A
doomsday event is a specific plausibly verifiable or hypothetical occurrence which has an exceptionally destructive effect on the human race. The final outcomes of doomsday events may range from a major disruption of human civilization, to the
extinction
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A
doomsday event is a specific plausibly verifiable or hypothetical occurrence which has an exceptionally destructive effect on the human race. The final outcomes of doomsday events may range from a major disruption of human civilization, to the
extinction of human lifeHuman extinction is the hypothetical end of the human species. Various scenarios have been discussed in science, popular culture, and religion . The breadth of this article is on existential risks....
, to the
destruction of the planet EarthRisks to civilization, humans, and planet Earth are existential risks that could threaten humankind as a whole, have adverse consequences for the course of human civilization, or even cause the end of planet Earth. The concept is expressed in various phrases such as "End of the World", "Doomsday",...
, to the
annihilation of the entire universeThe ultimate fate of the universe is a topic in physical cosmology. Many possible fates are predicted by rival scientific theories, including futures of both finite and infinite duration....
.
A 2006 poll by SciFi.com revealed that virtually all
AmericansThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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.
Natural occurrences
These include:
- A global pandemic
See also: 2009 flu pandemic A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance a continent, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a...
.
- A geological event such as massive flood basalt
A flood basalt or trap basalt is the result of a giant volcanic eruption or series of eruptions that coats large stretches of land or the ocean floor with basalt lava. Flood basalts have occurred on continental scales in prehistory, creating great plateaus and mountain ranges...
, volcanism, or the eruption of a supervolcanoA supervolcano or super volcanic eruption is a volcanic eruption with ejecta greater than 1,000 cubic kilometers , which is substantially larger than any volcanic event in historic times. Supervolcanoes can occur when magma in the Earth rises into the crust from a hotspot but is unable to break...
. One such event, the Toba Eruption, occurred in Indonesia about 71,500 years ago. According to the Toba catastrophe theoryThe Toba catastrophe theory holds that 70,000 to 75,000 years ago, a supervolcanic event at Lake Toba, on Sumatra , possibly the largest explosive volcanic eruption within the last twenty-five million years plunged the Earth, which was already in an ice-age, into an even colder spell...
, the event may have reduced human populations to only a few tens of thousands of individuals. Yellowstone CalderaThe Yellowstone Caldera is the volcanic caldera in Yellowstone National Park in the United States. The caldera is located in the northwest corner of Wyoming, in which the vast majority of the park is contained...
is another such supervolcano, having undergone 142 or more calderaA caldera is a cauldron-like volcanic feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption such as the ones at Yellowstone National Park in the US and Glen Coe in Scotland. They are sometimes confused with volcanic craters. The word comes from Portuguese caldeira, and this...
-forming eruptions in the past 17 million years.
- A gamma ray burst
Gamma-ray bursts are flashes of gamma rays associated with extremely energetic explosions in distant galaxies. They are the most luminous electromagnetic events occurring in the universe. Bursts can last from milliseconds to nearly an hour, although a typical burst lasts a few seconds...
or other devastating blast of cosmic radiation. One especially deadly hypothesized source is a hypernovaHypernova refers to an exceptionally large star that collapses at the end of its lifespan—for example, a collapsar, or a large supernova...
, produced when a hypergiantA hypergiant is a star with a tremendous mass and luminosity, showing signs of a very high rate of mass loss.-Characteristics:...
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 eventsThe Ordovician–Silurian extinction event or quite commonly the Ordovician extinction, was the third-largest of the five major extinction events in Earth's history in terms of percentage of genera that went extinct and second largest overall in the overall loss of life. Between about 450 Ma to 440...
. The nearest hypergiant is thought to be Eta CarinaeEta Carinae is a stellar system in the constellation Carina, about 7,500 to 8,000 light-years from the Sun. The system contains at least two stars, one of which is a luminous blue variable star. Its combined luminosity is about four million times that of the Sun and has an estimated system mass in...
, approximately 8,000 light-years distant.
- An abrupt reorientation of Earth's axis of rotation.
- A drastic increase or decrease in the Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 99.86% of the Solar System's mass....
's power output.
