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This is where I’m at too. At least as far as I understand it today (leaving this comment in the hope that folks can help me expand my understanding) Life on e

This is where I’m at too. At least as far as I understand it today (leaving this comment in the hope that folks can help me expand my understanding) Life on earth is not stable. We are in the final death throes of this planet. Roughly 75% of life on earth is behind us. Life has been here for 4Bn years and we have about 500m left[1] until our carbon cycles grind to a halt due to the earth moving outside of the habitable zone and all life on earth starts it’s final, and ultimate, extinction event. This pending extinction event is not human made. It was coming regardless of whether humans evolved on this planet. From everything I can tell, there is no making it through, let alone coming back from, this impending extinction event without “technology” that decouples life from the carbon cycles on this planet. In 4.2bn years life on this planet has printed exactly one golden ticket for escaping that fate: humans. We’ve done some bad things along the way to industrialization processes that can produce the technology necessary to get life off this rock - and to artificially sustain life on this rock as it becomes unsuitable for life. But I’m not confident that the bad stuff we have done is sufficient to condemn our species and disqualify us as a suitable steward for this planet. Primarily because there is no alternative, there is no species in “second place” that I’d trust to evolve a civilization capable of getting life off this planet in the time we have left. The eco-movements (outside of whole earth) have lost me. The calls for an immediate suspension of industrial processes, or the sentiment that life on earth would be better off if humans didn’t evolve to be what we are today, seems misplaced. Without humans, and without our recent attempts to escape this planet, all life on earth is doomed to complete extinction. It seems like we are in a critical several hundred year window where humans need to appreciate both that we are accelerating the end of the Holocene, a climate that was critical for the development of our civilizations, and do our best to slow that process already under way. At the same time, we need to maintain the civilization that’s setting life on earth on an escape trajectory. If we toss the baby with the bathwater we doom all life on earth to guaranteed extinction. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future

mech987987 4y ago
Where did you read that the carbon cycle is coming to an end?
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Paragraph 3 of here [0] probably [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    TL;DR the sun is expected to continue brightening, and that's likely to cause the end the carbonate-silicate cycle in a few hundred million years, which will mean the end of photosynthesis soon (for geological values of "soon") after that starts to grind to a halt. The end of photosynthesis means the end of large, complex life-forms on earth, permanently, forever, never to return. This means that the practical end of the Earth, as far as humans are concerned, is on track not for a few billion years from now when the Sun expands—the commonly imagined end of "Earth gets charred/absorbed by the Sun"—but a few hundred million years from now. Maybe sooner for a variety of reasons, but that's likely to be the final lights-out—the upper bound—for everything but some microbes and a few lobsters around deep-sea vents or whatever. Barring some serious intervention by intelligent, technologically-advanced life, anyway.
    - whimsicalism 4y ago
      Personally I think you are underestimating evolution - we can fix carbon in other ways, but I agree life will be dramatically different.
      - digging 4y ago
        It isn't the poster who's developed this theory. It's a matter of chemistry. It's possible life could persist, but we don't know of chemical processes that would make it possible, so we shouldn't expect that it can.
        whimsicalism 4y ago
        > we don't know of chemical processes that would make it possible C4 carbon fixation would already last a lot longer than C3 carbon fixation. Probably some other sources of carbon that can be found.
slashdev 4y ago
I’m guessing you’re getting downvoted for not expanding on: > Life has been here for 4Bn years and we have about 500m left until our carbon cycles grind to a halt and all life on earth starts it’s final, and ultimate, extinction event.
- r3trohack3r 4y ago
  Thanks, I’ve taken this as a “known.” I’ll update the comment. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future As far as I understand, the habitable zone in our system is not stable. It’s shifting. Between 500m and 800m years from now it’ll have moved sufficiently where our carbon cycles start grinding to a halt.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dagss 4y ago
  I disagree, my guess is the downvotes is for the idea that the CURRENT trajectory of industry and technology -- largely focused on converting non-renewable sources into luxuries and trinkets for humans currently alive -- has to continue uninterrupted to be the one shot humans have to go to the starts. If we had to go to the stars in the next 50 years, sure, current industry would be our best bet. If we (or whatever is evolved) have 500 million years, why would not environmentalists be RIGHT that we need to focus on sustainability first, and improve the odds of society not getting a huge setback?
whimsicalism 4y ago
It seems to me to be incredibly arrogant to be reasoning starting from humanity as saviors of life in 500 million years. And to say that that somehow means that the eco-movements (many of which are focused on the keeping us alive for the next few thousand years) are flawed seems wrong. The focus put on silly Greenpeace actions and fights about nuclear in the media is part of a somewhat intentional strategy to paint all environmentalists as wrongheaded or stupid.
- pseg134 4y ago
  Well if someone other than humanity wants to step up and save life I’m sure we would be okay with it but my dog still spends his time licking himself and my houseplants are not especially active so I think it’s up to us.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    500 million years and your dog will be the ancestor of Dog Richard Feynman.
  - jaggederest 4y ago
    500 million years is longer than the time it has taken to evolve mammalian life. Assuming that no other intelligent species would ever evolve is pretty crazy, it's only taken us 200 million years. If that's an average, we could be looking at 1 to 3 other intelligent species developing on this planet alone.
    - r3trohack3r 4y ago
      It has not taken 200m years. It has taken 4.2bn years. Every other species today has had the same 4.2bn years. In 4.2bn years, we’ve had one successful draw of a species with sufficient intelligence born into an environment with sufficient incentives to tackle this problem (that we know of). Saying another 1 will happen in time to thwart the pending extinction event strikes me as an aggressive gamble, let alone 3.
      - 4y ago
solarengineer 4y ago
This particular extinction is indeed man made. Oil companies knew of their impact and role in the seventies and close to not just suppress their knowledge but in fact funded disinformation campaigns. See https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-a...
pfisch 4y ago
500m is a lot of time even evolutionarily. Dinosaurs were around 245m-66m years ago. There very well may be another animal/civilization in the next 500m years that has a decent shot at escaping from earth.
hinkley 4y ago
Before the sun goes red we need to understand and categorize the interactions of life on earth, preferably including extinct animals as much as possible, and using that knowledge, we need to attempt to recreate it elsewhere. 2000 years ago the earth was covered with tribes and nations that had an intuitive understanding of these things, built on analogy and language. Even dredging that level of understanding up would help us today. Investigating the observations contained in that folk wisdom is often how science works. We haven’t been doing the work because industrial Ag and transportation have their own solutions which sound more appealing (as is often the case, doing the wrong thing feels easier and more fun).

