Pictorial Essay: 10 Things Your Grandchildren May NEVER See

There are those who either greatly minimize or, dismiss with utter contempt, the idea of resource depletion. Some people even scoff at the idea the earth is already too full with 7 billion people. They say the earth can easily support 20 billion … as they watch the last acre of rainforest burn to the ground. They paved Paradise, put up a parking lot.

For example, they’ll admit we’re running out of oil …. BUT, as sure as the rising sun, scientists WILL come up with alternative solutions! Some people’s faith in science to solve humanity’s problems stretches credulity to its maximum. Sure, science has accomplished truly magnificent things, such as sliced bread. But how many stop to think that science – or, the results of scientific invention — produces just as many problems as it solves?  Maybe you believe science will eventually come up with a Star Trek Food Replicator? Press 1 for a steak, 2 for a burrito. Will science invent a new sardine before the last one winds up in a tin? Good luck with your pie-in-the-sky dreams.

The fact of the matter (as I see it) is that your grandchildren – perhaps even your children, if they are under ten years old – will NOT enjoy several things you have today. Some of the items in this list will be gone altogether. And some will be so altered and different from the original that the resemblance will be in name only.

Print the picture below, frame it, and hang it in your grandchild’s bedroom. This will help them prepare for their depleted futures.

It will be interesting to see the breakdown between The Deniers (“You’re full of crap! Everything will be OK!!”) vs. The Reasonable Ones With A Brain. Let’s get started.

———————————————

Ms. Freud wants to go to The Great Beyond this way: Death By Chocolate

SSS, he WILL go to The Great Beyond this way: Chocolate Covered Bacon!! As far as I am concerned, chocolate is one of the best proofs that God exists.

CHOCOLATE: —  The world’s largest chocolate producers warned that last year the world ate roughly 70,000 metric tons more cocoa than it produced. Stockpiles are depleting. By 2020, the number is expected to reach one million metric tons. 70% of the world’s cocoa is produced in the Ivory Coast and Ghana. It takes about two years for a cacao seedling to produce fruit and about 10 years for its flavor to mature. In addition to depletion via disease and drought, farmers in large numbers are opting to grow more productive crops such as corn and rubber.

Ghana’s Nature Conservation Research Council stated that “in 20 years, chocolate will be like caviar It will become so rare and expensive that the average Joe just won’t be able to afford it.” Kennedy’s Confection magazine warns that chocolate of the future will replace cocoa and cocoa butter with cheaper ingredients like nougat, raisins, and vegetable fat, saying –“Chocolate snaps because of the level of cocoa butter. In the future the product will be more bendy and sludgy in texture, and it won’t taste nearly as good.” Lastly, do you feel guilty when you gorge your face with Lady Godiva’s? You should! Cocoa beans aren’t ‘fair-trade’ so a lot of what you stuff in your mouth actually came from child slave labor.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/21/cocoa-crisis-world-chocolate-stash-melting-away

———————————————

In 1868 French astronomer Pierre Janssen studied light from the Sun during a solar eclipse. He found proof that a new element existed in the Sun. He called the element helium … derived from the Greek, ‘helios’ meaning sun. Helium also pays homage to Helios, a Greco-Roman sun god.

HELIUM: — “Stucky, you’ve lost your damned mind!! Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe, ya douchenozzle!!!” Patience, grasshopper. The world’s supply of helium is a byproduct of natural gas production. BUT, Dr. Chan, Evan Pugh Professor of Physics at Penn State says — “Very few natural gas well in the world have enough helium in the well to make it economical to separate helium from natural gas. The gas wells with the most helium have only about 0.3 percent, so it is in short supply.”

SO-O-O, the USA!USA!USA! has been stockpiling helium since the 1960s in a National Helium Reserve called the Bush Dome, a deep underground reservoir outside of Amarillo, Texas. By the mid 1970s 1.2 billion cubic meters of the gas was stored there. The current reserve is approximately 0.6 billion cubic meters, or roughly only 4 times the current world market. BUT, the 1996 the Helium Privatization Act mandated that the Department of the Interior sell off all the stockpiled helium. More wonderful strategic planning from the Baboons that run this government.

