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With a bit of effort it is possible to list at least 25 “End of the World as we Know It”
predictions. Some of them are pretty unlikely - even bizarre - but some
are definitely more realistic and therefore, frightening. Not all of
these predictions will destroy the planet but most will remove humanity
once and for all. We’ve listed the top 25 predictions based on
Likelihood and Impact (a classic risk analysis predictions matrix.)
It's the end of the world as we know it. Remember ...
It's the end of the world as we know it,
It's the end of the world as we know it ... and I feel fine.
The famous chorus from the REM song of the same title and published as part of their 1987 Album “Document”.
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CASTLE ROMEO 1954
TX-17 thermonuclear weapon
11 Megatons - Third Largest US Test
They're much bigger now!."
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Scientists
pretty much know how the actual planet we live on will end and so their
end of the world predictions are likely to be accurate. Even in the
few centuries that mankind has studied the universe, the science of
astronomy has repeatedly shown that eventually the Sun will expand and
consume the first three planets of this solar system. Even if it
stops short of the Earth the intense heat will destroy every living
thing on this little blue world. The good news is that this won’t (or
shouldn’t) happen for another several billion years. In geological
time humans haven’t even been on this planet for a single second in the
24 hour lifespan of the Earth. However, the bad news is there are
many ways in which the planet could change so radically that the vast
majority of people would be unable to survive. There are even some
events that could end all life long before our several billion year
window closes. According to many respected scientists – some of these
predictions will definitely occur it’s just a matter of when. In
short, the only way that humanity will survive in the very long-term
is get off this planet and spread across the universe (a bit like a
virus moving from cell-to-cell). This page examines the predictions
for the way in which humanity (and on occasions the whole world) is
likely to end. We’ve ranked these predictions in order of diminishing
likelihood. We reserve the right to change the order as and when we
feel like it.
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1. TOTAL NUCLEAR WAR
This is still Number One and is a well known prediction for
the end of the world (certainly for Humanity) that is both likely and
feasible. There are nine countries in the world that admit having
atomic weapons and they are often referred to as the Nuclear Club.
Five of these countries are classed as Nuclear Weapons States which is a
title and status conferred on them by the Nuclear Non-proliferation
Treaty. In order of nuclear acquisition they are USA, Russia, Britain,
France and China. India, Pakistan and North Korea, none of who are
current signatories to the Treaty have all undertaken recent nuclear
weapons tests. It is widely believed that Israel has nuclear weapons as
may South Africa. Israel refuses to comment and South Africa states
that it manufactured six atomic bombs (probably at Valindaba) but has
now decommissioned them. There may well be more countries that secretly
developed nuclear weapons or acquired them on the black market.
Exact figures are hard to estimate but numbers
released by the BBC on 2 May 2000 claimed the world’s stockpile of
nuclear weapons amounted to over 42,000 warheads. The good news is that
four years later there were apparently a lot less.
COUNTRY |
Year 2,000
BBC Internet
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Year 2004
http://www.nti.org
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Russia |
28,240
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8,400
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USA |
12,070
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10,455
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United Kingdom |
400
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200
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France |
510
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350
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China |
425
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400
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India |
65
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65
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Pakistan |
40
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40
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Israel |
100
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250
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North Korea |
0
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8
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Total |
41,850
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22,172
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As we can see, there are
plenty of “Nukes” still active. We haven’t been able to discover what
the total megaton yield of the remaining warheads would be but it is
enough to say that it is still very, very big indeed.
The end of the world scenario is simple. For
unknown reasons the nuclear powers start using their weapons on each
other and MAD – or Mutually Assured Destruction – occurs. The
devastation from thermonuclear blasts would be bad enough and would
send what was left of mankind back to the Stone Age. Worse though
would be the ongoing effects of nuclear radiation and nuclear winter.
The radiation would engulf the planet on a scale that can’t be
imagined. Within 6 months anyone who was not “blown up” would be very
sick. Within 24 months just about everyone is dead. Disease, residual
radiation pockets, starvation, secondary pollutants, poisoned rain and
freezing temperatures will just about finish off humanity. It is very
possible that a select few will survive on stockpiled rations in deep
underground bunkers but even they will have to face a radically changed
world if they ever return to the surface. (Amtrak Wars) Humanity as
we know it would be gone.
