Looking at 2400

john

In the year 2400 a survival craft which has 400 different males and females picked for the genetic make up from earth in 2100 have come back and are being woken up from the cryogenic situation they were in.
What do they face? 

Sou

Interesting question. Are there other people on Earth or are these the "last 400"? (I'll suspend my disbelief of cryogenics )

Assuming there are people here already, then I think the 400 will face a very different world to that of today and quite different to their world of 2100. Trade and commerce will be underpinned by renewable energy. There will be remnants of the "food wars" and "water wars", deserts where wine grapes used to grow, no sea ice in the Arctic, many of the coastal settlements of today will be under water, some parts of the world will be covered in jungle and too hot to survive, while people will be farming in other parts that were previously too cold to farm.

I don't know if there will be democracies left - maybe, or maybe they will re-emerge. 

That's highly speculative of course. There are many other possibilities.

john

I would say they look at the computer information which tells them that because of the war that happened in 2300 that most of the northern areas are now not habitable and that the climate is now not exactly hospitable there is a small area on the south of South America.
There is no communication with the earth stations that sent you out into this survival capsule.
Problem.
How do we solve this problem? 

john

I am expecting that because of the 60 meter rise in sea level this set off a war that wiped out the USA Europe and China.
The few who survived this disaster now believe it was caused by the eco-terrorists  who were in a conspiracy with some kind of bankers who wished to ruin the world evidently.

citizenschallenge

Seems to me come 2400, the our planet will look hellishly different.

Too many aspects of this imagining demands suspension of believe.
It seems along the lines of musing about people inhabiting Mars, for me.
Can't get eyes off of what's happening to our planet, to have much room for such.

VictorVenema

In 2400 renewable energy will be so cheap and abundant that nearly no one knows about those historical problems with climate change any more beyond some science geeks and historians. Like now no one cares any more about the horse shit in London. Like now no one can imagine using a horse for transport, the use of combustion beyond BBQing is seen as terribly primitive.

Unfortunately still 5% of the population are deplorable authoritarians.

citizenschallenge

I remember in the 60s they were telling us that Atom Energy would be save, clean, and too cheap to meter.  

VictorVenema

Should be right once in a while. :-)

john

So the situation is there is this craft 1000 km above earth that now has 400 people who have been revived and the information is not good about where they come from in 2100.
Most of the northern hemisphere is rendered uninhabitable due to radiation levels due to the war in 2300.
So how do they find some place to land on with the several craft they have on board the survival ship?

Further more just how does Kurt, Chuck, Bruce, Xclon and Maluc actually work this out?
Translation of names Chuck usa, Bruce Au, Scion china, maluc Iran.

john

So working on the information given then proceed to land in South America as they knew it.
On landing finding are.
Hell these people are living off the land no evidence of advancement what so ever. 

Misanthroptimist

john said:

In the year 2400 a survival craft which has 400 different males and females picked for the genetic make up from earth in 2100 have come back and are being woken up from the cryogenic situation they were in.
What do they face? 

They face the moral dilemma of whether to take power or not since they outnumber the human survivors still on Earth.

citizenschallenge

Can someone explain what this thread is about?

I see Kurt - I think oh Kurt Russell, read, another worth missing hollywood flic. 
Is that it, do I get the boogie prize, or is it something deeper?

citizenschallenge

Me, I'm stuck on this physical planet and I'm pretty sure (though I'm certainly no expert) that if you want to consider what this planet will look like in 380 years, it would be good to consider Earth's past along side what we have done to it within the past eye blink of 100 years.

For that check out what I think is one great little video about the history of oil development.  Start at about 59:00 until about 1:08, last few minutes being the most relevant when it comes to providing a crystal ball to our planet's future.  Although the story continues and during 1:10:~~ there's another reality check.  A documentary worth watching for sure. 

Crude - The Incredible Journey of Oil (2007)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e44ydPIQGSc

(http://www.abc.net.au/science/crude/)

From the food on our tables to the fuel in our cars, crude oil seeps invisibly into almost every part of our modern lives. It is the energy source and raw material that drives transport and the economy. Yet many of us have little idea of the incredible journey it has made to reach our petrol tanks and plastic bags.

Coming in the wake of rising global concerns about the continued supply of oil, and increasingly weird weather patterns, Crude spans 160 million years of the Earth's history to reveal the story of oil; from its birth deep in the dinosaur-inhabited past, to its ascendancy as the indispensable ingredient of modern life. ...

citizenschallenge

Thinking on it, I should have included their entire introduction.

Crude - The Incredible Journey of Oil (2007)

. . .   Filmed on location in 11 countries across five continents, the program's award-winning Australian filmmaker Richard Smith consults the leading international scientific experts to join the dots between geology and economy and provide the big-picture view of oil.

Crude takes a step back from the day to day news to illuminate the Earth's extraordinary carbon cycle and the role of oil in our impending climate crisis. Nearly seven billion people have come to depend on this resource, yet the Oil Age that began less than a century and a half ago, could be over in our lifetimes.

Released: 2007

FlyingDutchman

john said:

In the year 2400 a survival craft which has 400 different males and females picked for the genetic make up from earth in 2100 have come back and are being woken up from the cryogenic situation they were in.
What do they face? 

A live-action global re-enactment of the Fallout games, except with less dead wastelands and more nature like seen in the Chernobyl reserve (radiation isn't as dangerous to very short-lived life).
Humanity as such continues to survive and, at times, thrive with a technological level that's a blend of pre-Industrial-Revolution technology and post-current-day knowledge. A higher tech than was found during the Middle Ages, but it's stuck there without a path to advance further due to the depletion of the world's resources. Life goes on, even if it's different.

john

I have a feeling that i failed the test of asking a question that would stimulate even the most intelligent of the people I have seen over the last 10 years.
Perhaps the idea of a nuclear war in 2300 was dumb, however other than that frankly I do not see any other way that the present system of society can survive for the next  380 plus years.
Think about it a 60 meter rise in sea level that is going to wipe out a heap of capital value.
Do you think this will not result in a war?
So discount the nuclear war now we have upwards of 20 billion people on the planet.
Not sustainable I think those people in the survival craft have to make a decision big time.
Where do they find a place that is half way habitable with Cat. 6 Cyclones now the normal for over 5 months of the year.
Besides of which which part of the planet is in any way going to welcome them?

VictorVenema

60 meter sea level rise will take a long long time. We already have no idea how 2400 looks like.

PG_Antioch

"60 meter sea level rise will take a long long time."

True. But Melwater Pulses 1-A, B & C all involved SLR of ~4-5 meters per century, & there may have been a similar burst of SLR toward the end of the Eemian ~119 K yrs ago, when ice sheets were smaller than today.

Solid to liquid phase transitions of water require a lot of energy, but anthropogenic forcings are considerably stronger than natural forcings. Given how heat is convected around the oceans, a large percentage of the solar energy falling on the Earth could go into melting ice. Temperatures might stabilise, but ice sheet break-up could be even faster than it was in the past, when there were only natural forcings. Needless to say, it would be chaotic & incredibly destructive, likely the worst thing to happen to humans since the Toba eruption ~74 K yrs ago.

P.S. I only dicovered Variable Variability recently. Great blog, very insightful.