Scientists: Earth Could Actually Be Habitable For Another 2.3 Billion Years

Wired:

The Earth could be habitable for another 2.3 billion years, extending previous estimates of life's horizon by more than 1 billion years.

King Fai Li and his colleagues at Caltech hypothesize that Earth's atmospheric pressure has always varied, and that it could fall in the distant future, keeping Earth from frying for far longer than previous research had shown.

Read the whole story: Wired

Comments

[Gasparilla]

What does this do to Social Security?

[oncethere]

So the song, "in the year 2525, if man is still alive" will have to be changed to "in the year ?--please fill in blank cause I can't.

[WTF1956]

2,525,252,250?

[D-V-H]

I guess I can buy that beach house now.
Whew!

[mjeffn]

We'll be rescued by aliens in flying saucers, like the Anasazi Indians, long before then anyway.

[Telemachus]

That's the good news. The bad news is, it will live in a crevice and look a lot like Mitch McConnell.

[deeppeace]

No more calls, we have a winner. Best post of the day.

[kylennblack]

I'm still skeptical. It could fall but the pattern of variability isn't enough for me to think the earth will have a habitable atmosphere beyond a billion years. Need more info.

[Nosybear]

So.... Let me get this straight. We're NOT destroying the planet? I really hate the "save the planet" hyperbole. We are not destroying the planet. We may end up making it uninhabitable for our sort of life but dear planet Earth will remain, perhaps to be inherited by cockroaches or by some other form we don't yet know. The meek shall inherit the Earth - a prophecy for our time....

[noen]

This has nothing to do with climate change. Try reading the article. It explains why:

“We all know that the human activity which is influencing the atmosphere has a time scale of hundreds of years or thousands of years,” Li said. “Even if the biosphere is really controlling the climate, it’s not on that time scale.”

We're not off the hook.

[GhostofBillHicks]

PHUEWWW!! What a relief,I was starting to worry about that!

[OutWest08]

... you want to see life on our planet go extinct? Put GWB back on the Hill again. He'll produce enough toxic gases that the planet will shut itself of.

Don't dubya that. LOLOLOLOL

[martinchill]

well still, don't miss the fun-filled fearfest on ABC tonite from Bob Woodruff telling us how we're all doomed.

[tnlcallen]

Oddly enough, if the Earth does last that long, I think we will still be here. Further along on the Evolutionary Scale, but still here. It seems that all animals eventually become extinct, but that may not happen to us. There has never been an Animal that can control it's environment before.

[elmerfude]

I don't think that is correct. According to the theory of Gaia, life actually made the current atmosphere. Various cyclic feedback control processes involving the biosphere, geosphere and atmosphere control the planets environment much like the various processes in the human body control its health.

[hark]

I doubt it. We'll have long gone elsewhere, to wherever and whatever intelligent civilizations become.
We'll gain the wherewithal and the wisdom to leave our biological companions to an earth we no longer need and befoul with our presence. I'm betting within a thousand years, maybe less, at the rate our scientific knowledge is progressing.

And evolution will begin again as the earth recovers. Who knows? In time, another intelligent species may rise up, this one perhaps more peaceful and appreciative of its home planet.

[Telemachus]

What you mean "we", Paleface?

[nubret2008]

Control environment like directing Tornadoes? Stopping floodings and Tsunamis or earthquakes and volcanoes? Or change the global warming? What kind of control are you talking about???

[Telemachus]

There's a big difference between "controlling" and "effing up beyond all recognition". ;)

[Jamie Kowalski]

There are many ways that human life could be extinguished from the planet. And while none of them are likely to happen at any given moment, it's fairly likely to happen over the course of the next ten million years. Move the scale to the billions of years, and it becomes extremely likely.

[jmsent]

And here I thought I was going to have to cut my vacation short. Great news.

[elmerfude]

It's caused by soot.

[chicago25624]

Impossible, Algoresays we only have 6 yr, 7mo and 25 days to save the earth from scorching.

Andalgore knowsitall

[kapalabhati]

Another brilliant addition to the discourse. You're on a roll.

[hark]

Can't you guys go four seconds without bashing Al Gore?

Don't you ever have anything constructive to say or do, you right wingers? Or do you just bask in the glory of having solved all the problems of the world by leaving them to the market to handle?

[nubret2008]

What's wrong with the numbers? Al Gore ist just counting in Republican time measurements that states earth is only 6000 years old...

[D-V-H]

It isn't a matter of "saving the planet". It is a matter of saving ourselves. The Earth has a long history of rebounding after mass extinctions. Ours would be but a blink of the eye to the Earth. But it would be quite a big deal for us.

[Jamie Kowalski]

Earth is so 2000s. I plan on moving to Corot-7b by the time I'm 400.