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Major current environmental issues may include climate change, pollution, environmental degradation, and resource depletion.The conservation movement lobbies for protection of endangered species and protection of any ecologically valuable natural areas, genetically modified foods and global warming.
Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to Earth's climate. The current rise in global temperatures is driven by human activities, especially fossil fuel burning since the Industrial Revolution. [3] [4] Fossil fuel use, deforestation, and some agricultural and industrial practices release greenhouse gases. [5]
Rare Earth was succeeded in 2003 by the follow-on book The Life and Death of Planet Earth: How the New Science of Astrobiology Charts the Ultimate Fate of our World, also by Ward and Brownlee, which talks about the Earth's long-term future and eventual demise under a warming and expanding Sun, showing readers the concept that planets like Earth ...
Some climate change effects: wildfire caused by heat and dryness, bleached coral caused by ocean acidification and heating, environmental migration caused by desertification, and coastal flooding caused by storms and sea level rise. Effects of climate change are well documented and growing for Earth's natural environment and human societies. Changes to the climate system include an overall ...
The biological and geological future of Earth can be extrapolated based on the estimated effects of several long-term influences. These include the chemistry at Earth's surface, the cooling rate of the planet's interior, gravitational interactions with other objects in the Solar System, and a steady increase in the Sun's luminosity.
For an area to be considered an extreme environment, it must contain certain conditions and aspects that are considered very hard for other life forms to survive. Pressure conditions may be extremely high or low; high or low content of oxygen or carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; high levels of radiation, acidity, or alkalinity; absence of water ...
Earth formed around 4.54 billion years ago [2] [3] [4] by accretion from the solar nebula. Volcanic outgassing probably created the primordial atmosphere, which contained almost no oxygen and would have been toxic to humans and most modern life. Much of the Earth was molten because of frequent collisions with other bodies which led to extreme ...
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 20 January 2025. Scientific projections regarding the far future Several terms redirect here. For other uses, see List of numbers and List of years. Artist's concept of the Earth 5–7.5 billion years from now, when the Sun has become a red giant While the future cannot be predicted with certainty ...