This Is the Way the World Ends 394
Dave Knott writes "The CBC's weekly science radio show Quirks and Quarks this week features a countdown of the top ten planetary doomsday scenarios. Nine science professors and one science fiction author are asked to give (mostly) realistic hypotheses of the ways in which the planet Earth and its inhabitants can be destroyed. These possibilities for mankind's extinction include super-volcanoes, massive gamma ray bursts, and everybody's favorite, the killer asteroid. Perhaps the most terrifying prediction is the reversal of the Earth's magnetic field (combined with untimely solar activity), a periodic event which is currently 1/4 million years overdue."
Tsk Tsk Tsk (Score:5, Funny)
I already know how the world end. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I already know how the world end. (Score:3, Funny)
where is my earth shattering kaboom?! i wanted an earth shattering kaboom!
Radio show? (Score:1, Funny)
Hey, I finally have an excuse to not RTFA!
vogons? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Radio show? (Score:2, Funny)
Hey, I finally have an excuse to not RTFA!
LTTFA!
Jerry Springer Ending. (Score:2, Funny)
This is obviously the real ending.
Re:Um, global thermonuclear war? (Score:4, Funny)
its ok Obama will save us
Too late, it's gone. (Score:5, Funny)
According to the International Earth-Destruction Advisory Board [slashdot.org], the current "Earth-Destruction Alert Level" is "RED". Which means that the Earth has been destroyed.
A quote from the FAQ:
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Anyway, for you deluded fools who think the Earth is still around, take head of this warning:
Obviously it's a little out of date now, 'cause those rascals at CERN managed the job, but still...
I note that the fools from the article don't actually want to destroy the Earth (well maybe one or two of the scenarios might break it apart or something), otherwise they would have come up with some scenarios like:
(Quote and methods from How to destroy the Earth [qntm.org].)
Fools, I'll show them all!
Circle of Life (Score:3, Funny)
Meanwhile the ISS loses power and Paris turns into a popcicle, which is discovered by an alien probe millions of years from now sent to seed a now Mars-like earth with vegetation so they can migrate from their dying planet to a new home and the aliens attempt to clone the Paris-cicle using pieces of their DNA ultimately starting the cycle all over again.
After it all we never do find out how the earth ends, but at least we discover why Paris is so fucking weird.
Re:Circle of Life (Score:3, Funny)
Re:More plausible than alien invasion... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Overdue? (Score:5, Funny)
People shouldn't still be anthropomorphizing natural phenomena.
Yeah, the universe hates that.
Re:Um, global thermonuclear war? (Score:3, Funny)
its ok Obama will save us
I'll take him over the one that can't pronounce nuclear.
Re:Magnetic field reversal is the new 2k bug. (Score:3, Funny)
Do the uranions go up out of these poles or down into them?
I need to know whether to invest in an extra heavy foil hat or lead boots.
Re:Tsk Tsk Tsk (Score:0, Funny)
Re:Most likely scenario (Score:5, Funny)
Even the most retarded religious fundamentalist understands that dropping a nuclear bomb on someone who has one, or has a country which has one for a friend, isn't such a bright idea.
snip
Even actually been to the middle east ?
Some of the fundamentalists BELIEVE in their god. They don't care if they all die, so long as they go to heaven.
That's just neocon propaganda. In reality the governments of Iran and North Korea are made up of rational people who will always act in their countries' long term best interests despite their rhetoric. They are totally unlike the US government which will screw up and start wars because of the sort term interest of the ruling class and/or a miscalculation and plunge the world into chaos.
Re:Overdue, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
Your moms a wild conjecture. IN BED!
Re:Overdue? (Score:2, Funny)
The problem with both of your statements (magnetic reversal and "the Big One") is that neither of them occurs with any sort of fixed regularity. Since there isn't any sort of schedule that they follow, neither of them is "overdue." BTW, just because you write a (pretty bad) science blog, it doesn't mean you actually understand anything about the sciences you try to write about.
Re:Um, global thermonuclear war? (Score:3, Funny)
I suspect the world will end with tiny penises (Score:3, Funny)
Or at least so the claim is... [slashdot.org]
Re:Tsk Tsk Tsk (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Um, global thermonuclear war? (Score:4, Funny)
We will never kill the earth, even in a worst case senario we'll be nowhere near as bad as some of the significant events of the past like asteroid hits and super volcanos.
Sounds like a challenge to me!
Re:Tsk Tsk Tsk (Score:2, Funny)
Missing Option (Score:5, Funny)
And hey, if you're going to include a science fiction, why not include a couple biblical/religious predictions? I for one, welcome our 6-winged Seraphim overlords...
Re:Missing Option (Score:3, Funny)
For a few months now, my bible-thumping inlaws have been claiming that an asteroid (Wormwood) will crash upon the earth on December 2012
Has anyone else heard such a thing? Or is the local evangelical pastor mixing up his Mayan and Biblical eschatologies?
Re:What's really disconcerting (Score:3, Funny)
Looking at what we've done to this planet, I'm not so sure the survival of our species is in anyone else's interest.
Yes, why can't it be like, like, human beings are a planetary disease? Like the Earth's got German measles or facial herpes, right? And that's why all of the other planets give us such a wide berth. It's like, "Oh, don't go near Earth! It's got human beings on it, they're contagious!
Re:Um, global thermonuclear war? (Score:4, Funny)
I'd bet on the biosphere surviving. It might not survive in a state that we'd like but it would survive. fire off as many nukes as you like but come back in 10 million years and you'll find whatever the rats evolved into hunting each other through the forests of asia [...]
That, or they will have developed metal casings for their mutated remains, and roll about shrieking "Ex-ter-min-ate!"
I saw something like this on television once, so it must be true.
Re:Tsk Tsk Tsk (Score:5, Funny)
Would that mean that I'd have to go outside once in a while? Dangit!
Naked.
So bees can get at your stamen.