Stephen Hawking, who may be the smartest person in the world, thinks we only have about another 1000 years on this planet. He expects human beings to be extinct by then because of "our fragile planet."
"We must continue to go into space for humanity. If you understand how the universe operates, you control it in a way," Professor Hawking said, adding that "we won't survive another 1,000 years without escaping our fragile planet."
Our sun is about half-way or so through its life cycle. In about 400,000 years, the sun will expand and consume the earth. Earth, of course, will have been uninhabitable for 100,000 or so before that. All surface water will evaporate, and the atmosphere will disintegrate about 300,000 from now.
This would give us plenty of time to find another planet, or another way for human beings to survive somewhere.
Global warming and climate change rolls earth's potential doomsday much, much closer. It is entirely possible that human beings will indeed become extinct because of climate change. The atmosphere is thin and fragile. We've messed with it, and now face our hour of peril. Within 100 years, many portions of our world will not be uninhabitable.
We will need another place to go.
Trash this planet and move on to the next one. Easier said than done.
Posted by: Hypatia | April 19, 2013 at 01:33 PM
Well, we have to do it SOME time.
Posted by: John Petty | April 21, 2013 at 07:39 AM