Earth's Period of Habitability Is Nearly Over

Posted by kdawson on Monday August 10, 2009 @09:38PM from the nice-while-it-lasts dept.

xp65 writes "Scientists at this year's XXVIIth General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil agree that we do not yet know how ubiquitous or how fragile life is, but that: 'The Earth's period of habitability is nearly over on a cosmological timescale. In a half to one billion years the Sun will start to be too luminous and warm for water to exist in liquid form on Earth, leading to a runaway greenhouse effect in less than 2 billion years.' Other surprising claims from this conference: that the Sun may not be the ideal kind of star to nurture life, and that the Earth may not be the ideal size."

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Re:Dang! Things were just getting fun by Dr.+Spork · 2009-08-11 05:23 · Score: 1, Offtopic

I totally agree. The Greens in the US and Germany have the same sort of myopia. This is very difficult for me, because on most issues, I tend to agree with the Greens more than just about any other political party. But on this one issue, they are so obviously irrational that I understand why many of my friends can't take them seriously. I love the Greens but I just can't defend their anti-nuclear kneejerk position. Maybe when the 60's hippie wing of the party dies out, they'll rethink this.