QUOTE(SeekerVI @ Feb 3 2008, 02:19 PM)
I don't think we can even comprehend some of the weird changes that are going to occur in the future.
I second that. I do hope that the world continues to be comfortable to live in for a while longer at least, but sooner or later everything dies - including whole species, whole civilizations, whole eras of war and peace. But what doesn't die is the planet itself (not the stuff growing on it, but the planet it all grows on). I'm not one of those that believes that the human race is the only intelligent species in the universe, so in my opinion, there is life elsewhere and our souls are not restricted to this planet if we aren't able to incarnate on it later on. Just another failed petri dish. Even the damage we're doing is negligible. Not because it isn't a lot of damage, but none of the spirits of forests, mountains, lakes, etc., that I have ever talked to seem the slightest bit worried about anything. A shift in the pole can turn a jungle into a desert - why worry about the slow chipping away that mankind does to the world? Eventually we die, and it all grows up over us to get to the sunlight again, like we were never here.
But in the long run, there will more than likely be life here again, even if everything was wiped out. There's widespread belief that single celled organisms have in the past arrived on interstellar debris, so even if the planet is literally barren (unlikely) life could be seeded here again. It's prime realestate, all the conditions right for life as we understand it which are hard to find in our galaxy at least.
You can't argue with the weather. There's no point in worrying about something on a cosmic scale like that which you can't do anything about. No technology, no science, no magical power, is going to prevent the changes that are happening in our cosmic atmosphere. You just have to stick to the present and trust that life will carry on in some form, and if all intelligent life is destroyed, there will be something else later on.
And in all likelihood, there will be a population that survives. The ice age was pretty bad, but here we are. If things get hot, people will stick to the shade, we'll eek out a living and adapt/evolve, and eventually there will be another change, and we'll do it again. In a way, it's a cosmic engine of evolution. Only in such extreme adverse conditions are we forced to adapt to new environments. Think about where we are now - we might be making intellectual progress, and there's something to that, but in all other ways we're very stationary, people everywhere prefer to maintain the status quo, maintaining ideal conditions (or as close to them) with technology and modern luxury. I think a cosmic catastrophe will do us good, it's time the underevolved were weeded out so the rest of the human race can take a leap forward.
Which sounds calloused, and it is a little bit, but this is simply how nature works. It's not good or bad, it just is, and the will of the universe, the laws that govern everything from the top to the bottom, are never mistaken, wrong, spiteful, or flawed. If it's going to happen, then it's the right thing. Knowing humans we'll try to bump the orbit of the sun or something.
peace