A scientist has made the shocking claim that there’s a 49% chance the world will end in just 25 years. Jared Diamond, American scientist and historian, predicted civilisation could collapse by 2050. He told Intelligencer: “I would estimate the chances are about 49% that the world as we know it will collapse by about 2050.”

Diamond explained that fisheries and farms across the globe are being “managed unsustainably”, causing resources to be depleted at an alarming rate. He added: "At the rate we’re going now, resources that are essential for complex societies are being managed unsustainably. Fisheries around the world, most fisheries are being managed unsustainably, and they’re getting depleted.

“Farms around the world, most farms are being managed unsustainably. Soil, topsoil around the world. Fresh water around the world is being managed unsustainably.”

The Pulitzer Prize winning author warned that we must come up with more sustainable practices by 2050, “or it’ll be too late”.

  • Jo Miran@lemmy.ml
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    7 days ago

    The collapse of society “as we know it” where we as a species cannot survive by following the same.lifestyle we have depended on in the past.

    Our company helps manage a significant percentage of a critical piece of nationwide infrastructure. With what I see everyday, my wife and I have decided to buy fertile land that can be farmed and has its own source of subterranean water so that we can grow enough food to survive (we already switched to plant based diets). We also are investing heavily so that our home can be “off-grid”. Summer is covered, but we are still working on winter power generation.

    We are not at “prepper” level, but if you’re building a new home, why not try to build in some resiliency?

    • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Funny I’m in the process of going solar and where I live, I’m not allowed to go off grid. How stupid is that?

      • Nomecks@lemmy.ca
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        5 days ago

        You can still buy a battery bank and hybrid inverter that’ll do solar -> battery -> grid. It’s not full off grid, but you can almost completely eleminate grid usage.

        • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          But you can’t eliminate the connection charge. And as far as I can tell there’s nothing to prevent them from increasing that to very high values. Currently it is $25 where I live but they are arguing to raise that to $30 as I type this. That’s a 20% increase.

          • Nomecks@lemmy.ca
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            3 days ago

            My bill is mainly transmission charges, as I put in during the day and pull out at night to charge my EV. Not sure what your bill looks like, but there’s a lot of savings for me. The grid could also collapse tomorrow and it wouldn’t affect my electricity.

            • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Yeah, we opted for the battery. It was tough because without the battery the solar definitely pays for itself and the cost wasn’t too bad, but with it it isn’t certain. When calculating that, the inputs rely on you to predict so many things in the future. So I went with my gut. I just feel like energy costs are going to go up much more than “they” are saying. With climate change, AI, greed and the fact that we are installing some things that will consume more energy. I hope I’m right.

              How do you like yours?

              • Nomecks@lemmy.ca
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                2 days ago

                Mine is great, except I have to devise a way to safely remove snow off a 25 foot high installation at a bad angle. I lost about a month of production last winter due to covered panels.

                • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  Well I’m in crazy town Florida so snow won’t be a problem. Strong storms ripping then off my roof could be. Guess I’ll find out.

                  Do you have a power bill? If so, when and roughly how much, if you don’t mind?

                  • Nomecks@lemmy.ca
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                    5 minutes ago

                    We pay roughly 20 cents/KW after all fees and stuff. Our bill is almost always just transmission fees now, as we take out to charge at night. We were blowing about $400/mo in gas for the car before the EV, and probably $200 as a worst total electricity bill in the dead of winter.

      • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 days ago

        I wasn’t allowed to go off grid in my previous home where I had solar installed either. There was also a hard cap on the amount of solar I was allowed to install. Both of these rules were put in place due to lobbying from the largest power company in the region (Duke Energy in my case). It totally sucks,

            • Professorozone@lemmy.world
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              6 days ago

              I’m on the East Coast. So I wonder what happens if you put enough solar on your house to go off grid and then just don’t pay your power company? They put you in jail? LOL.

              • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                5 days ago

                Sorry, I don’t recall the actual specifics now. I believe it was something like they made it a code violation to not have your home connected to the power grid and you just get fined and harassed until you “fix” it.