Nevertheless, if cost is not an issue, the amount of helium gas trapped in current and future gas wells worldwide could last between 200 or 300 years (aka, kicking the can down the road). BUT, cost IS an issue, and the price of Helium will shorty become astronomical. Helium is an absolutely essential resource in technologies such as rocket engines, surveillance devices, and medical imaging ….. so look for future MRIs to cost one million Quatloos per visit.

http://priceonomics.com/the-increasing-scarcity-of-helium/

———————————————

SARDINES: — Read this slowly. A fishing fleet returned from months at sea in the Canadian waters ….. and returned with ZERO sardines. Yup, not even one stinky little fishy. And, ya wanna know why? But, first .. QUICK!! … get all your Globull Warming friends! The reason sardines are becoming rarer than a flattering picture of Hillary Clinton is because the water is getting cooler! Hardy har har!!

Also, study after study after study confirms that at the present rate of consumption and pollution, the world’s oceans will be empty of fish by 2050. (McDonalds McShits will still be serving McFish nuggets in 2051, but what it will take scientists another ten years to determine what it actually is.)

http://www.trueactivist.com/sardine-disappearance-was-foreseen-but-ignored/

———————————————

Actual photo of a colony of Staphylococcus being attacked by antibiotics 

ANTIBIOTICS: — In 1945, while accepting a Nobel Prize for discovering penicillin, Alexander Fleming warned of a future in which antibiotics had been used with abandon and bacteria had grown resistant to them. That future has arrived. The evil little bastards are just smarter than us, evolving and changing faster than we can fight them. Some of you horny men here need to cage the snake, because there is currently only ONE drug left which effectively treats gonorrhea. Spank that monkey!

All the easy antibiotic drugs have been made, drug companies are running out of ideas, and the pipeline is dry. Maybe that’s why they’re spending so many billions of dollars on fake brain “diseases”. Drug-resistant tuberculosis is mushrooming, killing almost 200,000 people last year. And just wait until animals can no longer be treated effectively. Antibiotics are the lifeblood of the meat and poultry industries … around 80% of all antibiotics used in the U.S. each year are given to animals.

http://www.news.utoronto.ca/why-world-running-out-antibiotics

———————————————

PHOSPHOROUS: — Every living thing on Earth— from plants to humans— depends on phosphorous to produce healthy cells. Until the mid-20th century, farmers maintained phosphorus levels in soil by composting plant waste or spreading phosphorus-rich manure. But, you can’t feed billions of people that way so, new mining and refining techniques gave rise to the modern phosphorus fertilizer industry.

But, phosphate mining is an environmentally devastating project—it requires stripping large swaths of land and generates massive amounts of a waste product called phosphogypsum, which contains low levels of radiation as well as a range of toxic heavy metals. Phosphate that ends up in our rivers and lakes cause algal blooms—which, as they decompose and suck up oxygen, create dead zones. Despite the prevalence of phosphorus on earth, — the 11^th most abundant mineral on earth — only a small percentage of it can be mined because of physical, economic, energy or legal constraints.

Phosphorus used in fertilizer comes from phosphate rock, a finite resource. So, “peak phosphorous” is about how much longer phosphate rock reserves can economically be extracted. Ninety percent of the phosphate rock reserves are located in just five countries: Morocco, China, South Africa, Jordan and the United States. The U.S., has 25 years of phosphate rock reserves left, most of it in Florida. The rest of the world’s known reserves are about 80 years. Sure, it is possible huge new deposits might be discovered. But, if not, humanity will face a massive die off before your grandkids reach old age.

http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/solutions/phosphorus.html

———————————————

TEQUILA: — Tequila comes from the SOB blue agave cactus. The SOB takes twelve freaking years before the fructose at the core of the plant can be removed. It’s prone to various diseases. And, the SOB grows only in a very very specific climate, at high altitudes, and in red volcanic soil. In other words, the SOB is pretty much limited to the Mexican state of Jalisco and surrounding areas.

