Why everything
always two phases ? (Start=Stop, Beginning=End,
Birth=Death)
ABC
NEWS: The Earth is Being Used Up
The Earth has probably already peaked as a haven for plants and
animals and begun its long descent into oblivion, according to
scientists at the University of Washington who have plotted out the
future of our planet.
These are not prophets of doom who have mounted the podium to
warn us that we are killing ourselves through bad stewardship. They
are scientists who say all good things must come to an end sometime,
and at best we've got no more than half a billion years left.
After that, the planet will return to its ancient past, inhabited
only by bacteria and single-celled organisms, just as it was in its
earliest years. But in time even those will vanish as the Earth is
reduced to a lifeless chunk of rock, or swallowed entirely by an
expanding Sun.
And if you believe astrophysicist Donald Brownlee and
paleontologist Peter Ward, there's not a whole lot we can do about
it. They have laid out the grim facts in a new book, The Life and
Death of Planet Earth, published by Times Books.
Time Is Ticking
Here are the essential nuggets in their findings:
Like any star, the Sun won't last forever.
There's a short window of about 1 billion years when it's
possible for plants and animals to survive on Earth, and that's
probably true of any habitable planet. We're already about half way
through it.
Planets like this may be quite rare in the universe, so we better
take care of what we've got. (With such dire predictions, you've got
to allow these guys a little time on the soapbox.)
To simplify a very complicated story about the "devolving" of
planet Earth, Brownlee and Ward have reduced its 12-billion-year
lifespan to 12 hours, with the end coming at high noon.
It's only 4:30 a.m. in Earth's "day in the sun," as they put it,
but by 5 a.m. the 1 billion-year reign of plants and animals will
come to an end. By 8 a.m. the oceans will vaporize.
By noon it will all be over, about 7.5 billion years down the
road.
It's not a pretty story, the two admit, but "Mother Nature wasn't
designed to make us happy," according to Brownlee. click here
to download full article in pdf format
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