World Might End : The condition The Earth is in today has never been seen before. We have industrialized and built a huge civilization. But in the midst of developing we forgot about the very land on which we live. The planet we live on is in harm’s way because of humans. Here are the top ten things that can end the world, threats man made and from the number of huge flying objects in space.
1. Climate change: Global climate change has already begun showing its effects. Each year that goes by Summers get hotter and Winters get colder. The main contributor to climate change is emission of greenhouse gases. Carbon Dioxide is one of the gases that is polluting the air and depleting the ozone layer causing drought, forest fires and intense cyclones. The Paris accord was signed by 195 countries. This agreement was a voluntary one to save the planet. Each country was asked to reduce their emission of greenhouse gas emission and control temperature by 2 degrees Celsius. Scientists have given just a 66% chance of staying below 2 degrees Celsius. To add fuel to fire, Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris Accord and the United States is the second largest carbon dioxide emitting country. Right now, Climate change is the most certain way to Doomsday.
2. Asteroid: Many movies use it as their story line, ‘Asteroids crash the earth and wipe existence out.’ But scientists are genuinely worried about a space rock colliding with the planet. The scariest part is all our space technology has given us knowledge of just a fraction of the space rocks floating around in the solar system.
3. Pandemic threat: Each year a new deadly disease has popped up and killed masses. The bird flu a severe acute respiratory syndrome. In 2011, a Dutch research team conducted an experiment and mutated the H5N1 (bird flu) virus that turned out to be more infectious than the original virus. The virus has now become an air borne disease and without proper medication can be fatal. The graph below shows the increase in bird flu cases in the world.
4. Engineered Disease: It was recently revealed that military forces in the world were working on mutating diseases to use as weapons in war. The manufacturing can lead to terror groups using this to their advantage. A gas attack can kill more people than the bombs they can build.
5. Nuclear War: This is another likely possibility with rising tensions between the United States and North Korea. North Korea has been testing ballistic missiles and threatening America. Initially, the United States did not react harshly to the threats. But Donald Trump decided to change that, he made a statement that asked North Korea to stop making threats or they will be met with ‘fire and fury.’ The Korean’s retaliated by saying they had a missile and they are going to attack Guam. There are a total of nine countries that have nuclear weapons including Israel an undeclared nuclear power country.
6. Overpopulation: Population is rapidly growing with 7 billion people on this planet and counting. Many scientists fear overpopulation is the most dangerous threat to mankind. But, some scientists believe with the advancements made in the field of science, overpopulation would be the least of our problems.
7. Rogue Black Holes: Black holes orbit just like other stars and their gravity is so strong it can swallow even light. Researchers believe that there are around 10 million black holes in the Milky Way. The problem with black holes are, in case one is approaching we won’t be able to see it in time to do anything. It would not even have to come very close to Earth just passing by the solar system could distort the planets orbit causing the Earth to either have dramatic climate change or getting hurled out of the Solar system.
8. Biotech Disaster: New species are being made with genetic engineering. These genetically engineered crops promise to change defects in our DNA and keep us healthier but it also has a downside. Though there is no hard evidence that these crops are directly dangerous to us but there are signs that these genes can leak out and enter other species. Longtime skeptics believe that these leaks can lead to the growth of super weeds and super pests. These altered microbes may not be the easiest to control and cause a catastrophic end.
9. Nanotechnology Disaster: Over time, engineers have mastered the art of making technology smaller and smaller. Now, the same technology is being used to build crude and on an atomic scale machines, a field known as Nanotechnology. It is possible that within a few decades technology will allow engineers to build microscopic robots that can replicate and assemble themselves. If the technology is used right it can be used to conduct operations inside patients changing health care for the better. But K. Eric Drexler gives another side to nanotechnology, he says, bacteria sized machines, “could spread like blowing pollen, replicate swiftly and reduce the biosphere to dust in a matter of days.”
10. Fungus: Bacterial threats are dangerous but fungal threats are even more serious. Curator at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, Davis Wake said, “We’ve had a new amphibian fungal disease that has just had devastating effects.” He was referring to the chytrid fungus that is wiping out the frogs in America. A fungus matching humans can be equally fatal. Wake also reminded that our knowledge on curing fungal infections are much lower than bacteria.