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2. BIOLOGICAL CATASTROPHE / WEAPON
Plagues have always claimed a terrible death toll
from the human population. Bubonic plague caused by the bacterium
“Yersinia Pestis” claimed an estimated 75 million lives in the 1340’s
pandemic alone. The Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918 may have killed up to
100 million people. The most lethal of the natural diseases is Ebola
Hemorrhagic Fever but fortunately it has never fully erupted outside of
Africa although according to the excellent 1994 book the “Hot Zone” by
Richard Preston it was accidentally brought to Reston Virginia in the
USA but miraculously did not escape the containment laboratory. (It was
an airborne variation.) Ebola outbreaks continue till today. It is not
surprising that this ranks high in our list of end of the world
predictions.
The Uganda Ministry of Health recently confirmed
an outbreak of Ebola in the Bundibugyo area. Samples tested by the
United States National Reference Laboratories and the Centers for
Disease Control and the World Health Organization confirmed the presence
of a new species of the Ebola virus.
These natural super-diseases are terrifying but
because humans have evolved along with these bacteria and viruses there
are usually survivors. Even the most deadly of all natural viruses,
the Ebola Filovirus only kills nine out of every ten people. (One of
the teams’ father actually survived a case of very severe Hemorrhagic
Fever, possibly the Ebola disease, in 1956 in Southern Rhodesia,
Africa) The real concern is that bio-weapons specialists have been
experimenting and there is real concern that new and deadly strains of
Ebola, Anthrax, Smallpox and even Bubonic Plague have been created.
These new diseases may well be 100% effective. Only those that were
pre-vaccinated before weapons use would survive and even they might not
survive the ensuing natural mutations. This is a very real and
terrifying threat to the survival of the human race particularly if the
release was unanticipated and accidental. Stephen King’s novel, “The
Stand”, is an excellent description of how this scenario might unfold.
(Just ignore the mystic bits.)
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3. OVER POPULATION PREDICTIONS
In our list of end of the world predictions, this actually may be the
most serious longer-term threat facing humanity. There are just too
many people on this planet and the number is getting bigger by the
minute. Unpleasant as it may sound, we are the mammal equivalent of
locusts. We are Consumers with a capital C. We devour vast amounts
and we are desperately opposed to limiting our numbers. It’s probably
an ancient racial survival instinct. Locust swarms work by consuming
everything they can and then die when the food runs out. However,
locusts have a survival mechanism we don’t. They can lay eggs that
wait until conditions are good and then start again (diapause). The
reason Brood X (cicadas) only appear in the USA once every seventeen
years maybe for the exact same principle. Locusts can also breed
incredibly fast in the right conditions with one female producing dozens
of offspring in just a few weeks.We humans can’t do that on any
serious scale. We would just die. Still, before we did we would fight
each other for the few resources that remain and we would fight to the
death. It would be “Total War” at every level. It’s very possible that
those that do survive would be unable to make it on their own. The
only thing we can hope for is that Humanity will somehow change its
behaviour before this happens. For example, China is already limiting
the number of children per couple to one. Strange as it may seem – a
plague that wipes out 70% of humanity might actually ensure the
survival of our species in the longer-term. Let us put this scenario
another way. At the current rate of population growth it could well be all over in in a thousand years. That’s soon!
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4. NEW UNKNOWN WEAPON
In this scenario a new type of weapon is
created. It might be a Fusion Bomb capable of turning the world into a
short-term star, it might be a new form of radiation or it might even
be a gravitational weapon that stops the world spinning. Now while all
of these possibilities seem like farfetched science fiction "end of
the world predictions" it is worth noting that so would have nuclear
weapons seemed to Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 – 1821). In fact, he probably
could not have imagined such a destructive power as even possible.
The point is that just 100 years ago people were still using cavalry
with lances. So, 100 years from now – who knows? One thing we can be
sure of - the Arms Race is still very much alive and well.
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5. COLLAPSE OF THE WORLD WIDE ECOSYSTEM
Most biologists now agree that the worldwide
ecosystem is a far more fragile entity than was previously thought.
The ecosystem produces the air we breathe and the food that we eat.
The ecosystem is also a very complex matrix of interdependent
relationships. There has been a vast amount written about this subject
so please forgive us if we simplify things a little. The theory states
that if mankind continues to destroy the planetary ecosystem then
eventually a “tipping point” or “destructive critical mass” will be
reached. Suddenly crops won’t grow because the insects that pollinate
them have died off. (Believe it or not there is now a significant
shortage of pollinating bees in the USA right now). Pollutants damage
the seas and the food chains fail. Millions of microbiological
ecosystems that produce oxygen just disappear. Each small loss creates
further losses until the Earth starts to lose its larger species and
finally us. This is a classic example of a huge number of
micro-disasters adding up to one very big one. The planet would survive
and would probably regenerate once the cause (us) was wiped out. In
fact after 50 million years or so it might look quite like it did just
before the last major ice age. By then there will be very few traces
that we once existed at all. It is this theme that was used in the
recent (2008) Pixar / Disney film “Wall-E” and was used in the final
episode of the once incredibly popular series “Dinosaurs” produced by
Michael Jacobs Productions and Jim Henson Productions in association
with Walt Disney Television as a parody of human society." As one of
our end of the world predictions this would be a very nasty way to go.