- An impact event
An impact event is the collision of a large meteorite, asteroid, comet, or other celestial object with the Earth or another planet. Impact events have been a plot and background element in science fiction since knowledge of real impacts became established in the scientific mainstream.-Sizes and...
caused by the collisionA collision is an isolated event in which two or more moving bodies exert relatively strong forces on each other for a relatively short time.-Dynamics:Collisions involve forces...
of a large meteoroidA meteoroid is a sand to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar System. The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's atmosphere is called a meteor. If a meteoroid reaches the ground, it is then called a meteorite. Many meteors are part of a meteor shower...
, asteroidthumb|260px|right|[[253 Mathilde]], a [[C-type asteroid]] measuring about across. Photograph taken in 1997 by the [[NEAR Shoemaker]] probe.Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, especially in the inner Solar System; they are...
, or cometA comet is a Small Solar System Body that has coma and is bigger than a meteoroid. When close enough to the Sun, a comet exhibits a visible coma , and sometimes a tail, both because of the effects of solar radiation upon the comet's nucleus...
with EarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun. It is the fifth largest of the eight planets in the solar system, and the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in terms of diameter, mass and density...
. A common theoryThe term theory has two broad sets of meanings, one used in the empirical sciences and the other used in philosophy, mathematics, logic, and across other fields in the humanities. There is considerable difference and even dispute across academic disciplines as to the proper usages of the term...
postulates that the extinctionIn biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or group of taxa. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species...
of the dinosaur
A
doomsday event is a specific plausibly verifiable or hypothetical occurrence which has an exceptionally destructive effect on the human race. The final outcomes of doomsday events may range from a major disruption of human civilization, to the
extinction of human lifeHuman extinction is the hypothetical end of the human species. Various scenarios have been discussed in science, popular culture, and religion . The breadth of this article is on existential risks....
, to the
destruction of the planet EarthRisks to civilization, humans, and planet Earth are existential risks that could threaten humankind as a whole, have adverse consequences for the course of human civilization, or even cause the end of planet Earth. The concept is expressed in various phrases such as "End of the World", "Doomsday",...
, to the
annihilation of the entire universeThe ultimate fate of the universe is a topic in physical cosmology. Many possible fates are predicted by rival scientific theories, including futures of both finite and infinite duration....
.
A 2006 poll by SciFi.com revealed that virtually all
AmericansThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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.
Natural occurrences
These include:
- A global pandemic
See also: 2009 flu pandemic A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance a continent, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a...
.
- A geological event such as massive flood basalt
A flood basalt or trap basalt is the result of a giant volcanic eruption or series of eruptions that coats large stretches of land or the ocean floor with basalt lava. Flood basalts have occurred on continental scales in prehistory, creating great plateaus and mountain ranges...
, volcanism, or the eruption of a supervolcanoA supervolcano or super volcanic eruption is a volcanic eruption with ejecta greater than 1,000 cubic kilometers , which is substantially larger than any volcanic event in historic times. Supervolcanoes can occur when magma in the Earth rises into the crust from a hotspot but is unable to break...
. One such event, the Toba Eruption, occurred in Indonesia about 71,500 years ago. According to the Toba catastrophe theoryThe Toba catastrophe theory holds that 70,000 to 75,000 years ago, a supervolcanic event at Lake Toba, on Sumatra , possibly the largest explosive volcanic eruption within the last twenty-five million years plunged the Earth, which was already in an ice-age, into an even colder spell...
, the event may have reduced human populations to only a few tens of thousands of individuals. Yellowstone CalderaThe Yellowstone Caldera is the volcanic caldera in Yellowstone National Park in the United States. The caldera is located in the northwest corner of Wyoming, in which the vast majority of the park is contained...
is another such supervolcano, having undergone 142 or more calderaA caldera is a cauldron-like volcanic feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption such as the ones at Yellowstone National Park in the US and Glen Coe in Scotland. They are sometimes confused with volcanic craters. The word comes from Portuguese caldeira, and this...
-forming eruptions in the past 17 million years.
