How long can this earth last?

Question

With the recent heatwave hitting Europe and US, seems that global warming is indeed getting worse. Every summer it seems the temperature is climbing, in 100 years time, do you think the earth would be unsuitable for mankind anymore ? Or do you think due to the heat, all the ice in the artic will melt thus flooding the earth ???

Answer 1

We are still coming out of an ice age. The climate is changing, and man has a lot to do with it, but humans will survive in all probability. These things have happened before, and a few degrees can be devastating, but does not cause extinction of man. Look at the little ice age, and the medieval war period. England produced wine, and new England did not have a summer one year. We do not see how sensitive we are, but there will be favorable pockets of climate in a worst case scenario. If you really want to worry, look at the shifting magnetic field, it almost killed everything once, and if it has a hickup, we will look like mars on the surface. Look at meteors and volcano's that could kill us. The sun will explode, and many more things can and will happen. Do not worry too much, less you are doing research to prevent things like that. To mainly answer your question, it will get so hot that we will go back into an ice age. We may survive, and probably will, but the planet goes in cycles. We are just speeding it up.

Answer 2

There's a difference between the Earth lasting and life on Earth lasting. Even if the planet was hit by a devastating asteroid, it would still go on long after all life was extinguished.

Failing that, life in all its forms does have a habit of surviving, though humans as a species are getting pretty old. Most species last only a few tens of thousands of years before becoming extinct, and we've been around for a while now. Compared to all the other species that have come and gone, perhaps we're nearing our own life expectancy.

But for planet Earth however, it's estimated that the Sun's life expectancy is 10 billion years, and it's already 5 billion years old. That means we've got about 5 billion years to find a new place to live (if we can last that long ourselves).

Answer 3

If the earth survived all this natural stuff, it will exist until 5 billion years later, where the famous Sun explodes into a supernova and burn Earth into a crisp. Otherwise, Earth will become a crushed biscuit, fresh from the oven.
And i think, no intention of scaring people, it will be less than 100 years before earth is turned topsy-turvy by mankind.

And as what I learnt from a documentation, the earth is auctally turning upside down at a veryyyyyy slow rate. And a possible reason why mankind becomes extinct in the future (touch wood!), is because all water from earth vanished by evaporating or some scienctific reasons.

God bless you. I hope this earth will turn into the paradise earth earlier, instead of God waiting for earth to be destroyed before 'repairing'.

Answer 4

if the temperature keeps increases like u have specified then all these will happen in an other 1000 years of time... first the ice in the artic will melt flooding the earth.. almost 50 % of earth would be flooded.... then there will be total change in the climatic conditions the climate will go either very hot or very cold which will affect the plants then gradually the animals including the humans.. here will be shortage of food... so all the living things will die one by one.... finally there will be no life on earth. one good thing is that we wont be there to experience that tough situation... thank god im happy about that....

Answer 5

The decline and fall of the human race as we know it have been the concern of mankind for many centuries. But Apocalyptic Paranoia makes some people think that the end of civilization might happen at any moment, for any reason: World War III (nuclear war), Net War (cyberspace war/cracker cyberworld domination, satellite control), Pandemic (Ebola virus, plague, etc.) Astronomic impact (meteorites, the sun's expansion), Alien invasion (we are not alone in the Universe), Ecological catastrophe (global warming, a new Ice Age era, Tsunamis, etc.), Cybernetic revolt (the computers/robots take over), Religious and Supernatural Apocalypse (join the one world dominant religion or die), and Dystopic Societies (Big Brother -a.k.a the government - is watching, listening and and tracking us down at home, on the streets and on the Net.) So live everyday as if it was your last day, because nobody knows what might happen tomorrow....

Answer 6

As a Druid myself, a believer in the power of nature. I see the recent events (Tsunamis, Earthquakes, Floods, and Hurricanes) as nature's way of telling us that it's time we made some changes. If we fail to head these warnings, nature will continue these acts of what I like to call "Nature's Population Control." With the current heat waves and severe winters I have been experiencing in Idaho, I am pretty certain the world is on the brink of another major climate change, one brought about by the recklessness and carelessness of mankind. Either by nuclear war, or the continued destruction of nature, we may be seeing the end of this planet before the end of this millenium.

Answer 7

From a technical propective, think of it this way. With today's climate and technology, our planet supports, 6+ billion people, farm animals, wild animals etc..

As global warming becomes worse, will our technology improve fast enough to support 7+ billion people in 30 years or so. Think of this in terms of usable farmland times the technology available to efficiently farm that land. The technology is aways improving, but usable farmland on a world wide basis will start to shrink at an accelerating rate. This will be especially true with changing weather rainfall patterns. Today's farmland may be tomorrow's desert.

Then you have to think of it if the available farmland and technology of 50 years from now can only support fewer people than exist.
The only thing we know about that potential situation is that the consequences will be rapid and dramatic. I hope we do not see that day.

There has always been and will always be a finite number of people that this planet can support. It is just that the finite number of people has always been so much larger than the actual number of people who exist. The accelerating nature of the change in global warming may someday reverse the equation so that the number of people on earth is more than the farmland and technology support. That is not good.

Answer 8

6 more years. The world may end at 2012 due to the Mayan Calendar. Some experts claim that they have calculated and realised that the calendar will stop at December 2012.

Answer 9

properly first of all in 9 billion years the sunlight will explode to a pink substantial, destroying the 1st 3 planets, yet even in the past that - now, we are dropping too most of the earths organic aspects, making international warming, ozone depletion, air pollutants, water pollutants, and so on. so in line with risk if we shop occurring like this we wont be around lots longer, so we could continually use renewable capability sources like photograph voltaic, wind, water or geothermal instead of organic aspects.

Answer 10

this earth will last till the sun lasts. when the sun dies it will have an enormus gravitational pull and the earth and other planets will collide to it and perish. then if the question is about life on earth, dear, it will not last long. iff the above said situations persists. there is a lot of time for us to correct our mistake.