Yeah, when you consider it, the far-off apocalypse of solar global warming is a lot less important than the very current apocalypse of anthropogenic global warming, which is also, you know, actively happening. It’s far more likely that, in a 1 billion year time span, humans will be wiped out through any number of threats that aren’t the Sun. That’s irrelevant.
Things we actually need to care about:
- Our ongoing efforts to push the planet back to the Carboniferous.
- The risk of industrial war, especially nuclear war, and other such very large, destructive conflicts.
- Pandemics (a bad one could kill us all and they happen randomly).
- Resource crises (water, population, food if the population crisis gets really bad, and economic resources like fossil fuels and the 50 critical minerals).
- AI destroying us (I personally find this extremely unlikely but it’s more likely to be a concern than solar apocalypse).
Talk about getting off Earth and moving to other planets has some merit, but I think most of the time it’s a distraction tactic to dodge discussion about the unsustainability of current economic activity (if everyone consumed at US levels, we’d need five Earths to support it). Also, have you seen how difficult it is to colonise Mars? (It’s usually Mars with spacers.) It’s physically impossible to terraform it without importing an atmosphere, it only has 7% of the carbon needed for a full atmosphere. (I’m not sure if the ‘full atmosphere’ in that is meant to be everything or a 100% CO2 atmosphere, but either way, you aren’t getting something thick enough to deal with meteorites.) Plus the innumerable other concerns (the incredibly long travel time, all the myriad risks that could kill everyone, the fact that everyone would need to live in underground bunkers forever until the planet was terraformed, etc.). The Moon would be a lot easier to colonise, and has more theoretical value than an endless expanse of geologically dead desert.
And if you’re concerned about space, then why not terraform the Sahara? It’s a lot more feasible and would benefit a ton of people.