• Question: Do you think the world will end anytime soon?

    Asked by to Becky, Clara, Daniel, Simon, Thomas on 12 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by , .
    • Photo: Becky Martin

      Becky Martin answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      No!

      Whilst we do put quite a bit of stress on the environment by our human activities (production of nuclear energy being one of them!), our planet is pretty adaptive, and it’s highly improbable that the world will end any time soon.

    • Photo: Clara Nellist

      Clara Nellist answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      Hi @girish123.

      I’m actually reading a book at the moment which is a collection of short stories all on how the world might end. It’s very interesting because there are lots of ways we think it might go, from ‘virus outbreak’ to ‘meteor from outer space hitting us’ and ‘nuclear war’ to ‘weather catastrophes’ (floods). But I think that as humans we’re pretty keen on staying alive and we’ll do the best that we can to stop these all from happening. So, I don’t think the world will end anytime soon, but just in case, maybe we should be working on that trip to Mars so that we have a backup planet ;). What do you think?

    • Photo: Thomas Elias Cocolios

      Thomas Elias Cocolios answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      I am quite positive that the world is strong enough to survive even humans. That does not mean that we should go for a free-for-all. I try my best to be reasonable about what I need and what I can do with and without, in the hope of reaching a more sustainable lifestyle. I encourage you to do the same!

    • Photo: Simon Albright

      Simon Albright answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      Not a chance. The world is basically a giant ball of rock floating through space, even if a giant meteorite hits it it’ll just blast a crater in the surface.

      Of course if LIFE will end anytime soon is quite a different question. A meteorite which just scratches the surface of the earth could end all life, we think one that nearly ended all life killed the dinosaurs.

      But the chances of anything remotely like that are astronomically small so I wouldn’t let it worry you!

    • Photo: Daniel Roach

      Daniel Roach answered on 14 Mar 2014:

      It’s unlikely.

      The kind of things that would wipe us all out are mostly the kind of catastrophic events that we’d have no control over – my personal favourite is one of the big supergiant stars going supernova (like Sirius, say – that’s very near by). That would sterilise the earth in very short order…

      But, I don’t think we need to worry about this kind of event – the chances of these kind of things happening in our lifetime are very, very tiny. We should be more worried about losing our biodiversity as we pollute our environment with hydrocarbons, chop down all the trees and build business parks on our unique animal and plant habitats. That scares me much more!

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