habitable planets

[Gawdzilla Sama]

We CAN screw it up so badly that a civilization isn't possible. That would leave grunting cave people.

We can cause existing civilization to collapse.   But I don’t see how we can make a later recovery impossible without also effectively making ourselves extinct.  

Mind you recovery doesn’t necessarily mean restoration of a industrial technological culture like our own.   We may squander so much accessible mineralogical resource that it would make the rise of another industrial technological society challenging for many tens of millions of years, until geology had time to rearrange what is accessible. Recovery could mean a pre-industrial culture like that existed before the 19th century.

We can screw up the planet so badly that maybe 100,000 humans survive, too few to maintain the infrastructure we have now. Worst case scenario but still one possible scenario. Good luck to all ye who have to live through that.

[Anomalocaris]

Well, once already we have gone from less than 10000 breeding individuals to a dense globe spanning swarm of locusts in less than 75,000 years.

I doubt even humanity’s most outstanding trait - its wonton self destructiveness - is close to being the equal of the task of putting a stop to our depredation of our planet.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Well, once already we have gone from less than 10000 breeding individuals to a dense globe spanning swarm of locusts in less than 75,000 years.

I doubt even humanity’s most outstanding trait - its wonton self destructiveness - is close to being the equal of  the task of putting a stop to our depredation of our planet.

The planet was in much better shape during the period you mention than it will be if things truly go south on us. No comparison is possible. A more appropriate comparison might be this one, we'll have to see:

Permian–Triassic extinction event - Wikipedia

The Permian–Triassic extinction event, colloquially known as the Great Dying, the End-Permian Extinction or the Great Permian Extinction, occurred about 252 Ma (million years) ago, forming the boundary between the Permian and Triassic geologic periods, as well as the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras. It is the Earth's most ...

[AFTT47]

To anyone who is interested in the true future of humanity, I give you https://www.isaacarthur.net/

FORGET PLANETS! You don't colonize planets - you build them. Our future in space is in rotating habitats that provide exactly the conditions we need or want. We can build enough of these with resources in our own solar system to provide living space for trillions of people - if we want to. I personally hope we will lose our desire to mindlessly reproduce ourselves like a cancer.

The bottom line though is that planets are NOT an ideal place to live. Their gravity well makes them difficult to travel from. The same gravity well pulls in asteroids and comets that can kill us. We originated on a planet but we must not remain tied to it or others like it. We originated on a planet but remaining there is like a baby remaining in a crib.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

To anyone who is interested in the true future of humanity, I give you https://www.isaacarthur.net/

FORGET PLANETS! You don't colonize planets - you build them. Our future in space is in rotating habitats that provide exactly the conditions we need or want. We can build enough of these with resources in our own solar system to provide living space for trillions of people - if we want to. I personally hope we will lose our desire to mindlessly reproduce ourselves like a cancer.

The bottom line though is that planets are NOT an ideal place to live. Their gravity well makes them difficult to travel from. The same gravity well pulls in asteroids and comets that can kill us. We originated on a planet but we must not remain tied to it or others like it. We originated on a planet but remaining there is like a baby remaining in a crib.

And we'll have that capacity before this planet goes into the shitter?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I haven't chimed in all that much, because I find this to be a more or less pointless discussion.  Here's why:

1. We will never, EVER colonize other planets.  It has been nearly a half-century since human beings landed on the moon.  If the political and public will was there, Luna City would be a going concern and the Goddard Colonies on Mars would be working towards self sufficiency.

2.  We aren't going to build planets or Dyson spheres/swarms or ringworlds.  The resources and money simply don't exist for projects of this magnitude.  The ISS cost something in the neighbourhood of $150 billion US, and the most people it can sustain at one time is about a dozen. Doing a rough straight-line extrapolation (clumsy, I know), building something in space to sustain just 1000 people would cost twelve thousand trillion dollars. Building something to house any appreciable fraction of humanity would cost a number of dollars so big that it doesn't mean anything.

3. For much the same reason as #2 (coupled with what are very likely insurmountable technical difficulties), we aren't leaving this solar system.

There is only one piece of worthwhile real estate available to us as a species, and we happen to be standing on it.

Boru

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Ah, a Sith Lord.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Grow up.

Boru

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Grow up.

Boru

You're the one that used the absolutes. 

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Using absolutes - in this case, anyroad - is what is known as 'realism'.  The fact that you opted to respond using a snide reference to fantasy is your own lookout.

Boru