OK but then they’ll fuck it up worse.
Comment on One million years from now...
tubaruco@lemm.ee 9 months agoeh, birds are already very intelligent. one of the species wil probably end up creating technology at some point (assuming all humans die without ending all life on earth)
letsgocrazy@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Sordid@lemmy.world 9 months ago
There is enough time for another intelligent species to evolve after us, the problem is that we’ve already used up all the easily accessible fossil fuels. That means they won’t have the energy sources necessary to have an industrial revolution and will be stuck at a pre-industrial tech level forever (or rather until the oceans boil off).
Kase@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Is that true? My understanding was that there’s still plenty of coal, oil, etc, we just can’t keep burning it cause of the greenhouse effect
threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
There are still plenty of fossil fuels, but we’ve used up the deposits that are easily accessible with 1700s technology.
Kase@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Ah, thanks. I guess our technology probably wouldn’t be around by the time another species replaces us, but it’d be cool if they could just pick up where we left off technologically (of course, they’d have to make good choices to not end up like we did except way faster, and I don’t have that much optimism lmao).
Then again, I wonder if there’d be new fossil fuel deposits by then. I mean, if the conditions were right and given enough time. I don’t know a whole lot about how this all works, it’s fun to think about though.
Then again again, maybe if they had no fossil fuels, they could sidestep the whole anthropogenic (pls don’t bully my spelling, I have no idea) climate change problem. I’m sure it would take longer, but maybe they’d eventually figure out how to produce lots of energy without ruining the planet for themselves (or at least ruin it differently than we did). ¯\(°_o)/¯
Gadg8eer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
It’s only recently been proven untrue… IIRC… because it apparently turns out crude oil is actually the poop of a particular ancient microbe that is still around and that’s partially (along with Oil Fracking) why we still have fossil fuels and why a far future non-human civilization will have plenty of fossil fuels to work with.
You’re right, though, we have 5x more fossil fuels than have been burnt since the beginning of the industrial revolution. If we DO use the rest, the climate would be so unrecoverable that 99% of multicellular life will die, but even the most corrupt oil executive would be dead years before the last animal because most - especially the wealthiest - humans need agriculture to eat, and if shit hits the fan the poor outnumber the rich and the crop-killing pests outnumber the poor.
Spliffman1@lemmy.world 9 months ago
We’re really doing our best to totally leave this planet an uninhabitable mass… But I think the earth will have the last laugh.