End of the World at Universe Guide

UNIVERSE GUIDE

End of Life on Earth

In life, they say, nothing is guaranteed except Death. This applies just as easily to human life and its reign on Earth. Sooner or later, one day, life on Earth will cease to continue. It may even happen tomorrow, you don't know. Along with life on Earth, the planet will possibly cease to exist as well.

Meteor Strike ( Asteroid(1997), Armageddon, Deep Impact )
It has already happened according to scientists, many millions of years ago. It is the most likely cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs. Consider the size of the Earth, the size of a meteor to destroy all life doesn't have to be massive, it only needs to be about a few miles across. 'Armageddon' and 'Deep Impact' are two good examples Hollywood films in recent years to show how a threat would be faced by us and how it would be defeated. A note of caution should be added that artistic licence has been added to those films, it is not believed by some to be able to land a spaceship on a meteor. The most likely way of preventing a meteor strike is to use Nuclear Weapons to destroy or divert the object. Its happened once and the Earth is hit every day by meteorites, however most burn up in the atmosphere. Those that do reach the ground, do not have the potential to cause mass death. There is as far as I am aware of no cases where someone has been hit by a meteorite. There is a case of a person dying from a meteorite hitting her home whilst she slept and her house burning down. There is an international project going on at the moment where they are trying to track all the NEO (Near Earth Objects) out there and take relevant action. In Asteroid, the meteorite hits the Earth whereas in the other two, we manage to destroy the danger.

Viral Disease ( Twelve Monkeys )
Every now and then, there is an epidemic that wipes out large numbers of people. Two good examples of this scenario is the 1918 epidemic of 'Spanish Flu' which killed millions of people wordwide. Although it was known as Spanish Flu, its origins is not known, some believe it originated in the Far East, an area where man had not been before. Others believe it came from a World War I hospital camp in North France. A third possibility is that it came from Kansas, US. Long before that, around the middle of the 17th century, the Bubonic or Black Plague wiped out many thousands of people across Europe and further afield. The disease has not totally disappeared, it is laying dormant somewhere as well as test tubes in research laboratories. Diseases are believed to have existed for millions of years in host animals before crossing the spieces barrier into humans. 'Spanish Flu' is believed by some to have originated in birds before crossing over to humans. The SARS virus that is currently affecting China is believed to have originated in chickens and because of the living conditions of chickens and humans, the virus crossed the spieces barrier. The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) has identified the source of the Lassa Virus ( a level 4 virus ) as being that of a RAT. Although Ebola is associated with monkeys, they are not the host creature, because disease hosts do not die from their disease. www.Ebola.com website is not specifically dedicated to the disease but the author has a page that is dedicated to the virus. It is unlikely that a Viral Disease would be successful in killing everyone because some people will be immune to the disease due to some genetic abnormalities. As we expand and move into areas of the world where people have never lived before, unknown viruses will appear. They are normally referred to as emerging diseases. Ebola is the best known emerging disease. In Twelve Monkeys, humans have been forced underground since a virus was released that killed the vast majority of the population. One man is sent back in time to discover more about the virus. Even though a virus has the potential to wipe out nearly everyone, some people will be immune from the virus to continue on. There is a theory which is being supported by some people that a number of viruses have arrived here after hitch-hiking on the back of comets/meteorites which have crashed here.

Nuclear War ( By Dawns' Early Light, The Day After )
With the end of the Cold War, the chances of a Nuclear War have receeded now. However in recent uears. there has been an increasing worry amongst countries of the rise in unstable and "ROGUE" nations pursuing weapons of mass destructions of which Nuclear Weapons is the most well known. There is much talk of if there were to be a nuclear war tomorrow, the entire world population would be killed off, this would not be true. The reason for that is that the world's population is so spread out, you couldn't hit every place were a large In By Dawn's Early Light, terrorists in Turkey infiltrate a Nuclear Weapons Base and fire off missles at America. America retailiates. Nuclear War would not be the end of life on Earth. Governments would have underground bases in which people would be able to survive and then once the firing has ceased, will return to the surface to repopulate it. In 'The Day After', however the Governments deliberately set off the Nuclear War caused by the Russian military build up in East Germany.