- A gamma ray burst
Gamma-ray bursts are flashes of gamma rays associated with extremely energetic explosions in distant galaxies. They are the most luminous electromagnetic events occurring in the universe. Bursts can last from milliseconds to nearly an hour, although a typical burst lasts a few seconds...
or other devastating blast of cosmic radiation. One especially deadly hypothesized source is a hypernovaHypernova refers to an exceptionally large star that collapses at the end of its lifespan—for example, a collapsar, or a large supernova...
, produced when a hypergiantA hypergiant is a star with a tremendous mass and luminosity, showing signs of a very high rate of mass loss.-Characteristics:...
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 eventsThe Ordovician–Silurian extinction event or quite commonly the Ordovician extinction, was the third-largest of the five major extinction events in Earth's history in terms of percentage of genera that went extinct and second largest overall in the overall loss of life. Between about 450 Ma to 440...
. The nearest hypergiant is thought to be Eta CarinaeEta Carinae is a stellar system in the constellation Carina, about 7,500 to 8,000 light-years from the Sun. The system contains at least two stars, one of which is a luminous blue variable star. Its combined luminosity is about four million times that of the Sun and has an estimated system mass in...
, approximately 8,000 light-years distant.
- An abrupt reorientation of Earth's axis of rotation.
- A drastic increase or decrease in the Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 99.86% of the Solar System's mass....
's power output.
- An impact event
An impact event is the collision of a large meteorite, asteroid, comet, or other celestial object with the Earth or another planet. Impact events have been a plot and background element in science fiction since knowledge of real impacts became established in the scientific mainstream.-Sizes and...
caused by the collisionA collision is an isolated event in which two or more moving bodies exert relatively strong forces on each other for a relatively short time.-Dynamics:Collisions involve forces...
of a large meteoroidA meteoroid is a sand to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar System. The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's atmosphere is called a meteor. If a meteoroid reaches the ground, it is then called a meteorite. Many meteors are part of a meteor shower...
, asteroidthumb|260px|right|[[253 Mathilde]], a [[C-type asteroid]] measuring about across. Photograph taken in 1997 by the [[NEAR Shoemaker]] probe.Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, especially in the inner Solar System; they are...
, or cometA comet is a Small Solar System Body that has coma and is bigger than a meteoroid. When close enough to the Sun, a comet exhibits a visible coma , and sometimes a tail, both because of the effects of solar radiation upon the comet's nucleus...
with EarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun. It is the fifth largest of the eight planets in the solar system, and the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in terms of diameter, mass and density...
. A common theoryThe term theory has two broad sets of meanings, one used in the empirical sciences and the other used in philosophy, mathematics, logic, and across other fields in the humanities. There is considerable difference and even dispute across academic disciplines as to the proper usages of the term...
postulates that the extinctionIn biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or group of taxa. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species...
of the dinosaur{{Otheruses}}{{pp-semi-protected|small=yes}}{{Otheruses}}{{pp-semi-protected|small=yes}}
A
doomsday event is a specific plausibly verifiable or hypothetical occurrence which has an exceptionally destructive effect on the human race. The final outcomes of doomsday events may range from a major disruption of human civilization, to the
extinction of human lifeHuman extinction is the hypothetical end of the human species. Various scenarios have been discussed in science, popular culture, and religion . The breadth of this article is on existential risks....
, to the
destruction of the planet EarthRisks to civilization, humans, and planet Earth are existential risks that could threaten humankind as a whole, have adverse consequences for the course of human civilization, or even cause the end of planet Earth. The concept is expressed in various phrases such as "End of the World", "Doomsday",...
, to the
annihilation of the entire universeThe ultimate fate of the universe is a topic in physical cosmology. Many possible fates are predicted by rival scientific theories, including futures of both finite and infinite duration....
.
A 2006 poll by SciFi.com revealed that virtually all
AmericansThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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.
Natural occurrences
These include:
- A global pandemic
See also: 2009 flu pandemic A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance a continent, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a...
.
- A geological event such as massive flood basalt
A flood basalt or trap basalt is the result of a giant volcanic eruption or series of eruptions that coats large stretches of land or the ocean floor with basalt lava. Flood basalts have occurred on continental scales in prehistory, creating great plateaus and mountain ranges...
