If you look at how much the climate has changed over the last billion years (or heck, the last 3.5) and the events that have happened, it’s tough to imagine life not surviving handily even if a lot of species go extinct.
What we’re doing is going to be traumatic , but it’s nothing like, say, the absolute decimation of life 65 million years ago, etc. And life flourished again not long after.
It actually feels kind of conceited to me to think that we’re even capable of wiping out all life on the planet. Even if full on, worldwide nuclear war l with our entire arsenal broke out, I wouldn’t expect it.
What we’re doing is a 5-alarm fire for us, but for the planet it will be a blip.
My point is that we don’t know. It doesn’t matter if something’s hard to imagine - we don’t even understand the bits of climate change that we’ve actively measured.
It actually feels kind of conceited to me to think that we’re even capable of wiping out all life on the planet. Even if full on, worldwide nuclear war l with our entire arsenal broke out, I wouldn’t expect it.
All we did was get the ball rolling. Our destructive capability at this point is moot compared to the natural forces we’ve unleashed.
Saying life will persist is a point of faith or wishful thinking. It’s not a given. I wish it was. But of the two trillion or so galaxies in our observable universe, so far life has only ‘found a way’ on ONE rock that we’re aware of. Why would it seem conceited to express the possibility of failure for something with a success rate amounting to an anomalous blip in an otherwise 100% life-free void?
Life is fragile as fuck. Even extremophiles are fragile as fuck when we’re talking about logarithmic temperature increases fueled by a literal star and a planet with an atmosphere acting as a giant magnifying glass.
The scale of your perspective is of little importance.
There exists objective, observable evidence of the fact that life has cycled continuously throughout the existence of this planet and there is none to suggest that this will change at any significant point in the future.
The ONLY data on the earth warming as quickly as it is, is the data we’re gathering right now as shatter record after record. We don’t know where these positive feedback loops end, or how any life will handle it.
How life did during the ice age or dino-meteor etc doesn’t mean shit - we have zero examples to pull from that are comparable to what’s happening right now.
In what ways do you feel the great oxidation event is comparable enough to what’s happening today that allows us to confidently rule out a worse case scenario a million years down the road?
You somehow have the hubris to assume that life as we know it to exist is the only form of life that can exist.
![Remember Humans? [War and Peas]](https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/932/286/752/215/715/original/9f56f9fffe247894.jpg){kind=link}
If you look at how much the climate has changed over the last billion years (or heck, the last 3.5) and the events that have happened, it’s tough to imagine life not surviving handily even if a lot of species go extinct.
What we’re doing is going to be traumatic , but it’s nothing like, say, the absolute decimation of life 65 million years ago, etc. And life flourished again not long after.
It actually feels kind of conceited to me to think that we’re even capable of wiping out all life on the planet. Even if full on, worldwide nuclear war l with our entire arsenal broke out, I wouldn’t expect it.
What we’re doing is a 5-alarm fire for us, but for the planet it will be a blip.
Yeah even full on nuclear war won’t be as bad as the big asteroid 65 million years ago. Life will be fine for the next 1.5 billion years until all the water evaporates.
Once water starts getting even a little sparse for everyone I fear shit is gonna go off the rails quick
My point is that we don’t know. It doesn’t matter if something’s hard to imagine - we don’t even understand the bits of climate change that we’ve actively measured.
All we did was get the ball rolling. Our destructive capability at this point is moot compared to the natural forces we’ve unleashed.
Saying life will persist is a point of faith or wishful thinking. It’s not a given. I wish it was. But of the two trillion or so galaxies in our observable universe, so far life has only ‘found a way’ on ONE rock that we’re aware of. Why would it seem conceited to express the possibility of failure for something with a success rate amounting to an anomalous blip in an otherwise 100% life-free void?
Life is fragile as fuck. Even extremophiles are fragile as fuck when we’re talking about logarithmic temperature increases fueled by a literal star and a planet with an atmosphere acting as a giant magnifying glass.
No
By all accounts life on this planet isn’t special.
It’ll be fine. We won’t.
This planet is the one and ONLY account of life. That makes it pretty special imo.
And also makes it apparent how ridiculously the odds are stacked against life.
The scale of your perspective is of little importance.
There exists objective, observable evidence of the fact that life has cycled continuously throughout the existence of this planet and there is none to suggest that this will change at any significant point in the future.
The ONLY data on the earth warming as quickly as it is, is the data we’re gathering right now as shatter record after record. We don’t know where these positive feedback loops end, or how any life will handle it.
How life did during the ice age or dino-meteor etc doesn’t mean shit - we have zero examples to pull from that are comparable to what’s happening right now.
My guy look up the great oxidation event. Life continued after the planet basically chemically burned away a vast majority of organic material.
You somehow have the hubris to assume that life as we know it to exist is the only form of life that can exist.
In what ways do you feel the great oxidation event is comparable enough to what’s happening today that allows us to confidently rule out a worse case scenario a million years down the road?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Two in one! Nice.