Contemplating the End of Earth

Of the 4700+ blog posts I’ve written here since 2009, several dozen contain the suggestion that our civilization as we know it may be headed for extinction within the next century.  What’s most likely to take us down?  Any of a number of things, but certainly the damage we’re wreaking on our environment has the potential to get the job done all by itself:Increasing concentrations of toxicity, climate change and the resultant sea-level rise, ocean acidification, loss of biodiversity, etc.  Of course, all this presumes that we can resist the temptation of thermonuclear war, international fascism, and all the other dystopian scenarios.

But what about the longer term? Will the Earth be around and capable of supporting life forever, even if we, its rowdy and inconsiderate tenants, clean up our act?  Nope.

Last night I had the evening to myself, so, when I came home from my local wine bar, I settled in for a three-hour lecture set by Neil deGrasse Tyson.  What a pleasure it was to take in a high-level presentation on everything that’s going on in the world of modern physics, from one of the most entertaining speakers imaginable.  In particular, the talk included some level of detail on the ultimate demise of Earth. In 7.6 billion years, the sun will expand to become a red giant, engulfing and vaporizing our planet.  In addition, our Milky Way is on a collision course with its near galactic neighbor, Andromeda, and the result will be a considerable train wreck, as both galaxies have hundreds of billions of stars and their own black holes.  K’bammmm.

I hope you’ll find time to take in this fabulous series.