The short answer is no, it is not ending, nor will it anytime soon. The majority of contributions of climate change only started around the mid 1900’s, and it is silly to think that humans would be able to end life on Earth within a mere 100 years of carbon emissions from factories and vehicles. I am personally not a fan of the whole “The world is ending” narrative; spreading fear about a subject does not create a positive reaction by the public. Take the recent talk about the Coronavirus for example: people are scared for their lives and have taken to stockpiling goods as if they will not be leaving their houses for months.

To address the rising CO2 levels: yes, they are higher that have been seen on earth for a long time, but the global temperatures and sea levels have fluctuated greatly over the course of Earth’s history and there seems to be nothing alarmingly different about the current temperatures or sea levels now, it is pretty much only the CO2 concentration that is not normal/expected, but this is no reason to panic and buy years of canned goods in bulk.

The contents of out atmosphere have also changed greatly over time. There once was a point where out atmosphere was made up more oxygen, which allowed for plants and insect species to flourish (if you have ever hear about there once being insects the size of dogs or birds, it is because the high oxygen levels allowed this large growth). The atmosphere, like every other aspect on this planet, changes, although the levels of CO2 today are obviously influenced highly by human. I think a reason as to why people panic so much is because they have neither a frame reference nor a comprehension about how vastly Earth has changed due to the relatively short span of significant human impact on our planet. This is similar to something like space and space travel: it is difficult to even comprehend how big and how far things are in our solar system because we do not experience things of that much grandeur in our daily lives.

The big question is: how can we change these carbon levels? Well, as is evident with the cyclical change of our atmosphere and temperature, the Earth is always going to change and it is always going to follow this pattern. This means that we are most likely only accelerating the journey to the next period of high temperature, subsequently followed by a period of declining and low temperatures. In short: the Earth is always changing and I do not think that we can anything to stop this. So what ever we do (reducing carbon intake, move to renewable energy, etc.) will only slow the progression to the next peak in temperature. We will never be able to make the Earth not change and us humans, unless we use something like 1 million nuclear weapons or some large amount of power not even invented yet, will most likely be completely and utterly unable to destroy the Earth forever. We will probably be able to destroy much of life on Earth, but new life will just emerge just as it has in the past mass extinctions that have occurred on this planet. This probably will not happen for hundreds of thousands to millions of years from now though (which is just a complete estimate based on the ice age cycles, temperature cycles, and how long typical species typically live on Earth). The Earth will eventually be destroyed though by some event in space, whether it be the sun or meteor. This Quora Thread has a lot of interesting ideas on it regarding what I have said and will say.

In conclusion, I think a lot of the talk regarding “Humans are killing the Earth” and “Earth will end because of us” is dangerous because 1) it ignores the history and everchanging cycle of our planet 2) it inspires fear in the public that leads to irrational actions 3) it creates the idea that humans are significant enough to make a lasting indent on our planet. Yes, it is sad that a certain species will go extinct, but this is the way it has gone on for millions of years, both with and without human influence. This is more of a philosophical argument about whether you think this planet was made for us and that we should do everything to extend our influence on if for as long as possible, or whether you think that we are just another species like the billions that came before us and the billions that will come after us. My philosophy regarding this is to make the best out of everything in the moment: save a wild animal from slaughter and poaching, clean the plastic out of your neighborhood pond, walk instead of drive. We can do what we want to make ourselves feel the most comfortable on this beautiful planet and make us truly respectful to nature, but acting like humans can truly disrupt the cycle puts to much of an emphasis on human existence and I think changing this cycle is something that is not in our power, nor should it ever be.