Terrorist Attack ( By Dawns Early Light, BBC's Dirty Bomb, Right at Your Door, Sum of All Fears, Twelve Monkeys )
It is said that more than half the worlds population has seen a James Bond film. In some of them, "You Only Live Twice" being a good example, the terrorist organisation plans to start World War Three. Apart from provoking WW3, the terrorists could release a virus which spreads round the world like wildfire like that in the film "Twelve Monkeys". In 2001, after the attack on the World Trade Center, a terrorist launched a viral attack using Anthrax. Due to the nature of the disease and the rapid deployment of the necessary medical teams, the attack didn't pose a earthlife threatening event. It is not to say a viral attack would not be "successful". American and British Governments have been busy buying Smallpox vaccines as they fear this disease will be the choice of terrorists to kill as many of their people as possible. As I've mentioned before there would be some people to whom the virus has no effect. The least successful attempt at killing everyone on the planet using a weapon of mass destruction would be a chemical one. The amount required to kill people would be extremely impossible to produce. Chemical attacks by terrorists would be small scale like the Toyko underground railway attack. To kill everyone on Earth, the terrorists would need to get hold of a lot of nuclear weapons but those are all securely controlled by Governments. Uranium is closely guarded in countries where it is mined and used. If a terrorist was to gain access to Uranium, it would need to be enriched but only Governments have the equipment to do this. If they had managed to get hold of one, that would more likely lead to Nuclear War between governments who blame each other for allowing the terrorists to gain access to one. Osama Bin Laden has never hidden his desire to gain access to nuclear weapons. Intelligence agencies, (CIA and MI6) think whats more likely is that terrorists will get hold of nuclear material and make a dirty bomb. A dirty bomb is radio-active material wrapped around convential explosives which will will shower the material around a large area of land. In the early 00's, the BBC showed a film about a dirty bomb being set off and what happens next. In Sum of All Fears and Right at Your Door, the terrorists explode nuclear weapons. In SoAF, the bombs lead to a nuclear confrontation betwen the Americans and Russians. In RaYD, we just focus on a man trying to survive the fall out.

Alien Attack ( Independence Day, War of the Worlds, V )
It may seem implausable to many people but it is something that should be considered. The scenario has been written about in many books and can be seen in many films. The most famous literary version is H.G.Wells "War of the Worlds". In the story it tells of an attack by Martians who roam the planet destroying all lifeforms. What method they would use is open to debate, they could use direct attack as we have seen in "War of the Worlds" or by stealth, in other words they wouldn't be so visible in their attacks like we've seen in the television series of the 60's "The Invaders". The Aliens would face a stiff battle in conquering the planet taking into account the number of people alive today. Their technology would probably outperform ours, after all they have made the journey to us. Even if the Aliens did succeed in attacking, pockets of defence would continue for as long as they were here. Along with themselves, they would undoubtably bring diseases which we would be unable to defend ourselves against. Hopefully as we see in films, the aliens would ultimately be defeated by viruses to which they have no immunity. In V, the aliens pose as our friends whilst all along abduct our people for use as food and soldiers.

Solar Collapse ( Sunshine, Doctor Who )
This, your'd be glad to hear will not occur for many millions or billions of years yet. The Sun is a massive ball of fire and is burning its fuel like a car uses petrol. Sooner or later, the fuel will run out and when it does, the Sun will begin to expand. As it expands, the temperature on Earth increases and water will boil away. Before the water goes, life will disappears, unable to survive in the new environment. By this time in the far far future, man might have developed the method for leaving our planet and find another planet with Earth's environment on which to colonize. This will definately happen, it is a question as to whether human life will have already gone by then or not. In Sunshine, the Sun is dying and only a reboot can do it. Astronauts travel to the Sun to explode the Mother of all nuclear bombs to kick start the star. In Doctor Who's 2005 Series, the Doctor travels to when the Sun goes supernova. The good news is that humans have moved off to another planet, New Earth. By the time the Sun goes super, we'll have managed to find a way to move off the planet or we will have become extinct. As the Sun gets bigger, we'd moved to the next planet out and then to the next.