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6. TOTAL ICE AGE (SNOWBALL EARTH)
According to climatologist the Earth is actually
in an Ice Age cycle that fluctuates between warm and cold periods.
Right now we are in what is called an interglacial period – the warm
time in between the much longer and colder ones. If the record of ice
ages is accurate and consistent then it’s due to get very much colder
in the next few thousand years – maybe starting tomorrow. There is no
doubt that with the aid of modern technology humanity could survive.
However, a theory that was recently put forward claims that we are
heating the planet too fast and that this warming trend will trigger
rapid cooling if the desalination of the polar oceans causes the
current known as the North Atlantic Current (conveyor belt) to fail.
The ice age that follows would be far colder than normal and would
destroy civilization in the northern hemisphere. A film, “The Day After
Tomorrow” was released in 2004 and featured this scenario. Now you
might think that this is bad but it gets far worse. Proponents of the
Snowball Earth theory suggest that all the extra ice would reflect so
much sunlight that each year it would get progressively colder (more
snow and ice reflecting sunlight) until the planet transformed into a
giant snowball entirely frozen except for a few “slushy” areas around
the equator. If you think that this is farfetched it is worth noting
that an increasing number of scientists believe that it has happened at
least several times before. They cite it as the only explanation for
the type of worldwide sedimentary deposits that have been discovered.
It does get warmer again when internals volcanism and increasingly dirty
snow allow the planet to warm up. Still, by then we'd be long gone. As
predictions go this is just not cool!
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7. (NEW) NEGATIVE ENERGY CLOUD
New predictions for the end of the world just
keep on cropping up. It’s called a Negative Energy Cloud and there is
absolutely no physical evidence for its existence. Still, this could be
one of the most real and dangerous threats facing the planet Earth.
This is the theory and a little of its history. In February 1940 a
German physicist by the name of Hans Dietrich Freuder (most likely from
Freiburg) was invited by a certain Dr. Hans Reiter to prepare himself to
work at the Norsk Hydro in Vemork, Norway. However, in 1941 after
setting out for his destination he was redirected to Peenemunde on the
Baltic Sea. There is no record of what he worked on during this time
but in November 1943 he resurfaced in Berlin having just recovered from
severe burns and temporary deafness. He allegedly addressed a small
group of scientists at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology
and introduced a radical new concept. In attendance were Dr’s Lenz,
Fischer, Plank, Verschuer and Debye. He explained that work that he had
been conducting had indicated that there existed in the universe
collections or clouds of negative energy. These “clouds” were
invisible to all instruments but explained a phenomenon he described as
the “deficiency of gravity, matter and energy”. Apparently he rambled
on for some time but towards the end of the lecture he suddenly
appeared “calm, intense and terrifyingly focused” (Citation - R. Lenke
1944). His summary was “clear and precise and in all manner the
opposite of his presentation”. The theory and request was simple. He
believed that there were many invisible clouds that drifted through the
universe propelled by their own “insolence” (?) that absorbed all
forms of electrical energy. He stated that “Albert of the Institute”
(?) believed that “Light as a Consistent” would pass through them
unperturbed. When they engulfed a solar system all things dependant on
the essence of electricity would immediately fail to function as the
electrical flux was absorbed into the cloud. He expressed his concern
that that this might even effect the human brain that was dependant on a
similar flux. He voiced concern that a society dependant on
“technomatics” (technology) would be wholly and utterly vulnerable.
Cavalry should be maintained. He requested that a team be established
to investigate the possible creation of a Nation immune to such
effects. He then abruptly left the podium and was not seen again.