mech987987 4y ago

Where did you read that the carbon cycle is coming to an end?

whimsicalism 4y ago
Paragraph 3 of here [0] probably [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_of_Earth
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  TL;DR the sun is expected to continue brightening, and that's likely to cause the end the carbonate-silicate cycle in a few hundred million years, which will mean the end of photosynthesis soon (for geological values of "soon") after that starts to grind to a halt. The end of photosynthesis means the end of large, complex life-forms on earth, permanently, forever, never to return. This means that the practical end of the Earth, as far as humans are concerned, is on track not for a few billion years from now when the Sun expands—the commonly imagined end of "Earth gets charred/absorbed by the Sun"—but a few hundred million years from now. Maybe sooner for a variety of reasons, but that's likely to be the final lights-out—the upper bound—for everything but some microbes and a few lobsters around deep-sea vents or whatever. Barring some serious intervention by intelligent, technologically-advanced life, anyway.
  - whimsicalism 4y ago
    Personally I think you are underestimating evolution - we can fix carbon in other ways, but I agree life will be dramatically different.
    - digging 4y ago
      It isn't the poster who's developed this theory. It's a matter of chemistry. It's possible life could persist, but we don't know of chemical processes that would make it possible, so we shouldn't expect that it can.
      - whimsicalism 4y ago
        > we don't know of chemical processes that would make it possible C4 carbon fixation would already last a lot longer than C3 carbon fixation. Probably some other sources of carbon that can be found.

slashdev 4y ago

I’m guessing you’re getting downvoted for not expanding on: > Life has been here for 4Bn years and we have about 500m left until our carbon cycles grind to a halt and all life on earth starts it’s final, and ultimate, extinction event.

r3trohack3r 4y ago
Thanks, I’ve taken this as a “known.” I’ll update the comment. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future As far as I understand, the habitable zone in our system is not stable. It’s shifting. Between 500m and 800m years from now it’ll have moved sufficiently where our carbon cycles start grinding to a halt.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dagss 4y ago
I disagree, my guess is the downvotes is for the idea that the CURRENT trajectory of industry and technology -- largely focused on converting non-renewable sources into luxuries and trinkets for humans currently alive -- has to continue uninterrupted to be the one shot humans have to go to the starts. If we had to go to the stars in the next 50 years, sure, current industry would be our best bet. If we (or whatever is evolved) have 500 million years, why would not environmentalists be RIGHT that we need to focus on sustainability first, and improve the odds of society not getting a huge setback?

whimsicalism 4y ago

It seems to me to be incredibly arrogant to be reasoning starting from humanity as saviors of life in 500 million years. And to say that that somehow means that the eco-movements (many of which are focused on the keeping us alive for the next few thousand years) are flawed seems wrong. The focus put on silly Greenpeace actions and fights about nuclear in the media is part of a somewhat intentional strategy to paint all environmentalists as wrongheaded or stupid.

pseg134 4y ago
Well if someone other than humanity wants to step up and save life I’m sure we would be okay with it but my dog still spends his time licking himself and my houseplants are not especially active so I think it’s up to us.
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  500 million years and your dog will be the ancestor of Dog Richard Feynman.
- jaggederest 4y ago
  500 million years is longer than the time it has taken to evolve mammalian life. Assuming that no other intelligent species would ever evolve is pretty crazy, it's only taken us 200 million years. If that's an average, we could be looking at 1 to 3 other intelligent species developing on this planet alone.
  - r3trohack3r 4y ago
    It has not taken 200m years. It has taken 4.2bn years. Every other species today has had the same 4.2bn years. In 4.2bn years, we’ve had one successful draw of a species with sufficient intelligence born into an environment with sufficient incentives to tackle this problem (that we know of). Saying another 1 will happen in time to thwart the pending extinction event strikes me as an aggressive gamble, let alone 3.
    - 4y ago

solarengineer 4y ago

This particular extinction is indeed man made. Oil companies knew of their impact and role in the seventies and close to not just suppress their knowledge but in fact funded disinformation campaigns. See https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-analysis-finds-exxonmobil-internal-research-accurately-predicted-climate-change/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-a...

pfisch 4y ago

500m is a lot of time even evolutionarily. Dinosaurs were around 245m-66m years ago. There very well may be another animal/civilization in the next 500m years that has a decent shot at escaping from earth.

hinkley 4y ago

Before the sun goes red we need to understand and categorize the interactions of life on earth, preferably including extinct animals as much as possible, and using that knowledge, we need to attempt to recreate it elsewhere. 2000 years ago the earth was covered with tribes and nations that had an intuitive understanding of these things, built on analogy and language. Even dredging that level of understanding up would help us today. Investigating the observations contained in that folk wisdom is often how science works. We haven’t been doing the work because industrial Ag and transportation have their own solutions which sound more appealing (as is often the case, doing the wrong thing feels easier and more fun).