How much longer?

Question

How long do you believe that human life will exist on earth? When we are gone do you think there will ever be a species close to us roam the earth again?

Answer 1

I can't even begin to guess as to how much longer humans will inhabit earth, but maybe we should also look into your definition of "gone" with respect to humans. I would like to think humans will one day populate the stars but with as little interest as there is in space travel these days, we most likely will die out here, though I very seriously doubt from any human caused catastrophe.

Also what do you mean by "species close to us"? If you mean sentient life, then I'm not so sure we really are the only sentient beings already on the earth. We know some aquatic mammals play and copulate for reasons other than procreation and even have specific names for each other. Just because we can't currently understand their language and they lack opposable thumbs does not imply that their brains are not advanced. I often wonder what kinds of stories they could tell us if we could communicate? If two sentient species coexist on this planet right now, I wouldn't doubt more would come eventually, if the earth was habitable at all at that point.

Answer 2

We can't predict with any accuracy how long human life will last on Earth.  Since we are polluting the planet and destroying our natural resources at a prodigious rate, we will probably not last until the expected end of the Earth.  This will likely occur in about 4 billion years when the Sun becomes a red giant and engulfs the inner planets.

Answer 3

were good for at least 10,000 yrs,unless we drop the bomb,but who knows enough of us might survive that to repopulate ,of course in a generation or 2 we will lose all technology ,we would be spear throwers again,but we might retain our language and writing so it wouldn't take as long to come up again. evolution is an ongoing process,even if the bomb falls and kills all of us some species will survive,so it will be wild again,the ecology doesn't require a brain to continue,plants and animals will recover in evolved forms and kill or be killed, intelligent life could arise again but not necessary..................tom