I thought it was much more than 1 light year away, Alpha centuri if memory serves.

In spite of our best efforts to destroy it, the planet will continue to thrive. Planets exploding are a thing of comic books. It will be here long after our civilization is gone, and perhaps a more brilliant life form decides to inhabit it.

Why? Even now, we're already benefitting from the climate change. Further, this isn't the first time we've had a climate that was tropical world wide, and wasn't necessarily a bad thing. People spend alot of time fearing change, anthropogenic (man made) or otherwise. As for the storms, they will eventually reach an equilibrium state, and in fact, that time is fast approaching.

sorry my bad

one parsec away

4.3 light years

That is definitely right. Unless we discover a way to live on a closer planet but they are not looking very hospitable.

Call it a guess, but 1 parsec was defined as the distance from here to there. It's like AU's, the distance from the earth to the moon.

Funny, I remember reading a book how existing nuclear weapon arsenal is enough to blow up the planet several times. What a propaganda... We can barely make a small "pop" with all the might we've got.

nahh cause it's 1.3 parsecs, I just rounded

1.3, 1.4, whatever it takes.

It was a guess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsec

I guess I could have looked it up.

So.... if an arcminute is 1/60 of a degree
and an arcsecond is 1/60 of an areminute
then a parsec = (93 Million Miles) / (tangent (1/3600)) = 19 Trillion miles. or 206,000 AU. Give or take.

We do not have to blow up earth to sterilize it. However if all the nukes that have ever been built where simultaneously detonated at the center of the earth I have no doubt it would be rubble.

Recent studies done by top physicists have shown that far fewer nukes then once thought are needed to vaporize large potions of our protective ozone layer, as well as stir up enough dust to blot out the sun for FAR too long to for 99% of humanity to survive.

We CAN destroy earth for US.

Blow the earth into rubble? You've got to be kidding. All they are talking about is some speculations on ozone layer (some thin slice of athmosphere - basically gas disturbance), and some dust.

I thought it took Persian Archers to do that. :)

I'm sure all that's true but I'm equally confident that a global nuclear holocaust isn't in our future. Mutually Assured Destruction will keep any soveriegn nations from nuking each other.



In principle, I agree. well actually I don't. It woud take far more convincing evidence than a 70% likelyhood against to get most people on board with drastic changes.

but let's work with the assumption that something 'must' be one. purposefully wrecking entire economies, I would argue, isn't the solution. California has already bankrupted itself trying to reign in it's "carbon footprint" and the "disaster" still looms..

but demonising hydrocarbon energy is counterproductive. yes there are other way to harness energy and yes they should be explored and are being explored. People want to talk about getting off the 'oil addiction' but fail to realise that if all the oil companies in the US disappeared tomorrow, hundreds fof thousands if not millions of people, working class people, would be so far out of a job it would make the current economic situation look like the roaring 20's. Oilfield service companies employ legions of engineers, comuter scientists, geologists, geophysicists, accountants, you name it.

just remeber that old addage.. be careful what you ask for. there's a chance you could get it.

People are acting like total leeches these days. They want new technology, but they do not want to pay for it. Nope.

Hydrocarbons have one huge advantage, that all these loudmouths have no idea about. It's portable. And, it is safe, while portable.

Electricity can not replace it, because it is not portable. And besides, to generate so much electricity to be able to replace hydrocarbons we would need to multiply our nuclear power production about 100 times.

Something radically new needs to be developed. And who is going to pay for the development. Where is the profit motive? As soon as gas prices reach humorously low 3-4 USD per gallon, there is a public outcry.

Nobody minds wasting their money on X-box games, and Starbuck coffee, and other useless things like cable bill, but god forbid we actually pay for what keeps us going.

There needs to be a price level reached, where it is so expensive to use hydrocarbons, that it becomes clear that whoever develops new replacement technology, will be golden.

This time is no where on horizon yet, and in large part because our current nanny state does all it can to remove the market price factor. Well, without high price, where is the reason?

More like 4-5 billion years from now when the Sun burns up all it's nuclear fuel, expands into a white dwarf star and scorches the Earth.

Not unless we find a more efficient fuel source than "delithium crystals."

I agree with you on this. The biggest myth that people seem to cling to is that man is somehow the "culmination". We are one step on the evolutionary ladder. Barring some sort of devastating cosmic event, I think the earth will continue to be long after we are rendered extinct.