Musk Apocalypse! By Brian Simpson

Mega-star Elon Musk has made a number of warnings about humanity polishing itself off, and his latest fear is that this will occur before he colonises Mars. But, if humanity has this suicide impulse, all he is doing is delaying the inevitable, since the extinction event will occur on Mars down the track too!

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/13991624/elon-musk-warns-humanity-self-extinguish-mars-colony/

“ELON Musk has warned that humanity may wipe itself out before his aerospace company SpaceX has a chance to colonise Mars.

In an interview on Monday, the billionaire warned that we face imminent threats of extinction from supervolcanoes, comet strikes or a "giant war".

If World War 3 were to break out, there is a "low" chance of building a self-sustaining city on Mars afterwards, he added.

The Tesla CEO, 49, described his long-standing plans to colonise the Red Planet by 2050 using rockets built by SpaceX as a "great adventure",

Speaking at the 2020 Mars Society Virtual Convention, he said: "I think it’s helpful to have as the objective the creation of a self-sustaining city on Mars.

"This has to be the objective, not simply a few people or a base, but a self-sustaining city."

Musk has stated on numerous occasions that humanity must colonise Mars and become an "interplanetary species" to save itself from extinction.

He has previously listed nuclear warfare, killer robots and even the incineration of Earth as it is engulfed by the Sun as threats to our species.

Speaking on Monday, the South African highlighted that one of the biggest challenges facing a Martian colony is whether or not it could survive if Earth were to stop sending supplies.

"The acid test really is if the ships from Earth stop coming for any reason, does Mars die out?" Musk said during the live-streamed interview.

"Are we going to be able to create a self-sustaining city on Mars before or after World War 3?"

He continued: "Hopefully there is never a World War 3, but the probability of launching after World War 3 are low.

"We should try to make this city self-sustaining before any possible World War 3."

Musk, who founded California-based SpaceX in 2002, hinted that the coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the fragility of civilisation.”

Well, if Musk waits long enough, he may well get his apocalypse:

 https://www.newscie long enough, he may justr get hisntist.com/article/2269567-most-life-on-earth-will-be-killed-by-lack-of-oxygen-in-a-billion-years/#:~:text=Sign%20In%20Search-,Most%20life%20on%20Earth%20will%20be%20killed%20by,oxygen%20in%20a%20billion%20years&text=One%20billion%20years%20from%20now,per%20cent%20of%20Earth's%20atmosphere

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00693-5

One billion years from now, Earth’s atmosphere will contain very little oxygen, making it uninhabitable for complex aerobic life.

Today, oxygen makes up around 21 per cent of Earth’s atmosphere. Its oxygen-rich nature is ideal for large and complex organisms, like humans, that require the gas to survive. But early in Earth’s history, oxygen levels were much lower – and they are likely to be low again in the distant future.

Kazumi Ozaki at Toho University in Funabashi, Japan, and Chris Reinhard at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta modelled Earth’s climatic, biological and geological systems to predict how atmospheric conditions on Earth will change.

The researchers say that Earth’s atmosphere will maintain high levels of oxygen for the next billion years before dramatically returning to low levels reminiscent of those that existed prior to what is known as the Great Oxidation Event of about 2.4 billion years ago.

“We find that the Earth’s oxygenated atmosphere will not be a permanent feature,” says Ozaki.

One central reason for the shift is that, as our sun ages, it will become hotter and release more energy. The researchers calculate that this will lead to a decrease in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as CO2 absorbs heat and then breaks down.”

No doubt the capitalists of one billion years in the future will regard oxygen as vastly overrated.