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Deadpool11085 t1_ixfct2u wrote

No, unless something cosmic happens like a black hole appears, or we collide with another object in space. The earth has done its thing for billions of years. It’s not going anywhere. People and civilizations are another story. Eventually our population will dwindle and die off. Giving the earth time to heal, and perhaps start the cycle over again.

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GreyDirtySnow t1_ixfdj3y wrote

As George Carlin said, the earth isn't going anywhere, we are!

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BlackTrans-Proud t1_ixfwn33 wrote

Nuclear annihilation is a far worse threat than climate change.

Life will always return, unless we irradiate the planet too severely for even single cell life.

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GreyDirtySnow t1_ixfwxk2 wrote

I disagree and here's why I think that. Nuclear annihilation would ruin life as we know it for thousands of years, but the ocean goes so deep something will survive microscopic or not. I believe whole hearted that the entire process of evolution would start over again at one point or another and the cycle would repeat itself, it would probably be a vastly different earth than it is now but I think it would eventually make a return

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noplacecold t1_ixgrkl4 wrote

I disagree with you. Nukes would cook us but animals would come back within decades

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Boezie t1_ixhgqtq wrote

Just curious, but why would we be any different from animals? Do you mean, we'll go after each other's throat, killing the few survivors? Or by animals you mean a subset of animals? (eg. rodents, fish, ...)

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TK-741 t1_ixi0qov wrote

Nukes will fall on population centres. People will gravitate toward population centres as that’s where our food/shelter and services are.

Animals are everywhere in the wild and many already burrow underground. Many animals will die, but more would survive because they live in forests or other environments which often thousands of miles away from cities.

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AdSpecialist4523 t1_ixg0g6m wrote

We could set off every nuke that's ever been produced or ever will and not eradicate all life. It is not within our power. We can screw things up for ourselves perfectly well but sterilizing this planet is thankfully well beyond our means. Much bigger things than us have failed on more than one occasion.

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BlackTrans-Proud t1_ixg72l6 wrote

You reckon cellular life forms would wait out nuclear fallout underground?

If not immediately sterilizing you dont suppose enough radiation over time would cause cumulative damage to DNA & their evolution?

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Few_Cat4214 t1_ixg82j3 wrote

A hell of a lot more than cells survived Chicxulub, I doubt we could even threaten all mammalian life, let alone the bacteria.

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5t3fan0 t1_ixh24lr wrote

"damage" and changes to dna is exactly how evolution works

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BlackTrans-Proud t1_ixj2tg6 wrote

A predictable and steady level of cosmic particles hitting dna though

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BlueRoyAndDVD t1_ixgofcq wrote

There have been life forms found to use a form of melanin to actually absorb and use radiation as an energy source, in the chernobyl core.

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sg3niner t1_ixgb94w wrote

Nuclear weapons don't work like that. They'd ruin shit for people, but everything else would get along just fine after as few as ten years after a global exchange.

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5t3fan0 t1_ixh1tdu wrote

we dont have the capabilities to irradiate the entire planet to the point of inhospitability for all life (it would require a nearby supernova)... even if we wanted, and started manufacturing nukes for that goal, we couldnt. sure we might extinguish ourselves and most animals, but some microorganism and small animal and plants are insanely resilient... enough would surely survive and repopulate after radiation wears off in a few centuries or millennia

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kldload t1_ixvnde9 wrote

There is nothing humanity can do to earth where it would not recover eventually

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BlackTrans-Proud t1_ixwdg23 wrote

Now I'm all curious.

Can you imagine any distant technology that could permanently eradicate life on earth?

Im thinking we just relentlessly pump CFCs into the atmosphere until we destroy the ozone layer? But I have no idea if that could actually keep it from reforming.

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CompellingProtagonis t1_ixftkrr wrote

The earth has another ~500 million years of habitability before the sun gets too hot and boils off the oceans

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Strange-Ad1209 t1_ixgvgom wrote

Longer than that before it swells to a Red Giant and even then the Earth's orbit will once again shift as it has in the past many times from the mostly circular orbit it has for the last 5 million years to a highly elliptical orbit because of Jupiter and Saturn, Venus pushing and pulling as they have in the past causing the Ice Ages that have come and gone every 50,000 years or so then add in the strings of massive Asteroid impacts every 12,000 years that we are long overdue for.

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CompellingProtagonis t1_ixgvw7g wrote

It doesn't need to swell into a red giant for the earths oceans boil away. The sun slowly burns hotter and hotter as the proportion of helium to hydrogen increases. When the sun first formed it was something like 75% the brightness, and has slowly increased in brightness.

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Strange-Ad1209 t1_ixgw91a wrote

Yes but that may be an advantage for some of the life when Earth's orbit once again becomes more elliptical as it has done several times (3 periods of Snowball Earth over last 3 Billion years). Granted Humans won't like it or survive it above ground but many other forms of life, especially reptiles will absolutely love it. 8-)

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yaykarin OP t1_ixfdm5w wrote

You think global warming will end humanity and then the temps will regulate?

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One_King_4900 t1_ixfeq0p wrote

The earth will regulate humanity. She owns us. It doesn’t have to be just temp swings. Through n a few massive volcanic eruptions, virus outbreaks and a rising sea level and were pretty much toast.

