Doomsday event

A doomsday event is a specific plausibly verifiable or hypothetical occurrence which has an exceptionally destructive effect on the human race.^[1] The final outcomes of doomsday events may range from a major disruption of human civilization, to the extinction of human life, to the destruction of the planet Earth, to the annihilation of the entire universe.

A 2006 poll by SciFi.com revealed that virtually all Americans believed that some sort of doomsday scenario could realistically impact the human race, and that many feel that such a scenario is likely to be man-made.^[2]

Scenarios

Doomsday events may include, but are not limited to:

Natural occurrences

Artist impression of what might have caused the Chicxulub crater.

These include:

• A global pandemic.^[3]
• A geological event such as massive flood basalt, volcanism, or the eruption of a supervolcano.^[4] One such event, the Toba Eruption,^[5] occurred in Indonesia about 71,500 years ago. According to the Toba catastrophe theory,^[6] the event may have reduced human populations to only a few tens of thousands of individuals. Yellowstone Caldera is another such supervolcano, having undergone 142 or more caldera-forming eruptions in the past 17 million years.^[7]
• A gamma ray burst or other devastating blast of cosmic radiation.^[8] One especially deadly hypothesized source is a hypernova,^[9] produced when a hypergiant star explodes and then collapses, sending vast amounts of radiation sweeping across hundreds or even thousands of lightyears of space. Hypernovas have never been observed; however, a hypernova may have been the cause of the Ordovician-Silurian extinction events. The nearest hypergiant is thought to be Eta Carinae, approximately 8,000 light-years distant.
• An abrupt reorientation of Earth's axis of rotation.^[10]
• A drastic increase or decrease in the Sun's power output.
• An impact event caused by the collision of a large meteoroid, asteroid, or comet with Earth. A common theory postulates that the extinction of the dinosaurs occurred approximately 65 million years ago as a result of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event when a large asteroid struck the earth, producing atmospheric dust which blocked solar energy and caused a significant lowering of temperatures worldwide. Evidence for this theory includes a sedimentary layer of iridium in the geological record and a large crater in the area of Chicxulub, Mexico. The Tunguska event (1908) was on a much smaller scale.
• A sudden change in the physical constants governing the universe, such as that created by a vacuum metastability event.^[11]
• A close approach of a black hole to the solar system.^[12]
• An exceptionally devastating hypercane.^[13]
• The solar system passing through a cosmic dust cloud.^[14]
• A universal Big Rip or Big Crunch.^[15]
• Severe climate change.

Man-made events

In The War of the Worlds, Aliens (specifically Martians) attempt a genocide of the human species.

These include:

• Depletion of oil or other important natural resources, assuming that alternatives are not found.
• A nuclear, chemical, or biological war.
• A cybernetic revolt.
• Out-of-control nanotechnology creating a grey goo inundation.
• Severe anthropogenic global warming.

Supernatural events

See also eschatology.

These include:

• An act of divine retribution or the Last Judgment. Many religions, such as Christianity and Islam, include beliefs pertaining to the end of time.
• The Norsemen believed that the world would end in a tremendous battle of the gods known as Ragnarök.
• In Hindu mythology, it is believed the Lord Vishnu will assume his tenth incarnation called Kalki Avatar to destroy the evil and eventually all souls are forgiven and will be given salvation and a new world will be recreated for the bad souls for repurification.
• According to Strabo, the druids, priests of the Celts, believed that while the universe itself was indestructible, "both fire and water will at some time or other prevail over them."^[16]
• Some people who have New Age or apocalyptic beliefs interpret the end of the current Mesoamerican Long Count calendar cycle as a sign that a doomsday event, the so-called 2012 phenomenon, will occur sometime around the 2012 winter solstice.
• Extra-terrestrial attack.

Precautions

Some precautions that people are already taking for this event include:

• The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a vault buried 400 feet inside a mountain in the Arctic with over ten tonnes of seeds from all over the world. 100 million seeds from more than 100 countries were placed inside as a precaution to preserve all the world’s crops. A prepared box of rice originating from 104 countries was the first to be deposited in the vault, where it will be kept at minus 18C (minus 0.4F). Thousands more plant species will be added as organizers in attempt to get specimens of every agricultural plant in the world. Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust said that by preserving as many varieties as possible, the options open to farmers, scientists and governments were maximised. “The opening of the seed vault marks a historic turning point in safeguarding the world’s crop diversity,” he said. Even in conditions of global warming, where the permafrost starts to melt, the seeds will be safe for up to 200 years. Some of the seeds will even be viable for a millennium or more, including barley, which can last 2,000 years, wheat 1,700 years, and sorghum almost 20,000 years.^[17]

• The Lifeboat Foundation has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for numerous projects to prevent disasters such as asteroids, grey goo, and so forth.

See also

Notes

External links

• Armageddon Online, A collection of doomsday scenarios & Daily News
• Doomsday Guide, a directory devoted to end times theories
• Top 10 Ways to Destroy Earth
• "Countdown to Doomsday with Today Show Host Matt Lauer". SciFi.com. 2006. http://www.scifi.com/doomsday/scenarios/volcano/.