Technological Overthrow ( Terminator, The Matrix )
The premise is that we build superior computers and robots who we mistreat and who become self-aware. They become able to think for themselves and decide that Humans are inferior to their needs. They eradicate them as in Terminator or use humans as powercells for their computers. In Terminator, the central computer Skynet launches nuclear weapons against Russia so that they retailiate which they do. In the Matrix, the humans survive in an underground city called Zion living in hope of returning to the surface. In Terminator, the humans are on the verge of winning back the Earth but Terminators are sent back into the past to kill the leader of the human resistance before Judgement Day. In Matrix, the humans are powercells who live in a Virtual Reality world to keep their minds active.

Global Warming ( Waterworld, Day After Tomorrow )
There has been much noise made of Global Weather by environmental campaigners such as Greenpeace. The theory behind this is that due to the amount of fossil fuels ( coal, gas and oil ) being burnt, the heat produced is trapped in our atmosphere. Over time, temperatures around the world would rise causing famine as vegatation is unable to adapt to the new temperatures. Tropical animals and the diseases they carry ( e.g. mosquitos ) move north or south as the environment changes to enable them to survive. The ice-caps will melt causing the water levels to rise. Slowly, the low-lying lands will disappear, forcing people into ever smaller areas of land to live on. In Waterworld, the whole planet is water and people survive on boats. Day After Tomorrow is set as the worlds climate changes, how the top of the world is ravaged by snowstorms. In reality, the worlds temperature will not change as sudden as it does in the film but the premise that the world could cool because of global warming is correct.

Geological Disaster - Supervolcano ( Supervolcano )
We are all familiar with what a volcano is, in a simple explanation, it is a mountain that erupts under pressure with hot magma from the Earths crust. A supervolcano forms at lower levels referred to as a 'Caldera', a crater. Pressure builds up over many thousands of years because the events that would cause an eruption are stopped from happening. The pressure will become so unbearable that first, there will be an earthquake. After that will come the eruption that will shoot magma higher into the sky than any conventional volcano. The amount of dust that is sent into the sky will be too much to settle back down straight away. The dust will travel round the world and cover out the sky blocking out sunlight as it does so. Most people who were not killed by the explosion will die from lack of sun light and food. The effects will be in the same league as a meteorite hit and most people will think that is what's happened.

Armageddon ( None aware of )
According to the Bible, all life on Earth will end with the second coming of Jesus. A battle will take place in an area of Jordan known as Armageddon. Some people have warned that because of the Iraq incidents, that Armageddon is upon us. However we now know that those people are wrong. It could flare up again but as there is quasi-peace between Jordan and its closest enemy, Israel, the prospects of this is small. Things could change but personally thinking not in the short-term.

Genetically Modified Crops ( None aware of )
Drug companies think they know what's best. Science is too complex for them to know all the consequences of their actions. GM Crops will become resistant to certain diseases and vermin therefore helping people to live and survive longer. All they are interested in is making money and they see GM as a competition and as such don't think things through properly. These vermin are eaten by other animals in the food chain, those animals are eaten again by something else. Along the food chain, humans might be involved and because the vermin at the beginning are wiped, there is a knock-on effect. This will cause food to become scare and famine resulting from it. Another scenario is that because crops are known to cross-pollinate, plants that have not been altered will become so. This could lead food that was once harmless to humans becoming harmful, they could start producing poisons. A scientist once said we could produce a tomato which was tastier and redder than before. If it ain't broke, don't fix it and tomatoes aint broke. Why do some people think they have to be GOD!!!! One compromise that the companies had made was to make the GM Crops fertile thus controlling their but third world compaigners forced them to change their minds.

Scientific Experiment Gone Wrong ( None aware of )
Who knows what experiments are being carried out at this precise moment in time. They don't have to answer to any international or national governing bodies. An experiment that they class as harmless could have disasterous consequences for current and future generations. A seemingly simple and harmless experiment could have knock-on effects, ones that they had not planned for.

