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What is a good estimate of the Earth's ecological optimum?

What is a current realistic estimate of the year when life on Earth will become unsustainable?

  • Answer:

    Concerning an event that kills all life on Earth, including all forms? Even the loss of the Earth's magnetic field would not kill subsurface bacteria. I would say the expansion of the sun  as it ages to a Red Giant is the most likely end to all life.  The Sun will take in the orbit of the Earth in about 5 billion years, killing even the bacteria several miles under the surface.  The Sun does not have enough mass to explode as a supernova.  We also might get a collision large enough to melt the Earth's crust worldwide.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun

Tom Gargaro at Quora Visit the source

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The human footprint is such that it would already take 1.5 planets to sustain our current rate of consumption.  As such, human civilization is currently unsustainable, and has been for several decades.

Mark Trexler

If I say next year, how will that change your behavior? 100 million years? Since the expected natural end of life on earth is, at a minimum, millions of years in the future, it really shouldn't affect anything you do with your life. And if the question is just intellectual curiosity, you should know that science changes its mind on this sort of thing all the time. But if you mean when will people make it impossible for our civilization to continue, that will likely be within the next 100 years. Probably less.

Ruthann Adamsky

Unsustainable at what scale? The end of humanity??? Or just a portion (I.e. The losers?) .. Because the later is already occurring across many areas of Asia and Africa, and will certainly be felt in numerous other geographies in the near future.

Richard Brubaker

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