The chance of exceeding the 1.5 degree benchmark of limiting global warming stands at 70%, the UN’s weather agency says.
The chance that average warming from 2025 to 2029 is to exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) benchmark stands at 70%, the United Nations (UN) said.
As a result, the Earth is expected to remain at historic levels of warming.
This comes after the planet experienced the two hottest years ever recorded in 2023 and 2024, according to a report published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN’s climate agency.
There might indeed be ways around the filter, e.g. a stable, non-exploitative society but they would never reach space. The filter might indeed not even exist, space could indeed still be young but I’m not very convinced. If space were young, and if it were to expand as it currently does, civilizations would have fewer opportunities as there would be fewer visible stars to explore. As time grows, chances get smaller still.
Let’s say humans do cling on. I believe they will face challenges that are too steep to make long-term survival probable. Not only the heavily pollution and the unlivable climate, but the depletion of basic minerals will probably prove too great an obstacle. That band of humans must have held on and maintained all current technology, and have sufficient power sources, to be able to do some deep underground mining, as all easy-to-reach minerals have already gone. Without technology or those minerals, I’m not sure how we’ll be growing food or cleaning the air to breathe.
I think you misunderstand how the expansion of the universe works. While the universe is expanding, it does not do so at a uniform rate on a local scale, as that expansion can be countered by various forces, most notably gravity. It’s expected that while space will continue to expand, stars within galaxies and groups/clusters of galaxies will all remain bound to each other for as long as that gravitational effect persists. Within the Local group (of which the Milky Way is part), for example, there are at least 80 galaxies, and those will stay bound indefinitely (according to our current limited understanding). Galaxies outside of our supercluster are, however, already moving away from us faster than the speed of light, so exploration outside of a supercluster without FTL tech would be impossible.
As for the accessible resource issue, that’s a fair point, and one I hadn’t considered. I imagine we would be able to repurpose already collected and refined materials from our old civilizations as a way to somewhat offset that, but it would definitely be a major hurtle to get past, especially if radioactive dust is a hazard we need to deal with on an atmospheric level. I still think humanity would find a way, as our ingenuity shouldn’t be underestimated, but I don’t think it’s a guaranteed thing at all, and I acknowledge my only reason for believing that is just a gut feeling and a, frankly, selfish desire to believe we aren’t as vulnerable as we appear to be.
Nonetheless, a humanity that barely clings on isn’t much of a win in either case, so even that is a cold comfort.
Well put! :)