The USA!USA!USA! began substituting gasoline with biofuels made from corn-based ethanol. One side effect was that ethanol prices skyrocketed to the point that farmers in Mexico started abandoning the SOB agave in favor of corn to ship off to the USA! Next on their “to grow” list will be Sweet Mary Jane and cocaine plants. OK … we might not really run out of Tequila. But, it’s on this list because of one basic precept; never trust a Mexico Mexican … especially if he has shit you need and want.

http://www.bevindustry.com/articles/87318-agave-supply-crisis-and-mitigation-strategies-for-tequila-distillers

———————————————

GOOD DIRT: — Dirt is wonderful, magnificent, a blessing, and amazingly complicated stuff. Made from sand or silt, then years of plants adding nutrition, bugs and worms adding their excrement, dying and rotting. The resulting organic matter feeds a whole underground ecology that aerates the soil, fixes nutrients, and makes it hospitable for plant life, and over time the process feeds back on itself.

If the soil does not wash away or get parched by drought, it very gradually thickens. HOW gradually? It takes about 500 YEARS to make ONE INCH of topsoil. The minimal soil depth for agricultural production is 6 inches …. 3,000 years of effort by Mother Earth.

In the past 50 years about 33% of the world’s cropland has been abandoned because of soil erosion pollution, degradation, and human construction activity. The United States is losing soil 10 times FASTER than the natural REPLENISHMENT rate! China and India are losing soil 30 to 40 times faster. Do the math. Well, I’ll help you. Most of the world’s countries have less than 75 years of topsoil left.

http://www.fewresources.org/soil-science-and-society-were-running-out-of-dirt.html

Following is a trailer for a great movie about dirt.

Here is the link for the full movie, totally free: http://www.hulu.com/watch/191666

———————————————

ANIMALS: — Minimum viable population (MVP) is the lowest population of a species, such that it can survive in the wild. The general “25/250” rule of thumb rule prescribes a short-term effective population size of 25 mating pairs to prevent an unacceptable rate of inbreeding, and a long-term population of 250 to maintain overall genetic variability. MVP does not take human intervention into account … either positive, such as conservation attempts, or negative such as poaching, deforestation, and construction.

The Javan Rhinoceros (Indonesia and Vietnam) is toast. There are fewer than 60 left .. and they are STILL being poached.

There are only about 3,200 tigers remaining in the wild (a century ago there were over 100,000). Tiger habitats are being destroyed by forest cutting, construction, and poaching. Most experts say wild tigers will be extinct in the next 15-25 years.

I’ll stop there, even though just this section could be a 50,000 word post. If you really want to become depressed over what humans are doing to the animal kingdom, then subscribe to National Geographic. Or, you could just read this article below … about 25% of the world’s mammals facing extinction.  

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/one-quarter-of-worlds-mammals-face-extinction/

———————————————

GOLD: — The picture above represents ALL THE GOLD THAT HAS BEEN MINED IN HUMAN HISTORY. That’s about 75% of all known reserves. Amazing, is it not, how relatively small that pile is? Let’s call that “Easy Gold”. It’s all been mined. What’s left now is “Hard Gold”. And there’s only about 20 years of it left. Really, you should buy and least one gold coin, and keep it, to show your grandkids what nations killed and died for in order to obtain it.

http://www.sbcgold.com/blog/the-earths-gold-supply-is-vanishing-fast/

OTHER METALS: Diamonds and zinc will be enough for 20 years of extraction. The explored reserves of platinum, copper and nickel will last for 40 years. Teach your grandkids how to till a field with a wooden plow and a horse.

http://www.visualcapitalist.com/forecast-when-well-run-out-of-each-metal/

———————————————

I would like to end this somewhat depressing article on a Positive Note …. about something we will NEVER run out of.

Author: Stucky

I'm right, you're wrong. Deal with it. View all posts by Stucky