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yaykarin OP t1_ixff1ns wrote

It is kinda crazy how little control - and even defense we have against mother nature.

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One_King_4900 t1_ixffotn wrote

Not crazy in my view. Our intelligence makes us think we are better than nature. But we are from from it. Put a man, naked and alone in the wilderness anywhere in this planet he will most definitely parish. We removed ourselves from nature because we cannot survive in it. It quite comical actually.

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misanthrope_irl t1_ixghkkr wrote

First of all: perish. Second of all, no. People survived in the wilderness for most of human history. We removed ourselves from the natural elements because it's more comfortable and more safe. Sure, plenty-- probably most-- civilized people would not fare well and/or would perish. But this is not due to some sort of biological shortcoming. The simple fact is that it's due to a developed dependence on technology/shelter/civilization

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One_King_4900 t1_ixhdhp6 wrote

Would we though? In this day, the only people living “wild” that we know about are in warm climates. Africa, Amazon, the pacific islands. However, they still need to make clothes for the wet seasons. They still need to make shelters. My point is put a family pet dog or cat in the wild and they will survive with just being them. We need to shelter ourselves from nature. We, in our natural naked form are very much defenseless against the elements of nature.

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misanthrope_irl t1_ixijbu2 wrote

Right but due to the very same capacity for ingenuity and exploitation that is destroying the planet, we are capable of utilizing the resources of the natural world to provide ourselves with the shelter we require. If what you're saying was true, humanity never would have survived as a primitive species in the first place.

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KiweeFR t1_ixhpmqp wrote

Well we are a herd animal... Of course we wouldnt survive alone.

Humanity definitely started out as naked groups in the wilderness. They survived well enough for us to exist.

Some groups still exist to this day !

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oxiraneobx t1_ixg66jc wrote

>Put a man, naked and alone in the wilderness anywhere in this planet he will most definitely parish. We removed ourselves from nature because we cannot survive in it.

I wish I could put this on a tee shirt as that is so true.

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TomChristmas t1_ixfz1oq wrote

Man think even beyond that, the incredible rate we’re moving at through space. Rotating, orbiting the sun, moving through the galaxy all at the same time

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KorgX3 t1_ixg9i20 wrote

I like the idea that climate change is the Earth having a fever. They serve the same purpose.

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CowSlayer450 t1_ixg3tzd wrote

Yeah, that's probably about what will happen. As it stands we're what, 50,000 years from the next ice? And all of like...4 years from a blue ocean event that's going to drastically accelerate that.

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DollyVarden2021 t1_ixfiwo4 wrote

Climate change is manageable, but our population levels are way out of control. 8 billion people and counting. We will annihilate everything natural to feed ourselves and make fancy electronics to amuse ourselves.

Nuclear weapons will be our undoing, and we could permanently damage the planet.

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rottencakepowder t1_ixfqm75 wrote

The Atom is our Savior. Only when we bathe in its light will there be hope for humanity.

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oxiraneobx t1_ixg7jb1 wrote

I totally agree with humans being the likely weapon of our own demise, and we may very well cause damage to the planet that lasts tens of thousands of years, even a hundred thousand years, but that's a miniscule amount of time the Earth has left as a habitable planet.

Best estimates are approximately 500 million year to one billion years of habitable time left before the Sun heats to the point life is no longer sustainable. The Earth has plenty of time to heal itself and allow other species to rise and fall.

As a planet, Earth is kinda middle-aged, 4.5 billion years old with an likely life of 7.5 - 8.0 billion years. Species are the fragile things here, not the Earth. It's fine, we're screwed, LOL!

As I write these numbers out and think generally how we are presently behaving as a species, I'm hoping we get to next Tuesday. Not worried the Earth, though.

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DollyVarden2021 t1_ixhsfgd wrote

Excellent discussion. Unusual for this platform. 100k years is permanent in human terms. We could ignite enough nukes to destroy the atmosphere. Forever. Like Mars potentially. I like to think that you are correct, but, I think we could do end-game damage with the nukes we have. Hopefully, I am wrong.

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Deadpool11085 t1_ixfgq35 wrote

I don’t know if global warming is the thing that will get us. I’m not even sure I believe in that. I’m not here to debate that either. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. We could be wiped out by anything from storm and floods, volcanic eruptions, a meteor/comet, or even an all out nuclear war.

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Odd-Aardvark-8234 t1_ixfl7ju wrote

Global warming is real but so is the cyclic temperature change look it up the evidence was found from one of the oldest glaciers , they took core samples and what if found is pretty eye opening

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phred14 t1_ixfo8am wrote

Difference is that cyclic warming doesn't generally happen really fast. There are forcing function things that do, like supervolcanoes or asteroid strikes, or humanity. Time scale is important.

Our civilization, poorly adapted as it is, is adapted to our current climate and is not ready to adapt to rapid change.

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CowSlayer450 t1_ixg3e94 wrote

Well, until the sun goes supernova anyway, isn't it expected to swell beyond Earth's current orbit of the sun?

Speaking of, is that supposed to happen before or after we collided with Andromeda?

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IronSmithFE t1_ixhl4ob wrote

we won't dwindle, we will evolve or engineer our replacements. earth has been far worse off than it is now and humans have survived.

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