, volcanism, or the eruption of a supervolcanoA supervolcano or super volcanic eruption is a volcanic eruption with ejecta greater than 1,000 cubic kilometers , which is substantially larger than any volcanic event in historic times. Supervolcanoes can occur when magma in the Earth rises into the crust from a hotspot but is unable to break...
. One such event, the Toba Eruption, occurred in Indonesia about 71,500 years ago. According to the Toba catastrophe theoryThe Toba catastrophe theory holds that 70,000 to 75,000 years ago, a supervolcanic event at Lake Toba, on Sumatra , possibly the largest explosive volcanic eruption within the last twenty-five million years plunged the Earth, which was already in an ice-age, into an even colder spell...
, the event may have reduced human populations to only a few tens of thousands of individuals. Yellowstone CalderaThe Yellowstone Caldera is the volcanic caldera in Yellowstone National Park in the United States. The caldera is located in the northwest corner of Wyoming, in which the vast majority of the park is contained...
is another such supervolcano, having undergone 142 or more calderaA caldera is a cauldron-like volcanic feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption such as the ones at Yellowstone National Park in the US and Glen Coe in Scotland. They are sometimes confused with volcanic craters. The word comes from Portuguese caldeira, and this...
-forming eruptions in the past 17 million years.
- A gamma ray burst
Gamma-ray bursts are flashes of gamma rays associated with extremely energetic explosions in distant galaxies. They are the most luminous electromagnetic events occurring in the universe. Bursts can last from milliseconds to nearly an hour, although a typical burst lasts a few seconds...
or other devastating blast of cosmic radiation. One especially deadly hypothesized source is a hypernovaHypernova refers to an exceptionally large star that collapses at the end of its lifespan—for example, a collapsar, or a large supernova...
, produced when a hypergiantA hypergiant is a star with a tremendous mass and luminosity, showing signs of a very high rate of mass loss.-Characteristics:...
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 eventsThe Ordovician–Silurian extinction event or quite commonly the Ordovician extinction, was the third-largest of the five major extinction events in Earth's history in terms of percentage of genera that went extinct and second largest overall in the overall loss of life. Between about 450 Ma to 440...
. The nearest hypergiant is thought to be Eta CarinaeEta Carinae is a stellar system in the constellation Carina, about 7,500 to 8,000 light-years from the Sun. The system contains at least two stars, one of which is a luminous blue variable star. Its combined luminosity is about four million times that of the Sun and has an estimated system mass in...
, approximately 8,000 light-years distant.
- An abrupt reorientation of Earth's axis of rotation.
- A drastic increase or decrease in the Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 99.86% of the Solar System's mass....
's power output.
- An impact event
An impact event is the collision of a large meteorite, asteroid, comet, or other celestial object with the Earth or another planet. Impact events have been a plot and background element in science fiction since knowledge of real impacts became established in the scientific mainstream.-Sizes and...
caused by the collisionA collision is an isolated event in which two or more moving bodies exert relatively strong forces on each other for a relatively short time.-Dynamics:Collisions involve forces...
of a large meteoroidA meteoroid is a sand to boulder-sized particle of debris in the Solar System. The visible path of a meteoroid that enters Earth's atmosphere is called a meteor. If a meteoroid reaches the ground, it is then called a meteorite. Many meteors are part of a meteor shower...
, asteroidthumb|260px|right|[[253 Mathilde]], a [[C-type asteroid]] measuring about across. Photograph taken in 1997 by the [[NEAR Shoemaker]] probe.Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, especially in the inner Solar System; they are...
, or cometA comet is a Small Solar System Body that has coma and is bigger than a meteoroid. When close enough to the Sun, a comet exhibits a visible coma , and sometimes a tail, both because of the effects of solar radiation upon the comet's nucleus...
with EarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun. It is the fifth largest of the eight planets in the solar system, and the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in terms of diameter, mass and density...
