Here’s hoping; but that’s far from a safe assumption. The kicker about the changes we’re making to this planet is that a lot of them are positive feedback loops, so even if 100% of humans just got thanos-snapped out of existence RIGHT NOW, meaning a complete stop on fossil fuel consumption, deforestation, etc; the damage we’ve already caused will continue to get worse on its own with no further input from us.
So how far can those feedback loops go until they’re broken naturally? They might stabilize; they might just carry on until this planet is molten.
There will for sure be life after the last human dies, but given a few thousand more years, even the most resilient of critters could still be fucked because of us.
they might just carry on until this planet is molten
The odds of true runaway warming are very low, the planet has both been much hotter and had much higher CO2 levels in the past. The Holocene is actually a cool period, geologically.
We’re just going to make it too hot to grow enough crops to feed the world.
The lake Toba Eruption caused a 4°C drop in global temperatures, covered asia in inches to feet of ash, and may have taken the climate 1000s of years to recover.
Even more extreme, the lava floods that created the Siberian Traps 250 million years ago raised ocean temps to 40°C, killed off 90% of all life, and might have taken millions of years to recover.
We are tiny. The climate and the Earth are formidable. Sure, we might have the capacity to destroy all multicellular life on earth, but she’s recovered from even worse.
We shouldn’t ever give up, but I think the earth is capable of handling even our worst fuck-ups.
it seems pretty likely that microprocessors will survive us, and give a BIG jump start to any species that follows. literacy seems to be a longer shot, but still a possible stepping stone for some other organism to take over our work. my money is on fungi to figure out microprocessors. if not them, then plants, especially “weeds”. finally, ocean mammals might be able to work some of the junk we’ve made and cargo-cult themselves into the information age.
i really am hopeful for life on earth to survive the death of Sol.
Here’s hoping; but that’s far from a safe assumption. The kicker about the changes we’re making to this planet is that a lot of them are positive feedback loops, so even if 100% of humans just got thanos-snapped out of existence RIGHT NOW, meaning a complete stop on fossil fuel consumption, deforestation, etc; the damage we’ve already caused will continue to get worse on its own with no further input from us.
So how far can those feedback loops go until they’re broken naturally? They might stabilize; they might just carry on until this planet is molten.
There will for sure be life after the last human dies, but given a few thousand more years, even the most resilient of critters could still be fucked because of us.
The odds of true runaway warming are very low, the planet has both been much hotter and had much higher CO2 levels in the past. The Holocene is actually a cool period, geologically.
We’re just going to make it too hot to grow enough crops to feed the world.
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The lake Toba Eruption caused a 4°C drop in global temperatures, covered asia in inches to feet of ash, and may have taken the climate 1000s of years to recover.
Even more extreme, the lava floods that created the Siberian Traps 250 million years ago raised ocean temps to 40°C, killed off 90% of all life, and might have taken millions of years to recover.
We are tiny. The climate and the Earth are formidable. Sure, we might have the capacity to destroy all multicellular life on earth, but she’s recovered from even worse.
We shouldn’t ever give up, but I think the earth is capable of handling even our worst fuck-ups.
it seems pretty likely that microprocessors will survive us, and give a BIG jump start to any species that follows. literacy seems to be a longer shot, but still a possible stepping stone for some other organism to take over our work. my money is on fungi to figure out microprocessors. if not them, then plants, especially “weeds”. finally, ocean mammals might be able to work some of the junk we’ve made and cargo-cult themselves into the information age.
i really am hopeful for life on earth to survive the death of Sol.