If we had loss of technological knowledge (say due to climate change induced conflict), it might not be possible in the future for the surviving humans to re-bootstrap back up to our our current technological level.
We have exhausted all the easily accessible minerals and fossil fuels (i.e. those resources that can be extracted using stone age tools). Any break in our current technological systems might make it impossible to recover for 10s of millions of years.
Like the article posted last week titled "this is not a place of honor" about making obvious markers on nuclear waste to last 10,000 years...
We may also want to invest in creating some "breadcrumbs" for a future civilization to build up from. Say, a reserve of easily accessible fossil fuel and other raw materials, and some long-lasting guideposts that indicate where to find them.
It is a good question of how much breadcrumbs you would need to jump from the stone age to using whatever accessible resources are left after us.
A lack of accessible fossil fuels is likely to be the major factor as it would be really difficult to get an industrial revolution going without access to the easy energy provided by fossil fuels. We could easily find a rebooted society gets stuck in a pre-industrial state with no way of breaking out.
We have cities and garbage dumps that are full of steel, aluminium and plastic that are unlikely to be wiped out completely in any catastrophic event caused by humans. The only true problem is energy, I think. I wonder how far you could get with only biomass as a starter fuel for civilization.
Yes you could probably mine our dumps for metals, but if England is anything to go you will run out of forests as an energy source very early in an industrial revolution. If England had not been sitting on a large amount of easily accessed coal we would almost certainly not be having this conversation - in English anyway.
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If we had loss of technological knowledge (say due to climate change induced conflict), it might not be possible in the future for the surviving humans to re-bootstrap back up to our our current technological level.
We have exhausted all the easily accessible minerals and fossil fuels (i.e. those resources that can be extracted using stone age tools). Any break in our current technological systems might make it impossible to recover for 10s of millions of years.
Like the article posted last week titled "this is not a place of honor" about making obvious markers on nuclear waste to last 10,000 years...
We may also want to invest in creating some "breadcrumbs" for a future civilization to build up from. Say, a reserve of easily accessible fossil fuel and other raw materials, and some long-lasting guideposts that indicate where to find them.
It is a good question of how much breadcrumbs you would need to jump from the stone age to using whatever accessible resources are left after us.
A lack of accessible fossil fuels is likely to be the major factor as it would be really difficult to get an industrial revolution going without access to the easy energy provided by fossil fuels. We could easily find a rebooted society gets stuck in a pre-industrial state with no way of breaking out.
We have cities and garbage dumps that are full of steel, aluminium and plastic that are unlikely to be wiped out completely in any catastrophic event caused by humans. The only true problem is energy, I think. I wonder how far you could get with only biomass as a starter fuel for civilization.
Yes you could probably mine our dumps for metals, but if England is anything to go you will run out of forests as an energy source very early in an industrial revolution. If England had not been sitting on a large amount of easily accessed coal we would almost certainly not be having this conversation - in English anyway.