. A common theoryThe term theory has two broad sets of meanings, one used in the empirical sciences and the other used in philosophy, mathematics, logic, and across other fields in the humanities. There is considerable difference and even dispute across academic disciplines as to the proper usages of the term...
postulates that the extinctionIn biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or group of taxa. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of that species...
of the dinosaur{{Otheruses}}{{pp-semi-protected|small=yes}}{{Otheruses}}{{pp-semi-protected|small=yes}}{{Taxobox|name = Dinosaurs|fossil_range = {{Fossil range|230|65|earliest=230|latest=0|PS=
Descendant taxon Aves survives to present.}}|image = field_dinos_2.jpg...
s occurred approximately 65 million years ago as a result of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction eventThe Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, which occurred approximately , was a large-scale mass extinction of animal and plant species in a geologically short period of time. Widely known as the K–T extinction event, it is associated with a geological signature known as the K–T boundary, usually a...
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 iridiumIridium is the chemical element with atomic number 77, and is represented by the symbol Ir. A very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum family, iridium is the second densest element and is the most corrosion-resistant metal, even at temperatures as high as 2000 °C...
in the geological record and a large craterThe Chicxulub crater is an ancient impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Its center is located near the town of Chicxulub, after which the crater is named — as well as the rough translation of the Mayan name, "the tail of the devil." The crater is more than...
in the area of ChicxulubChicxulub is a town, and surrounding municipality of the same name, in the Mexican state of Yucatán.At the census of 2005, the town had a population of 5,052 people....
, MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. The Tunguska eventThe Tunguska Event, or Tunguska explosion, was a powerful explosion that occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai of Russia, at around 7:14 a.m...
(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.
- A close approach of a black hole
In general relativity, a black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, not even light, can escape. The black hole has a one-way surface, called an event horizon, into which objects can fall, but out of which nothing can come...
to the solar system.
- An exceptionally devastating hypercane
A hypercane is a hypothetical class of extreme tropical cyclone that could form if ocean temperatures reached around , 15 °C higher than the warmest ocean temperature ever recorded, which could in turn be caused by a large asteroid or comet impact, a large volcanic or supervolcanic eruption, or...
.
- The solar system passing through a cosmic dust cloud.
- A universal Big Rip
The Big Rip is a cosmological hypothesis first published in 2003, about the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the matter of universe, from stars and galaxies to atoms and subatomic particles, are progressively torn apart by the expansion of the universe at a certain time in the future...
or Big CrunchIn physical cosmology, the Big Crunch is one possible scenario for the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the metric expansion of space eventually reverses and the universe recollapses, ultimately ending as a black hole singularity.- Overview :...
.
- Severe climate change
Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather over periods of time that range from decades to millions of years. It can be a change in the average weather or a change in the distribution of weather events around an average...
.
Man-made events
These include:
- Depletion of oil or other important natural resources, assuming that alternatives are not found.
- A nuclear
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weapons are used. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare is vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
, chemicalChemical warfare involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons to kill, injure, or incapacitate an enemy....
, or biologicalBiological warfare , also known as germ warfare, is the use of pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, other disease-causing biological agents, or the toxins produced by them as biological weapons ....
war.
- A cybernetic revolt
Cybernetic revolt is a scenario in which AIs decide that humans are a threat or are oppressors and try to destroy or to enslave them potentially leading to Machine rule...
.
- Out-of-control nanotechnology
Molecular nanotechnology is the concept of engineering functional mechanical systems at the molecular scale. An equivalent definition would be "machines at the molecular scale designed and built atom-by-atom". This is distinct from nanoscale materials...
creating a grey gooGrey goo is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all matter on Earth while building more of themselves—a scenario known as ecophagy .The term grey goo is usually used in a science fiction context...
inundation.
- Severe anthropogenic global warming
Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C during the last century...
.
- The creation of a black hole
In general relativity, a black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, not even light, can escape. The black hole has a one-way surface, called an event horizon, into which objects can fall, but out of which nothing can come...
on or close to Earth; see for instance the discussion of safety of particle collisions at the Large Hadron Collider
- Strangelet
A strangelet is a hypothetical particle consisting of a bound state of roughly equal numbers of up, down, and strange quarks. Its size would be a minimum of a few femtometers across . Once the size becomes macroscopic , such an object is usually called a quark star or "strange star" rather than a...
accident; see for instance the discussion of safety of particle collisions at the Large Hadron Collider.
