In billions of years, maybe.
The best estimates we have are that we couldn't reach a 'runaway greenhouse effect' on Earth at the moment. The concept is that CO2 starts the warming, more water vapour evaporates and strengthens the greenhouse effect, which increases warming, which evaporates more water etc.
This is considered a plausible explanation for what happened on Venus. Eventually the water vapour escaped to space, because with its molecular mass of 18 it was much more easily able to escape gravity than CO2, with its mass of 44. Venus has enough CO2 in the atmosphere to continue an unbelievable greenhouse effect.
However, the conditions on Earth aren't enough to trigger a proper 'runaway' greenhouse effect. The worst plausible case under our current fossil fuel emissions is considered to be somewhere around a global change of 5-15 C eventually. This would make much of Earth uninhabitable to humans without air conditioning, would flood most of our coastal cities and make it almost impossible to grow enough food naturally.
However, it's considered tat thanks to things like clouds, which reflect a lot of sunlight, we wouldn't be able to trigger a Venus-like effect on Earth:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n8...
No. The geology is different. The earth has an active crust where co2 is absorbed by rocks over millions of years while venus does not.
This article suggests that terraforming Mars will have a similar cost and timescale as mitigating climate change.
Maybe Mars not Venus :)
I think it's Mars not Venus. I don't think we'll ever live in Venus. :o
Since Venus'es atmosphere keeps heat trapped in the planet and since global warming is basically just that, does that mean Venus will be Earths future? hot and dead?
