I’ve literally had this argument on lemmy about two weeks ago. It always goes like this:

Me: [some comment to the effect of “the planet is dying”]

Them: the planet will be fine. Yes all life will perish, but the earth itself will continue.

Me: . . .

Them: What. It’s just the fact. Don’t worry about the planet.

Sometimes they quote Carlin without realizing it and without context so to them it’s not a joke about how fucked up we are, it’s a simple truth without any additional layers. It’s a little boggling.

Yes all life will perish, but the earth itself will continue.

Why would all life perish? From what I’ve heard and read about nuclear disaster exclusion zones, humans disappearing tends to make space for other forms of life that had previously been displaced by cities full of humans and such. To my understanding long time life probably won’t care about anything for the next few million years.

Short term many or most humans might die or suffer. I don’t think it’s easy to predict how fragile humankind is, civilization may crumble. I doubt all of humankind will be gone in a thousand years, though I wouldn’t bet against a semi “post apocalyptic” future.

Basically it’s due to the heat, acidification of the ocean, and the massive drop in oxygen production as the ocean acidifies.

Most of the oxygen we breathe is produced by microorganisms in the ocean and as the ocean gets more acidic (from absorbing CO2 from the air) and hotter (from greenhouse effects) it makes it harder for those little fellas to survive. And when they die their impact on our breathable air goes away. And if course the stuff that’s eats those organisms no longer have food and due off.

That’s not even mentioning just the heating from greenhouse effects making unlivable temperature conditions (humidity + heat = unable to cool down and overheat) more likely to occur.

All life wouldn’t perish per se but the current complex animals we have (and us humans) would be greatly impacted to say the least.

Do I understand this right that the really big argument here is actually ocean acidification? I can’t really believe that this wouldn’t open up niches for other life forms in oceans. I’m certain that complex animals will be greatly impacted - they already are - but temperature shifts will lead to animals migrating and complex life will keep flourishing one way or another.

I feel as though the assumption that humans had the ability to kill all complex life like some people suggest is exaggerating the significance of humans. To my understanding humans have about the same impact as many other of the more impactful species do and while many have lead to big changes on the planet, to my knowledge none have managed to come close to “ending all life”. That’s reserved for grander desasters, either from inside Earth or extraterrestrial.

There’s a chance that the aluminum residue from hundreds of annual rocket launches will destroy the ozone layer, without which the earth will lose its atmosphere relatively quickly.

will destroy the ozone layer, without which the earth will lose its atmosphere relatively quickly.

What?

The aluminum and other metals in the space crafts bond with the ozone, which could fuck with our magnetosphere. It turns out it’s mostly from satellites burning up on reentry, which makes way more sense though.

And a messed up ozone layer means the atmosphere will… disappear?

If the ozone layer fills with metallic alloys, it fucks with the magnetosphere, potentially to the point that the magnetosphere no longer protects us from solar winds, and that would lose us the atmosphere.

It also might not be that serious, but there’s no way to know until there’s a problem. Companies are rapidly increasing the number of artificial satellites in our orbit without any consideration to the potential consequences though.

Is this similar to the ozone depletion and ozone holes that were always a big deal in the early 2000s and had lead to bans of chlorofluorocarbons eg in refrigerants and other products, or is this an entirely different topic?

To me it sounds similar so I wonder why the danger of Earth losing its atmosphere “very quickly” hadn’t caused panic back then, it was only things like “stay inside so you don’t get sunburns”. Though the atmosphere disappearing would be a way bigger deal.