Supernatural events
These include:
- An act of divine retribution
Divine retribution is a supernatural punishment usually directed towards all or some portions of humanity by a deity.This theological concept exists in virtually all major religions...
or the Last JudgmentThe concept of a Last Judgment is found in all Abrahamic religions and elsewhere like Zoroastrianism and Duat.In Islam, the Last Judgment is referred to as "the Day of Standing" and God Almighty, will judge all Creation....
. Many religionA religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, deity or deities, or ultimate truth...
s, such as ChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented by the revelations in the New Testament....
and IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
, include beliefs pertaining to the end of time.
- The Norsemen
Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who speak one of the North Germanic languages as their native language. The meaning of Norseman was "people from the North"...
believed that the world would end in a tremendous battle of the gods known as RagnarökIn Norse mythology, Ragnarök is a series of major events, including a great battle foretold to ultimately result in the death of a number of major figures , the occurrence of various natural disasters, and the subsequent submersion of the world in water...
.
- In Hindu mythology
Hindu mythology is the large body of traditional narratives related to Hinduism, notably as contained in Sanskrit literature, such as the Sanskrit epics and the Puranas. As such, it is a subset of Indian mythology...
, it is believed the Lord VishnuVishnu , , is the Supreme God in Vaishnavite tradition of Hinduism. Smarta followers of Adi Shankara, among others, venerate Vishnu as one of the five primary forms of God...
will assume his tenth incarnation called KalkiIn Hinduism, Kalki is the tenth and final Maha Avatara of Vishnu who will come to end the present age of darkness and destruction known as Kali Yuga. The name Kalki is often a metaphor for eternity or time...
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
Strabo was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born in a wealthy family from Amaseia in Pontus , which had recently become part of the Roman Empire.. He studied under various geographers and philosophers; first in Nysa, later in Rome...
, 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."
- Some people who have New Age
The New Age is a decentralized Western social and spiritual movement that seeks "Universal Truth" and the attainment of the highest individual human potential. It includes aspects of cosmology, astrology, esotericism, alternative medicine, music, collectivism, sustainability, and nature...
or apocalyptic beliefs interpret the end of the current Mesoamerican Long Count calendarThe Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is a non-repeating, vigesimal calendar used by several pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya. For this reason, it is sometimes known as the Maya Long Count calendar...
cycle as a sign that a doomsday event, the so-called 2012 phenomenonThe 2012 phenomenon is a present-day cultural meme proposing that cataclysmic or transformative events will occur in the year 2012. The forecast is based primarily on what is claimed to be the end-date of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, which is presented as lasting 5,125 years and as...
, will occur sometime around the 2012 winter solstice.
Precautions
Some precautions that people are already taking for this event include:
- The Svalbard Global Seed Vault
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a secure seedbank located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near the town of Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago. The facility was established to preserve a wide variety of plant seeds from locations worldwide in an underground cavern...
is a vault buried 400 feet inside a mountain in the ArcticThe Arctic is the region around the Earth's North Pole, opposite the Antarctic region around the South Pole. The Arctic includes the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Greenland , Russia, the United States , Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland.The word Arctic comes from the Greek αρκτικός , "near...
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 riceRice is the seed of a monocot plant Oryza sativa, of the grass family . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East, South, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and the West Indies...
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 FowlerCary Fowler is the executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, based in Rome, Italy. Previously, Fowler was Professor and Director of Research in the Department for International Environment & Development Studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Ås, Norway...
, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity TrustGlobal Crop Diversity Trust is an independent international organisation which exists to ensure the conservation and availability of crop diversity for food security worldwide...
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 warmingGlobal warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C during the last century...
, where the permafrostIn geology, permafrost or permafrost soil is soil at or below the freezing point of water for two or more years. Ice is not always present, as may be in the case of nonporous bedrock, but it frequently occurs and it may be in amounts exceeding the potential hydraulic saturation of the ground...
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 barleyBarley is a cereal grain derived from the annual grass Hordeum vulgare. It serves as a major animal feed crop, with smaller amounts used for malting and in health food. It is used in soups, stews and barley bread in various countries, such as Scotland and in Africa...