Progress into Space ( Star Trek, Firefly )
Our lives progress and we leave and colonize planets so if our planet dies, the human race doesn't. To do this, we need space craft that have the ability to travel to far off stars with planets either through faster than light travel or use of a wormhole. According to Einstein, to create a wormhole, we would need the power of an exploding star, the only star we could therefore use is the Sun which is not a wise idea. We would simply use the resources available to us on the new planet then leave. There will be planets that are younger than Earth to which we can continue on. In Firefly, we leave our planet and colonise a solar system of uninhabited twenty planets.

Loss of Resources ( Mad Max, Postman )
One of the most famous Apocalyptic so there called films, Mad Max, we've used up nearly the entire amount of human resources. All thats left is sparse oil reserves and gangs roaming the countryside looking to capture whats left. In this scenario, the human population collapses as disease, war and overpopulation take their toll on the survivors. In Tripods, humans have gone back in technological terms but in that series, it was forced upon us by aliens. In Mad Max, it our doing. Some people say we have reached the peak of technological advancement, other disagree. To give some idea, in the early nineties, the International Patents Office said that all that could be designed had been. Then years later, the DVD was launched. If we can find a way of replacing our Insatiable appetite for oil, we may end up going down this route. The Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani was quoted in 'NYTimes article The Breaking Point' as saying 'The Stone Age didn�t end for lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil.' (ref). In other words, we will find a replacement but when, I personally don't know.

Earths Core Stops ( The Core )
The Earth core is a spherical mass of molten iron which is always moving and provides us with the Magnetic Shield from the Sun. If the core should stop moving, the planet would be exposed to harmful rays from the Sun. Electrical equipment would be affected first along with birds flying. The world would then begin to heat up along with famine, foods, mass migrations. The Core has been known to swap its magnetic points every so hundreds of thousands of years. The next swap is way behind schedule and scientists believe it could happen soon in geological terms. It is highly unlikely that this would happen very soon like tomorrow. Equipment would be affected, it is unlikely we would see mass extinction if it did. The weather would be affected but the magnetic shield would still be in place.

Survey
I'd be grateful if you'd take part in my survey to how people think life on earth will cease. All you need to do is to fill out the questions below and click on the submit button.

The results of the survey are as follows :-

Method	Votes	Percent
Meteor Strike	11	12
Viral Disease	11	12
Nuclear War	2	2
Terrorist Attack	3	3
Armageddon	17	19
Alien Attack	6	7
Solar Collapse	9	10
Technological Overthrow	3	3
Global Warming	3	3
Geological Disaster - Supervolcano	7	8
Genetically Modified Crops	1	1
Scientific Experiment Gone Wrong	4	4
Progress into Space	1	1
Loss of Resources	4	4
Earths Core Stops	1	1

In your view, what do you think will be the cause of life to cease on Earth ?

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Allen	November 25, 2009, 10:18 pm
The time has come to overthrown our Reptilian Governments of the world. And when we do so there would be chaos and mayhem. I am hopeful to seek those chosen ones that are ascending to 4th and 5th density at a very fast rate. They would have the ability to descend to our physical realm ,and help humanity with their God like Powers. It is time the Fear ends. It is time the abusing ends. It is time for greed to end. We need to be equal as one and all as one. I will be prepared when this conflict will arise, and you should be aswell.

paul in the USA (Virginia)	November 30, 2008, 12:40 am
Massive overpopulation will make the world uninhabitable eventually, if some control isn't put on human repro. As of this writing, population numbers globally, have increased by a cool billion baby in only the last 15 years. We now stand at around 6.5 billion. If we keep repro'ing at the current rate, it's bye bye world (as we currently know it), in about 100 years. Have a good day bud.---kj

LIAM	December 6, 2007, 7:50 pm
global warming is causing problems, short term. ocean currents will be altered. weather patterns wwill be altered. Dan rather affirmed our position when he said "nothing will be done." in reference to the human actions causing global warming. So, the disturbing results shown on every tv program dealing with global warming will all come true. global business does not perceive any danger with the environment. my guess is upwards of 2 billion will perish. in four years the ice covering Greenland wil have melted, this impact alone will alter the ocean currents and change the weather. we pray that the meteor impact hits first.

