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Q. Will Earth always be able to support life? A. Probably not [...] Over the next couple of billion years, the increasing amounts of energy Earth will receive f
by winchling 8y ago
Q. Will Earth always be able to support life? A. Probably not [...] Over the next couple of billion years, the increasing amounts of energy Earth will receive from the aging, expanding Sun will warm its atmosphere.
Two billion years' work is a hefty amount in terms of scientific and technological development, assuming people survive. So, as David Deutsch would point out, what actually happens will depend on what solar engineers choose to do.
- gonvaled 8y agoAt some point it will become more economical to terraform other planets than to prevent the Earth from unterraforming. Assuming the technology is there, we will have lots of choices available. Maybe we can even do both.
- winchling 8y agoYes, many many choices, and it's impossible to predict what our descendants will want. Perhaps the Earth will be preserved as a monument.
- saagarjha 8y ago> Assuming the technology is there This is a rather large assumption to make, considering we can’t even control the environment of our own planet currently.
- gonvaled 8y agoWe are talking about two billion years! It's a possibility, in no way the only one. It can happen that any crisis wipes us, or even life in the planet, out.
- apatters 8y agoThis assumes that our level of technology will increase over such long time scales. It might be cyclical, resetting to zero periodically.
- ekianjo 8y agoOr it may flatten out as well. Without the need to reset.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- zrav 8y agoWe likely have much less than 2 billion years before the earth becomes uninhabitable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future
- winchling 8y agoThe future is open. It is not predetermined and thus cannot be predicted – except by accident. The possibilities that lie in the future are infinite. When I say ‘It is our duty to remain optimists’, this includes not only the openness of the future but also that which all of us contribute to it by everything we do: we are all responsible for what the future holds in store. Thus it is our duty, not to prophesy evil, but, rather, to fight for a better world. -- Karl Popper
- baxtr 8y agoThanks for sharing the link! What a great source for procrastination :) Loves this one for example: 15,000 yrs from now: According to the Sahara pump theory, the precession of Earth's poles will move the North African Monsoon far enough north to convert the Sahara back into a tropical climate, as it was 5,000–10,000 years ago.
- amelius 8y agoThey will probably be hired by a company that makes people click ads.
- nerdponx 8y agoSounds like a side plot from The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
- dylan604 8y agoMaybe we can come up with a way to adjust the Earth-Moon system's orbit. As the sun starts to expand, the orbit gets wider with it. Sure, it'll be in the same orbit as Jupiter or something, but it's all just a stop gap until the sun goes BOOM. Don't think it'll be anything but a dead rock at that point.
- vkou 8y agoThe sun will not go BOOM, barring collision with another, much larger star. Stars have to be above a particular weight to go supernova - the sun will grow into a red giant, and then, once it burns most of it's hydrogen, collapse into a brown dwarf.
- saagarjha 8y agoYou'll need to pump a huge amount of energy to do this.