, which can last 2,000 years, wheatWheat is a worldwide cultivated grass from the Fertile Crescent region of the Near East. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
1,700 years, and sorghumSorghum is a genus of numerous species of grasses, some of which are raised for grain and many of which are used as fodder plants either cultivated or as part of pasture. The plants are cultivated in warmer climates worldwide. Species are native to tropical and subtropical regions of all continents...
almost 20,000 years.
- The Lifeboat Foundation
The Lifeboat Foundation is a non-profit organization with an explicit mandate of "helping humanity survive existential risks" and anticipate possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, especially in the event of a...
has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for numerous projects to prevent disasters such as asteroids, grey gooGrey goo is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all matter on Earth while building more of themselves—a scenario known as ecophagy .The term grey goo is usually used in a science fiction context...
, and so forth.
See also
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- 2012 Doomsday Prediction
The 2012 phenomenon is a present-day cultural meme proposing that cataclysmic or transformative events will occur in the year 2012. The forecast is based primarily on what is claimed to be the end-date of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, which is presented as lasting 5,125 years and as...
- Apocalyptic fiction
- Apocalyptic literature
Apocalyptic literature is a genre of prophetical writing that developed in post-Exilic Jewish culture and was popular among millennialist early Christians....
- Apocalypticism
Apocalypticism is the religious belief that there will be an apocalypse, a term which originally referred to a revelation of God's will, but now usually refers to belief that the world will come to an end time very soon, even within one's own lifetime...
- Doomsday
-Eschatology:* Armageddon, the final battle between God and Satan in the Christian New Testament* Doomsday event, an event with an exceptionally destructive effect on the human race...
- Doomsday argument
The Doomsday argument is a probabilistic argument that claims to predict the future lifetime of the human species given only an estimate of the total number of humans born so far...
- Doomsday Clock
The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock face, maintained since 1947 by the board of directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago, that uses the analogy of the human species being at a time that is "minutes to midnight", wherein midnight represents "catastrophic...
- Doomsday device
A doomsday device is a hypothetical construction — usually a weapon — which could destroy all life on a planet, particularly the Earth, or destroy the planet itself ....
- Doomsday film
- Eschatology
Eschatology is a part of theology and philosophy concerned with what are believed to be the final events in the history of the world, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world...
- Existential risk
In future studies, an existential risk is a risk that is both global and terminal...
- Extinction event
An extinction event is a sharp decrease in the number of species in a relatively short period of time. Mass extinctions affect most major taxonomic groups present at the time — birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates and other simpler life forms...
- Heinz von Foerster
Heinz von Foerster was an Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy. Together with Warren McCulloch, Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, Lawrence J. Fogel, and others, Heinz von Foerster was an architect of cybernetics.-Biography:Von Foerster was born in 1911 in Vienna, Austria,...
- Human extinction
Human extinction is the hypothetical end of the human species. Various scenarios have been discussed in science, popular culture, and religion . The breadth of this article is on existential risks....
- Last Judgment
The concept of a Last Judgment is found in all Abrahamic religions and elsewhere like Zoroastrianism and Duat.In Islam, the Last Judgment is referred to as "the Day of Standing" and God Almighty, will judge all Creation....
- Qiyamah
In Islam, Yawm al-Qiyāmah "the Day of Resurrection" or Yawm ad-Din "the Day of Judgement" is God's final assessment of humanity. al-Qiyāmah is also the name of the 75th surah of the Qur'an....
- Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth
Risks to civilization, humans, and planet Earth are existential risks that could threaten humankind as a whole, have adverse consequences for the course of human civilization, or even cause the end of planet Earth. The concept is expressed in various phrases such as "End of the World", "Doomsday",...
- Societal collapse
Societal collapse broadly includes both quite abrupt societal failures typified by the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, the Mayan Civilization collapse and others of the type, as well as more extended grinding declines of superpowers like the Roman empire in Western Europe and the Han Dynasty...
- Survivalism
Survivalism is a movement of individuals or groups who are actively preparing for future possible disruptions in local, regional, national, or international social or political order...
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External links
{{Doomsday}}
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