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Anonymous
Peter Ward: Our sun has about another 7 billion years before it enters the Red Giant phase. Surely, then, we could expect a long period of habitability. But the reality is that it takes more than the correct amount of solar energy to make a planet habitable. This is especially true for complex organisms such as animals, which have a very narrow range of temperatures and nutrient requirements compared to microbes. The presence of complex life on the Earth will end in no more than a billion years (and perhaps much sooner), due to a sequentially predictable breakdown of habitable systems on our planet. The systems in question are those that serve to regulate the Earth's temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide content.

FUCK YOU PETER WARD. WE NEED MORE TIME!
>> Anonymous
Frank Drake: Once a species has developed high technology, there are many strategies for dealing with the changing brightness of the home star. It has even been suggested by Gregory Benford that the main sequence lifetime of stars can be greatly extended by developing a technology which stirs the star, bringing fresh hydrogen to the core - after all, about 90% of a star's mass is intact when the giant stage is approached. A far out idea to be sure, but it reminds us that clever technologies may be as yet unrecognized by us.

HAHA TAKE THAT WARD
>> Anonymous
There's an article/blog floating around where a man has a "conversation with god." the article's fiction of course, but draws on alot of science fiction and one of the stages they mention for a society to take is direct manipulation of their system's star/stars. Doesnt seem like such a far fetched idea, plus we have nearly a BILLION YEARS to reach that point.
>> Anonymous
>>258450

No mention of adaptation and evolution plays into this "billion years left" crap.
>> Anonymous
beelions