Current Status of Human Civilization
Further information: World energy resources and consumptionMichio Kaku suggested that humans may attain Type I status in about 100–200 years, Type II status in a few thousand years, and Type III status in about 100,000 to a million years.
Carl Sagan suggested defining intermediate values (not considered in Kardashev's original scale) by interpolating and extrapolating the values given above for types 1, 2 and 3, using the formula
- ,
where value K is a civilization's Kardashev rating and MW is the power it uses, in megawatts. He calculated humanity's civilization type (in 1973) to be about 0.7, with respect to this extrapolation (apparently using 10 terawatt (TW) as the value for 1970s humanity).
In 2008, total world energy consumption was 474 exajoules (474×1018 J=132,000 TWh), equivalent to an average power consumption of 15 terawatts (1.504×1013 W or 0.7 on the Kardashev scale).
The total photosynthetic productivity of earth is between ~1500–2250 TW, or 47,300–71,000 exajoules per year, making nature a 0.9 Kardashev scale civilization.
Read more about this topic: Kardashev Scale
Famous quotes containing the words current, status, human and/or civilization:
“I perceived that to express those impressions, to write that essential book, which is the only true one, a great writer does not, in the current meaning of the word, invent it, but, since it exists already in each one of us, interprets it. The duty and the task of a writer are those of an interpreter.”
—Marcel Proust (18711922)
“A genuine Left doesnt consider anyones suffering irrelevant or titillating; nor does it function as a microcosm of capitalist economy, with men competing for power and status at the top, and women doing all the work at the bottom.... Goodbye to all that.”
—Robin Morgan (b. 1941)
“There is something that Governments care for far more than human life, and that is the security of property, and so it is through property that we shall strike the enemy.... Be militant each in your own way.... I incite this meeting to rebellion.”
—Emmeline Pankhurst (18581928)
“It is a fundamental characteristic of civilization that man most profoundly mistrusts those living outside his own milieu, so that not only does the Teuton regard the Jew as an incomprehensible and inferior being, but the football player likewise so regards the piano player.”
—Robert Musil (18801942)