On Thu, Jan 24, 2019 at 09:40:31PM -0800, shadow at shadowgard.com (via tml list) wrote:
> Short of buildiong a "planet buster", I don't think humanity is
> *capable* of affecting the deep rock bacteria ecosystem.

If the surface rose to 100 C or so and stayed there, the deep rock
temperature would rise enough that no known life form could survive.
Granted such a high temperature seems unlikely, especially around the
poles.

> We'd have trouble doing much to the deep thermal vents ecosystems in
> the oceans too.

Yes, we'd pretty much have to poison the oceans to wipe out
chemosynthetic extremophiles there.

Even a surface temperature of 100 C wouldn't kill some of them, since
almost all of the ocean would remain liquid and keep the deep water
temperature not very much greater than the surface.  Sustained surface
temperatures of 140 C would likely do it, but about all I can think of
to achieve that would be a runaway greenhouse effect.  Such an effect
could possibly happen, but is thought to be very unlikely while oceans
remain.

> Even our worst pollution/climate change/extinction scanarios don't
> hold a candle to what the discovery of photosynthesis did to life on
> earth.

Yes, poisoning the entire planet with oxygen and glaciating the Earth
almost certainly drove most of the previously living species to
extinction.

- Tim