The wide range of responses to this post are quite something. Lots of different expectations about what’s to come on Earth.

I’ve been working on science & policy related to climate challenges in & out of academia for decades. For what it’s worth, I’m firmly on team hope. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/no-climate-change-will-not-end-the-world-in-12-years/

We can address #climatechange. Many individuals, organizations & nations already are. There’s still time. Not much.

@Sheril We’re almost certain to be the first indigenous species on this planet to ever become aware of its turbulent history & our evolution, & also the first to understand how fragile our own actions have made our future.

And yet still too stupid to act on that knowledge, despite our endless hubris.

Very sad.

@Sheril
I believe we're already in an "extinction event."

I imagine that in another 100 million years or so, whoever is the intelligent species at the top of the chain will probably refer to the current time as an "extinction event," too. We've lost a significant number of species over the last few centuries that will "disappear" in the future fossil record.

We'll probably be on that list, as well.

@Sheril also, the frightening realisation that we, too, could be wiped out in a flash!

#EarthReset
#FactoryDefault
#FileErrorCorruption
#Reboot

@Sheril

"You can drive out nature with a pitchfork
But it always comes roaring back again"
Tom Waits - Misery is the River of the World

Nature will always prevail, with or without the human race.

@Sheril "The planet isn't going anywhere. WE are! We're going away. Pack your shit, folks. We're going away. And we won't leave much of a trace, either. Maybe a little Styrofoam ... The planet'll be here and we'll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake. An evolutionary cul-de-sac. The planet'll shake us off like a bad case of fleas. The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we're gone," --George Carlin

https://youtu.be/t-FN_jkF9qI

@Sheril Quite the early eulogy for humanity. Best to tread the tight rope of #GlobalWarming reporting:

“want to scare people enough to take the problem seriously but not so much as to make them feel hopeless [while] they want to reassure people that a climate-secure future is possible but only enough to avoid complacency.”

#ClimateChange #Extinction

https://correspondent.afp.com/watching-world-burn

@Sheril two of my favorite sayings:
entropy rules
que sera sera

life finds a way despite human interference.

@Sheril

If you like rock. Life on earth is a tower of impossible height each part of the tower balnced delicately on the portion below, while maintaining stzbility to the parts above.

The Asteroid was a MUCH SMALLER problem than Venusification of earth.

Life is a million interactions interconnected to support the possibility of the complexity.

No evidence in all our years of searching for life, anywhere, becauae it is infinitly fragile.

Earth could EASILY become Venus. 500 degrees.

@Sheril The dramatic climate changes that we have introduced are not recoverable. The previous extinction events were environmentally recoverable.

A model of overall warming trends continuing is Venus. How much life exists on Venus?

@Sheril I hope you're right. Life has survived past crises; but then, if it hadn't, we wouldn't be here to reflect on the fact.

There's no guarantee it will survive the crisis we're causing now.