this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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Long term? The ecosystem. If we don't change course, at some point the species that goes extinct is us, and nature is going to recover. Life has survived much worse than what we can do.
The great dying is a great example of this! 96% marine life dead and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species dead. Planet came back no issues.
No issues, on geological timescales sure. I’m sure there were issues on human timescales though.
Ahem. Trilobites would like a word with you, thanks.
Ahem.
Whatever doesn't kill you, simply makes you...
... stranger.
The Arthropod timeline used to regularly check in on the Vertebrate timeline, but it just got to be too ridiculous.
Will be 100% one day no matter what unga and stick do.
Realistically I think if humanity decided altogether to go for the genocide ending to life on earth we'd be able to kill all life on earth. We can't directly kill all of the bacteria but if we were dogged enough we could induce the Venus ending (we will long be dead before victory is claimed though).
The problem is that man was probably life's only chance to escape the ultimate trap, the end lifecycle of the Sun. Which for life's purposes isn't the end red giant stage, but long before. Life has had a few restarts in Earth's history, but it may not have that same window of time for another one that would get to what we have now.
Earth is in the middle of its lifecycle (probably even a bit before the middle). Thinking humans are the ultimate anything is hubris.
We used all the easy to use fuel.
Any civilization that comes after us, human or not, will have a much tougher time sustaining a technological society capable of spaceflight.
We also might cause Kessler syndrome, which may also be fairly problematic for a future wannabe spacefaring society.
Our own current society, even if it wasn't as unstable as it is, well, its literally burning through all the good stuff, which creates an inescapable problem of energy just getting more and more expensive over time, unless you manage to use the 'buff' from carbon based fuel sources to actually develop a civilization that can keep working once all thats left is too expensive to access.
If you don't clear that hurdle, and/or blow yourselvs up in the process... whatever comes afterward has relics of advanced manufacturing processes, and has a very, very hard time getting all the links in those chains to work again.
This applies to things beyond oil... they're called non-renewable resources for a reason.
Life started very early on, possibly soon after the surface cooled enough for water to condense. We're in the midpoint of a typical yellow dwarf star like the Sun, and as I said, the Sun's conditions start changing long before the red giant phase. I don't see where you get not even being halfway.
I wasn't claiming man as ultimate, but just the only species I've noticed that managed to find a way to escape the Earth's biosphere (briefly). It won't happen again. No hubris, just a matter of time.