What became of Dr. Freuder or his request is
currently unknown but since 1943 the possibility of NEC’s has become
significantly more believable. The existence of “Missing Gravity” has
been confirmed and “Dark Matter / Dark Energy” is now a very accepted
scientific concept. Unfortunately “Dark Energy”, the possible
phenomenon described by Freuder still has the connotation of “Here be
Dragons” on very old maps. In short, they know it’s there but have no
idea what it is. If, as Freuder suggested, it can engulf solar systems
and prevent the effective functioning of the brain then it really is a
contender for the “This is the “End of the World / Humanity”
predictions. It may well even explain the mass extinctions identified in
the geological record
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8. ENERGY EXPERIMENT GOES WRONG
There has been significant speculation in the
media and around dinner tables about what will happen when the Large
Hadron Collider (LHC) - a gigantic underground particle accelerator used
by physicists to study the smallest known particles is switched on and
tested. The 28 km long LHC was built by the European Organization for
Nuclear Research (CERN), and is located underneath the Franco-Swiss
border between the Jura Mountains and the Alps near Geneva,
Switzerland. On 10 September 2008 the LHC circulated its first particle
beams but a few days later had to halt operations due to equipment
malfunction when faulty magnets triggered a shutdown that will delay
its operation for at least two months. It is believed that the collider
will not be tested again until the spring of 2009. Many concerns have
already been raised in the media and through the courts regarding the
safety of such intense particle collisions and some speculation has
emerged, even from the scientific community that one day an experiment
in the LHC could initiate an energy related chain reaction that could
destroy the planet.
The general consensus of the scientific community
is that the LHC is not dangerous. However, there will be other
experiments and discoveries in the field of sub-atomic energy that
might, just might, one day go horribly wrong. A significant minority
of people feel the scientific knowledge gained is just not worth the
risk.
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9. SUPER VOLCANO
The super volcano predictions first came into
public consciousness after the airing of a popular BBC programme,
Horizon, explored the subject. In brief a Super Volcano is a giant
volcano that will generate an eruption in the VEI 7 to VEI 9 category.
The threat and existence of these volcanoes was largely overlooked by
science until quite recently for three reasons. Firstly, Volcanology is
a relatively new science and has had a lot of catching up to do.
Secondly, these volcanoes don’t appear as mountains or cones. Their
eruptions are so gigantic that they collapse back into the crust
forming mega calderas that can be overlooked. Thirdly, there have
been plenty of more interesting or at least accessible volcanoes to
study.
How big is the threat? According to
volcanologists it’s big and it’s real. Put another way – the 1980
eruption of Mt. St. Helens was a either a High VEI 4 or a low VEI 5.
The blast ejected 1.2 cubic kilometers of rock and ash. When the Lake
Toba super eruption took place only 75,000 years ago it ejected 2,300
cubic kilometres of debris that reached high into the atmosphere. It
was 2,000 times as powerful as Mt. St. Helens. An interesting
observation is that apparently all (original) Western DNA can be traced
back to 7 females and is known as the Near Extinction Bottleneck. It
came that close! In a 1998 article, Stanley Ambrose proposed a
hypothesis—a volcanic winter scenario—to explain recent human
differentiation. The bottleneck was caused by a volcanic winter
resulting from the super-eruption of Toba in Sumatra.
The largest explosive super eruption identified, a VEI 9, took place
in Colorado, USA and ejected 5,000km3 of material. Fortunately it was
28 million years ago and quite some time before humans appeared on the
scene. However, in deep-geological-time the event happened yesterday.
According to the makers of a TV documentary / drama about the
Yellowstone super volcano – we’re already overdue for the next one.
Now as end of the world predictions go ... that is troubling.
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10. ASTEROID OR METEOR IMPACT
This is a disaster scenario with which many
people are already familiar. Two recent blockbuster films have been
made about the subject – “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact”. In brief, a
meteorite or asteroid of a sufficient size impacts the Earth. If the
object is large enough it will create an explosion that could literally
generate enough heat to turn burn away the atmosphere, turn millions
of square miles of the planet’s surface to molten rock, trigger vast
amounts of volcanism, stimulate tsunamis capable of completely covering
Cuba and create earthquakes beyond anything measured by science. A
truly big asteroid or small planetoid could literally take the Earth
back to the state it was when it was in just formed (the second time) –
a molten fiery world devoid of life. It is worth noting that this is
the event that created the original planet we live on. The impact of
smaller but still devastatingly destructive asteroids has probably
occurred several times in the planets history. It is the smoking gun
for the extinction of the dinosaurs and as recently as 1908 an event
occurred over Tunguska in Russia that destroyed 80 million trees and
created shock waves that could be felt in London. Had it been four
times the size we may not be here today. Still, the big impacts are
very rare – if they were more common then life, and ultimately
humanity, could never have evolved as it has. This is a very practical
contender to end the world and enough of a threat for governments to
set up programmes such as the Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS)
project to help provide warning of dangerous asteroids and meteorites.
Fact: Between the 16th to the 20th July 1994 various fragments of an
asteroid, Shoemaker Levy 9, crashed into the planet Jupiter causing
spectacular impact explosions. By the way, if Shoemaker Levy Nine had
hit us then it would have been goodbye humanity in less than 10
minutes.
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