Question: When will the climate change so much that it will be uninhabitable?

James Pope answered on 25 Jun 2012:

Hi babbyhoff,

I think some form of life will exist on planet Earth no matter what happens, there have been some extreme conditions over the last 550 million years, but some form of complex life always survives as others die out. As an example, mammals, alligators and crocodiles survived the asteroid impact that killed out the dinosaurs.

In terms of climate change and humans, with the way we are not acting to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions, I think that it is very possible that within 100 years the temperature of the Earth will have changed so much, that large parts of the planet (such as Africa, the middle of the USA, parts of China, India and the Middle East) will be uninhabitable for human beings. Which is for me really scary, because those areas presently have about half the planets population in them, so where would those people go? Also some of these areas are were we are able to grow a lot of food, so climate change could seriously reduce our food production. So while the Earth will still be habitable, it may not be able to sustain everyone who presently lives on Earth, that is why we have to do what we can to avoid as much climate change as we can!