Marc	November 28, 2007, 7:05 am
Some of these theories are implausible at best (like scientific experiments gone wrong), and many others could take their place, including overpopulation and/or environmental damage (for both see Jared Diamond's book Collapse), conventional war and infertility. Alternatively, for the more radical doomsdayers (for whom 'aliens' has replaced 'devils' quicker than you could say anticlericalism), why not something new, like sentient animals, or voluntary extinction (either altruistic, or the more likely kind - abuse of drugs in the face of known side effects). Sadly (for us) I think the stellar end to life on earth will come long after our own species has disappeared or evolved out of all recognition.

roy pink	November 21, 2007, 11:24 pm
i don"t really think that the earth will come to and end because they have said many times about the earth coming to an end and i would also say that global warming is a fake.

Victor Cardinale	September 13, 2006, 9:45 am
Ah. Reading what the person for September 12 wrote gives me an idea. Now, lets consider some factors here. 1) possible advanced life out in the universe. 2) evolution starts up again on earth and once again intelligent life exhists. 3) worm holes. So when you consider these factors, you are actually giving yourself 3 avenues for going on. The first - Advance Life - There is a 50/50 chance that they will not destroy us. Thus, they might help us, save us and introduce us to a universe we have no knowledge about. The Next - ReEvolution of life - Those newly evolved people might find a way to tap into the past via science and fossiles thus, perhaps re-growing us like in the SciFi movies with Dinasurs. Then the last - worm holes - now, when you consider the speed that a worm hole moves, you are also needing to take into account the factor of time and space. Thus, with speeds well beyond that of light, and the mind, your most likely entering the next dimention of time. So now you have time travel. With time travel, you have given your self the ability to move ahead to when the Earth has once again regrown, and healed, or back to before we destroy it. Moving back of course can cause some major problems so I suggest moving forward. So there you have it. Our ways out. That is of course assuming we don't destroy our selves with Genetics or something.

nans	September 12, 2006, 9:44 pm
solar collapse will not happen any time soon so we might escape that one if we have the technology, meteor strikes will make the planet useless to humans(we will die unless we can destroy it) because the water will evaporate and heat up the planet, but even if that does happen life on earth will go on, the process will just start again at the very beginning of evolution because unicelluar organisms can exsist in suspended animation. the organisms will be stuck in salt deposits until the ocean goes back to liquid in 1000 years or so. even if we can wait out a 1000 years for the oceans to come back there would be no plants to produce oxygen or eat. scientists at nasa say a global killer can strike within the next 30 years. so pretty much, we are done, we wont find another planet like earth, and since it can happen in 30 years we wont survive cause if we do find another earth we still wont have a ship that can go faster than light to reach that planet (if we even find that 1 in a billion planet). So we only have 3 choices, 1. destroy the meteor 2. create a ship that can go much much much faster than light, possibly creating a wormhole (creating a worm hole to take you anywhere you anywhere you want to in the universe instantly, of course, creating a wormhole large enough to get a human through would take more energy then is availible to the universe, greater beings may have found a way to get around this so they may help us if they decide to)3. our last choice is just to die, hoping life will go on from those unicellular organisms, who knows, if they ever need to, may be billions of years from now humans will come back through evolution only to find the same problems we had, may be having a solution.

Victor Cardinale	August 26, 2006, 8:13 am
Scientific Experiment Gone Wrong - For sure. Here is how I see it. If a book called the Anarchists Cook Book (most likely spelled wrong but I don't want to trigger some federal stuff looking it up) can be created and published, then what is to say some nut out there or country is not working on some kind of Genetic War Weapon. I mean think about it. Genetics is the big research thing right now. What is to say that some crazy genetic weapon does not get created in the process and some how get released as a result of some war. If the US can hold Nuclar war weapons as our Response to someones attack on us, why not that for someone else against us when we do our "police actions" and "war on terrorism"? It's just an opinion but think about it. Who is watching who and how well can stuff be hidden until it is released? (Is Aids REALLY natural?).

Ethan Haag	July 8, 2006, 5:41 am
This site is amazing! Did you design this yourself?

sai	June 29, 2006, 5:43 pm
well, scientific experiment gone wrong can also have devastating affect. For example: the discovery of anti-matter can be a threat.

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