The latest number of 'Scientific American' included a short piece by a professor in the US who specialises in the end of days. Perhaps he comes from the Bible Belt. Lightly edited, the story seems to be as follows.
In the next 10 years, the big threat is unstable leaders in two of the three leading world powers.
In the next 100 years, the big threat is the mess that is likely to be caused by mass migration out of zones affected by global warning. Syrians across the Ionian Sea will seem like a picnic by comparison.
In the next 1,000 years, we will need to watch out for large lumps of rock wandering around the solar system. It is possible that one is on course to hit earth with catastrophic results. The subject of at least one science fiction movie. But maybe we can build the technology we will need to deal with such a lump.
Gap to be filled.
In the next 100,000 years, we will need to watch out for much more serious climate change than global warming. Maybe another ice age is on the way, which would knock out large chunks of the northern hemisphere as we know it today.
Several gaps to be filled,
In the next 1,000,000,000 years, it is likely that the sun, as it grows older, will, contrariwise, get a lot brighter. This will probably boil off the oceans and cook any us of us who might still happen to be around. Probably need to go off-planet to get around this one.
And in around 10,000,000,000 years, the sun will die. But, provided we had found some fine new energy source, we could perhaps come back from wherever we went at the last step. But not sure about what happens to the earth orbit around the sun at this point. Does it matter? Perhaps sailing off across the Milky Way would not be such a bad idea?
PS: I shall try to work up something to fill the gaps with.
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