How will the world end?

Limbaugh will eat it.

gotta clean the coffee off my monitor now...

'cause he thinks it'll get him a free replay on his GameBoy.

:nuke: :nuke: :nuke:

:cry:

There are other options? :shrug:

;)

goes supernova

present orbit before it becomes a nova (the Sun isn't big enough to become a supernova). This will happen several billion years from now.

However, the Sun's luminosity (light output) is steadily increasing; for example, back in the time of the dinosaurs, the Sun put out about 20% less light. The reason we haven't cooked is that increased temperature causes more plants to grow on land (and more plankton in the ocean), thus removing carbon from the atmosphere, and helping keep the temperature steady.

Some of the carbon removed became part of the fossil fuels we are burning today -- not a bright idea.

However, even if we don't ruin our planet by global warming, we still have a problem. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is so low (less than 1%, compared with -- for example -- nearly 5% in the time of the dinosaurs) that keeping the temperature steady by removing carbon dioxide won't work much longer. We probably have the better part of 100 million years left if we do nothing.

Possible cures include: moving the Earth's orbit outwards, increasing the Earth's reflectivity, and the like.

Intriguingly enough, it will probably be quite practical to move Earth's orbit out; NASA has a group that specializes in designing trajectories for spacecraft; their idea is to put objects (e.g. small asteroids) in funny orbits that transfer angular momentum about the Sun from Jupiter to Earth; basically, if you get the trajectory exactly right, you can have it pass in front of Earth in its' orbit (thus speeding us up slightly and moving our orbit outward), while using a Jupiter fly-by to restore its' initial state. And you can design an orbit where it does it over and over again; the period of such an orbit is about 6,000 years; basically, the object loops 'way out of the Solar System until Earth & Jupiter are lined up again for the two fly-bys that transfer the angular momentum from Jupiter to Earth...

And the effect is small -- but 100 million years is a long, long time.

Of course, if you get it slightly wrong, and hit the Earth, you may have the equivalent of a nuclear winter; this argues for many small objects, rather than a few big ones...

The only question in my mind is whether humanity has the brains to work that far ahead; 100 million years is indeed a long time. Right now, we have a pResident who can't forsee the consequences of his own actions 6 months ahead. Rethugs have NO foresight, NO idea that actions (or inaction) have consequences; the only thing they understand is to grab it all and grab it now.

:evilgrin:

The Marlins won two. An unelected AWOL imbecile is in the White House. Some Saudi friends of his knocked down the World Trade Center.

It's ended already. Didn't you get the memo? :)

.. resulting, ironically, in the nearly overnight onset of the next ice age.

Don't forget, Wooly Mammoths have been found frozen in the ice in Siberia, standing upright with partially chewed tropical vegatation in their mouths. Something caught them very much by surprise! They didn't even have time to fall over when they died, before they were burried in snow/hail/sleet/ice and quick frozen in place.

Imagine this freak storm but somewhat bigger, and continuing for weeks or months.

edited to fix broken URL link

you offered - do you know where one could find more information about these freak storms?

I have been hearing more and more about it lately, and having been a close observer of geographical events recently, am getting quite curious.

nt

or even Tooth Decay.

If your teeth fall out, you can get dentures.

But what are you going to do about your protons? The end is nigh!

Mine will end when I die I guess

sold on E-bay and broken in a shipping accident.

Before everything blinks out of existence.

ice will fall in Compton.

I really liked you, Burt.

:cry:

This is the way the world ends.
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang, but a whimper. - T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

n/t

Shrub is workin' on it!

"things fall apart - the center cannot hold."

From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great and would suffice.


...gotta love Frost...

People spend more and more time on the Internet until technology is invented that allows us to plug our brains directly into the 'net. More and more people migrate to cyberspace as the population in the "real world" declines and finally disappears completely.

At that point we are all pure consciousness hosted in cyberspace and living in virtual reality worlds of our own design. Eventually, we forget that there even is such a place as "the real world."

Then an unusually strong solar flare disrupts the automated power grid crashing computers all over the globe. Oh the humanity! Billions of minds, living only in electronic cyberspace, wink out of existence as the power fails. And since we've forgotten what the real world is, we have no idea what's happeneing. We only see that our friends are simply vanishing from cyberspace for no apparent reason.

The repair droids fail to keep pace with the cascading failures as more and more souls simply poof out of existnce as the electrical connections to their server computers fail.

To an impartial observer from another planet, it seems that a few self-repairing machines simply malfunctioned and fell apart. From the inside, however, from where we all will be, the entire human race flickers out of existence, one person/computer at a time.

In your scenario when the computers fail, we will have discovered that we stopped using them centuries ago and are beings of pure energy using telepathy to communicate and telekenisis to manipulate "matter".

And that's why SETI never finds anything. Civilizations go non-material before they acheive inter-stellar travel. After that they don't communicate with us by sending us radio waves, but by telepathically connecting with street corner preachers and old men living in house-trailers in the desert.

That explains soooo much!

I thought the world had already ended years ago . :shrug:

Matter can not be destroyed. The world will always exist in one or many forms.

...or "Citizen Kane" since they're remaking EVERYTHING these days. Massive protests, violence, chaos ensues. Downhill fast from there.

I'd rather not think about it.
:dem:

...Trinity will die rather unceremoniously, Neo will destroy Agent Smith, the most unlikable cabal of character actors this side of a Star Wars prequel will play RoboTech while dressed in hemp and then eat it via a big phallic drill, and someone Grandma and a guy who looks like Colonel Sanders will obliquly discuss the playing of dangerous games and admire the fake-looking sunset.

Frankly, I hope to avoid it.

the Republican Borg.

the earth will speed up exponentially on its orbit around the sun, break all laws of physics, and turn itself into a black hole. Yep.
Sting

Sorry, I just had to say it.