today's world, the virus would spread far quicker than we could hope to contain it.
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And fortunately, the human immune system is pretty good at overcoming this problem.
 
alphamale said:
I've heard epidemiologists on TV saying that either this virus, or some other like AIDS or ebola, causing massive world-wide contagion is just a matter of time - it's when not if. Global warming means mostly things like the island of ooga-booga in the south pacific floods, and siberia becomes suitable for farming.
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And that Africa will experience more droughts and the US will become even drier as well, having us use up irrigation reseources faster etc.
 
steen said:
And that Africa will experience more droughts and the US will become even drier as well, having us use up irrigation reseources faster etc.
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Hahahahahahahahahah. Are you really arguing that global warming will cause more droughts? Pick a side, will it cause the melting of the ice caps, flooding the coasts, or will it dry up the world?

This should be amusing.
 
RightatNYU said:
Hahahahahahahahahah. Are you really arguing that global warming will cause more droughts? Pick a side, will it cause the melting of the ice caps, flooding the coasts, or will it dry up the world?

This should be amusing.
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Of course it will cause droughts! Where the ice caps used to be anyway.

All the water is going to drift to the equator and then the earth is going to spin much faster so that it starts to get flung off into space.
 
Bird flu..this is something that has, without a doubt, been documented as a real disease that can spread rapidly. From what I've seen global warming is still a debatable topic.
 
Does anyone here remember SARS? What about the Hong Kong flu?

No.

Thus, my point.
 
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