Everything we can think of has an expiration date, some are sooner than others.
Some expiration dates may be billions of years in the future, like the death of our sun,
which is scheduled to begin approximately 5 billion years from now.
But what about us?
What about humanity?
When is our time to bow out?
Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions – I am Rebecca Felgate and today
we’re asking How Long Will Human’s Exist For.
Humans have been around for around 20,000 years, which is nothing compared to the horseshoe
crab, which has been around 445 million years!
Dinosaurs walked the earth for around 180 million years, but as we know, they aren’t
around anymore…at least they weren’t the last time I checked.
This shows us that dominant species can and will die…so how will we go?
So far as we are aware…There have been five mass extinctions in history.
These have been in response to climate changes, volcanoes and a huge asteroid, 6 miles wide,
slamming into earth.
Humans have evolved to be pretty adaptable and intelligent creatures.
If there were to be a natural disaster like those that came before, we could attempt to
problem solve our way out of the situation.
Our species has the brain power to predict huge natural disasters, and unlike species
before us, and we are more capable than ever when it comes to taking preventative action
and responding.
There is a chance we could deflect an asteroid and there is a chance, given proper preparation,
we could survive an ice age.
But of course, without knowing the severity of a situation we may be presented with in
the future, it is hard to predict our chances of survival.
Remember when I called humans intelligent…well….paradoxically, we are also deeply stupid.
While a lot of people know that trees are good for cleaning our air, air which we need
to breath, a lot of people cut them down, meanwhile they burn more and more oil, making
the air dirtier.
People also know that water is important…like…extremely important…for our survival, but we keep
using it irresponsibly, wasting precious drops.
Humans take but don’t give back…humans may well be the cause of their own demise
by wreaking havoc with the worlds eco system, which if it were to collapse, would be catastrophic
for more than just the human race.
Humans are also breading at an alarming rate, drinking water, eating food, breathing air,
breathing our carbon dioxide, leaving carbon foot prints.
In the past 20 years, the population of the earth has increased by almost 2 billion people,
leaping from 5.8 billion to 7.5 billion.
It is estimated that by the year 2050, there will be close to ten billion…then 11.2 billion
by the end of the century.
The problem is, we are already pretty crowded.
More people means more water consumption, more mouths to feed, more gas to burn, which
as we know can be very harmful for the environment and could spark dramatic changes in climate.
Also, an overcrowded earth could mean cramped and squalid conditions for those in poverty….this
means viruses and disease will spread with more ease, increasing the chances of pandemics,
like Ebola but with a further reach.
Disease, as we know from the Plague which killed over a third of Europe’s population,
has the power to wipe out swathes of people.
If humans want to survive for as long as their predecessors, the dinosaurs, they do have
a funny way of showing it.
Humans kill other humans in war, which results in more humans killing other humans and developing
weapons with potential to kill millions more humans.
It is a weird, destructive vicious cycle.
In the past 100 years we have created and further developed nuclear weaponry, and if
the next 100 years is anything like its preceding century, we may well create a weapon powerful
enough to destroy the earth, or at least humanity with a nuclear winter.
Barring all natural disasters, war, famine and disease there is a date in the cosmic
diary for our end, for the end of almost all life on earth, and that is one billion years
from now.
In roughly a billion years, our sun will have grown by 10%, making the earth much hotter
and likely boiling away oceans.
When this happens, almost all species we know of right now, including humans, will not be
able to survive the heat and will burn up and die, leaving just the hardy bacteria around.
Then, in the further future, earth itself will burn as the sun continues to expand.
While it seems we could be doomed from all angles, short and long term, this is some
hope for humans.
Professor Stephen Hawking is not alone in his view that humanities only chance of survival
is space exploration.
Right now many scientists are looking for other habitable planets, but we are a very
long way off finding a compatible future home.
Professor Hawking accurately summed up the future of humanity in an interview with Big
Think.
He said “I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space," "It will
be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone
the next thousand, or million.
The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet.
Let's hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load.
So how long will humans exist?
For all our brain power, humans are still products of their environment.
If the environment changed too much, if it got too hot, if it got too cold, if our water
supply was tarnished or diminished, if we became unhealthy or we blew holes in our earth,
we very well could die ahead of our one billion years from now schedule.
Our best hope for long term survival is to seek out and multiply in new realms.
Thanks so much for joining me in this episode of Life’s Biggest Questions, if you want
to continue the discussion please do so in the comments section down below.
Also, please do like this video if you found it engaging, and if you want to stay up to
date with our big answers, subscribe and hit that notification bell.
I am Rebecca Felgate, I’ll see you in the next video.
For now, stay curious, stay alert and never ever stop questioning.