Blue Sky Limousine

I saw a show on television about all the different ways the Earth could end, and there was one segment featuring Snowball Earth, a theorized former incarnation of our planet. It seems that a long time ago, the Earth had a pretty major ice age. I think it was 750 million years ago. The world started to cool, and the ice caps expanded. The ice became so big that the sun’s rays were deflected, and that caused further cooling. So the ice continued to expand, covering landmasses, and freezing oceans, until the entire world was covered in ice, and it looked like a cue ball. What I found interesting was how the television program was saying that in thousands years, the Earth might return to a similar state, or maybe just a partially frozen state, and that humanity would have a difficult time in such a situation.

I was mildly disappointed that the program didn’t focus on our potential success in either preventing or combating such a situation, given the likely technological advancements that will be made in such a period of time. Even in a hundred years, we will likely have made leaps and bounds of progress from where we are today. And our current situation isn’t one of ignorance. We know a great deal, and have a great many capabilities. So I think that theorizing that humanity will end in 50,000 years just because the Earth freezes isn’t the best way of looking at things. I figure, give us a couple hundred years at the most, and we will pretty much be in control of the entire planet, its whether patterns, atmospheric conditions, temperature, and even things that we can’t conceive of at this present moment. I guess my main point is I have a lot of faith in humanity. Let’s just hope nuclear war doesn’t put the kibosh on our plans.