state it's estimated that we could handle only a relatively small drop in oxygen levels before going extinct very rapidly perhaps as little as a few days if it happens quickly this extinction number is NUMBER_TOKEN percent we can't go below it and if it continues to drop after we're gone even the venerable cockroach goes extinct at just NUMBER_TOKEN percent but we are also a technological species and can think of technologies to mitigate this but it leads to a rather dystopian view of the future we could found a mars colony even now and even an earth with dropping atmospheric oxygen levels still has enormous amounts of oxygen locked up in the water as our world returns to the anaerobic bacteria earth's first life would inherit it again we would have to treat the earth much like we would mars during colonization we would have to build things like domed cities and habitats to grow our food and become a kind of ark civilization waiting it out in artificial environments until we could re-establish plants and terraform earth back to what it was and drops in oxygen level of this planet aren't likely to be fast rather they are likely to be more gradual with plenty of warning to set all of that up but it would be a strange period indeed somewhat reminiscent of science fiction books like hugh howie's wool series or even the movie interstellar where earth simply becomes unviable for us and it may even do so through means we didn't cause rather earth itself did and that leads to alien scenarios it has been suggested that climate change may be a universal trait among all civilizations in the galaxy everyone goes through a fossil fuel era and then either transitions to something else such as fusion-based energy production or they either go extinct or head out into space this could lead to odd scenarios where civilizations exist in star systems that have no habitable planets what if the first civilization we detect in the galaxy clearly has made some very bad decisions would we learn from that thanks for listening i am futurist and science fiction author john michael godier currently musing about all the great food we've lost it's estimated that NUMBER_TOKEN of all species that have ever existed have gone extinct there are species on this world like the avocado that actually may have gone extinct without our intervention i think we've missed out on a whole lot of good food and imagine how tasty trilobites were with butter sauce and be sure to check out my books of your favorite online book retailer and subscribe to my channels for regular in-depth explorations into the interesting weird and unknown aspects of this amazing universe in which we live
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