Scorched or Frozen: What is the Earth's Ultimate Fate?

[Rhykker]

Scorched or Frozen: What is the Earth's Ultimate Fate?

Global warming is a modern-day concern, but will it still be in a billion years? Will our planet end up a frozen desert like Mars, a sweltering boiler room like Venus, or will it forever remain a cosmic oasis?

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[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Let's see if I can get a /thread post going within the first page...


EDIT: Or maybe the first post even!

 

[Rhykker]

Let's see if I can get a /thread post going within the first page...


EDIT: Or maybe the first post even!

I can't watch that right now, but it better be the clip where he says, "The planet is fine; the people are f*cked," and discusses how our purpose was to bring plastic to the Earth.

Ah, George. RIP. He was so far ahead of his time.

 

[Dragonbums]

Earth has always gone through periods of extreme cold and extreme heat.

Honestly though I'm gonna say scorched. That sun is gonna explode at some point guys, and Earth is definitely on the frying pan.

 

[martyrdrebel27]

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I?ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

(this poem is actually the basis for for my future half-sleeves, so i HAD to share.)

 

[Loop Stricken]

What, you mean ultimately ultimately?

Engulfed by the expanding Sun as it enters the final stages of its life.

... well, that was an easy topic! Who wants toast?

 

[Living Contradiction]

Hmmm. So either fiery doom in a billion years or melting and then fiery doom?

Well, that does give us a little time to play with. Who knows? We might even manage to figure out interstellar travel by then although we probably won't have maintained our physical shapes.

And toast sounds rather wonderful, Loop. I'll have mine with butter and jam please.

 

[Dimitriov]

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I?ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

(this poem is actually the basis for for my future half-sleeves, so i HAD to share.)

Saw thread title and came here to post this poem, but I was too late


Anyhoo, I think I favour fire too.

 

[Tanis]

Well, clearly, the Earth will be engulfed in the flame of the sun.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Who wants toast?

I'm holding my bread up to the sun right now, but I am only being harassed by pigeons.

OT; This article just proves that the sun is on a (very slow) warpath intent on our destruction. We must strike first! I propose we put all our ice (vanilla included) on rockets and fire them at the sun. This will show the sun what the score is. And to ensure the mission's success, the rocket will be fired at night so the sun won't see it coming.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

Very cool to see all those facts and scenario's lined up like that.
Thanks!

CAPTCHA: "Streams of Oceanus"...

 

[Basement Cat]

I'm of the opinion that the earth won't end in fire or ice.

Australia will be the downfall of us all! O.O

Spoiler: Be afraid...be very afraid!!!

[HEADING=3]You all know that I'm right. You just can't admit it to yourselves![/HEADING]

 

[Evil Smurf]

I'm of the opinion that the earth won't end in fire or ice.

Australia will be the downfall of us all! O.O

Spoiler: Be afraid...be very afraid!!!

[HEADING=3]You all know that I'm right. You just can't admit it to yourselves![/HEADING]

As an Australian, I've been training for the apocalypse, every day since I was a child I trained.

I can now kill 26.5 non Australians in 10 seconds, with an akubra hat.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I see plenty of people have already played the Sun implosion card, so yeah, I'm with those, but more immediately, I reckon it'll get hot before it gets cold, and the natural disasters also get more frequent, so there'll be shit to deal with there too. If we don't do something about climate change, our other hope is that we advance technology to the point where we can live in a drastically different climate. To an extent we already can. But as far as I know the current heedless advance of industry is just fear of being left behind by the rest of the world. Same with population growth. Can't risk crippling our economy with population management in a world where another country manages to find a way to house the ridiculous number of people they have and just produce twice as much stuff.

But yep, I'm going heat, then more heat.

 

[Rhykker]

In this thread: a bunch of people I love. If I were to quote every single reply that made me laugh or think, I'd probably be spamming. You guys rock.

Something I didn't cover in the article is the various possible catastrophic events that may occur, but aren't guarantees. You know, like an asteroid smashing into the Earth, supervolcanic eruptions, etc... Hell, aren't we overdue for a major extinction event? Those happen every couple hundred million years or so.

 

[Kerethos]

Just because the planet is going to end in a boiling inferno doesn't mean we shouldn't go down fighting though. I sure don't intend to just lay down and accept "death by extreme weather", while I can still vote and live in ways that help reduce humanities impact on the climate.

Besides, from a simple economic point of view, the nation that first becomes carbon neutral - or even completely non-reliant on carbon fuels - will quickly be in a dominant economic position, once the price of oil has pushed prices too high.

The real question is just how bad are we going to make if for ourselves before we're forced to change, because we will have to, or go extinct - like so many other species before us.

 

[Quazimofo]

If we're being literal, probably frozen. If the earth is still intact when the universal heat death occurs then there won't be enough energy to have us be a scorched wasteland.

 

[Slycne]

What, you mean ultimately ultimately?

Engulfed by the expanding Sun as it enters the final stages of its life.

... well, that was an easy topic! Who wants toast?

Aww, takes me back to High School where someone in my class legitimately got upset that "we're all going to die" in a couple million years.

 

[Loop Stricken]

What, you mean ultimately ultimately?

Engulfed by the expanding Sun as it enters the final stages of its life.

... well, that was an easy topic! Who wants toast?

Aww, takes me back to High School where someone in my class legitimately got upset that "we're all going to die" in a couple million years.

My sister used to have sleepless nights worrying about it. Silly girl.

I, on the other hand, am more concerned about the eternity of non-consciousness after death. I just don't think I can handle it.

 

[McKitten]

If we're being literal, probably frozen. If the earth is still intact when the universal heat death occurs then there won't be enough energy to have us be a scorched wasteland.

It won't be. We're close enough to the sun that when its red giant phase happens, the earth will be swallowed (and vaporized).