The information age did not rid people of the prejudices of the past centuries associated with the end of the world. On the contrary, it has created new fears about the collapse of our civilization.
Every year, more and more films about global disasters are released on the cinema screens, but is there a reason for this? Can humanity really face the threat of death, or is all this just the invention of science fiction writers?
New era, old dangers
"Nothing lasts forever" - perhaps this can be considered the main law of the universe. The Ordovician-Silurian extinction, the Devonian, the Triassic are just some of the global catastrophes known to science that killed the lion's share of the planet's inhabitants. During the period of the greatest in the history of the Permian extinction (252 million years ago), 70% of all land species and 96% of the inhabitants of the seas died.
Aivazovsky I. K. The Flood. 1864 g.
Wikimedia Commons
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Can a rational man, as a biological species, perish in one of such disasters? According to scientists, mammals exist on average up to 4 million years, after which the biological species dies out for various reasons. According to modern concepts, the age of Homo sapiens can reach 195 thousand years: formally, we have little cause for concern. But one should not underestimate the ability of a person to destroy his own kind - here we have a completely unique "talent".
The end of the world is an indispensable attribute of many world religions, but of course there is no single view of it among them. In Christianity, the end of the world means the final disappearance of our world and the triumph of the “other world”. For Buddhism and Hinduism, the death of civilization ends each phase of an endless cycle, after which everything begins anew.
Nuclear apocalypse
Many researchers, speaking about the possible death of the world, quite justifiably put nuclear war in the first place. Academician Andrei Sakharov stated with confidence that the use of the nuclear arsenal of the United States and the Soviet Union would lead to the death of the entire planet. Indeed, if the Cold War turned into a "hot" war, then 750 million people would become victims of the shock wave from nuclear warheads alone. And how many people would fall victim to radiation sickness?.. But the long-term prospects for the massive use of nuclear weapons look even worse. They can lead to irreversible climate change, the extinction of many species and the slow death of humanity.
Nuclear winter is a frightening phenomenon: when thousands and thousands of tons of dust particles rise into the air, a significant part of the sunlight will no longer be able to reach the Earth's surface. In some parts of the planet, the temperature may drop by as much as 40 ° C. This will be a global "blockade" of earthlings, in which only the strongest will survive, and perhaps no one.
As of 2010, the United States had 8,500 strategic nuclear warheads in its arsenal, Russia - 11,000. And this is not counting tactical nuclear weapons, which are difficult to assess. Use their arsenals as intended by Russia and the United States, more than 100 thousand tons of dust and soot will rise into the air, which can lead to the collapse of agriculture on the entire planet. However, today, when the Cold War is far behind us, such radical steps can hardly be expected from both nuclear superpowers. In the 21st century, danger creeps in from a new angle.
While the "elite" club of nuclear-weapon states does not welcome new members, too many are eager to join. Against the background of the growth of general extremism, nationalism and religious xenophobia, this makes a nuclear apocalypse one of the most likely scenarios for the destruction of the planet. There are, however, some positive trends. One of them is the gradual transition from destructive nuclear missiles to precision non-nuclear weapons.
Asteroids
It is believed that life on our planet was brought in from the outside. Maybe it will be destroyed from space: "I gave birth to you - I will kill you"?.. The list of threats from this side is very extensive, and you can start it at least with the death of the Sun. Fortunately, this catastrophe is not waiting for us soon: the evolutionary changes of the star will threaten life on the planet only after 1.1 billion years. The main "space" threat of today is asteroids and comets.
They, in the opinion of many experts, have caused global catastrophes in the past. The same Permian or Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, in which the dinosaurs died, probably remain "on the conscience" of large cosmic bodies. Modern calculations show that the fall of an object with a diameter of more than 1 km can cause worldwide damage, up to the possible death of mankind, and a 10-km one will inflict an irreparable blow on all life on the planet. It is believed that the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was just 10 km across. As a result of the disaster, almost all life within a radius of 1600 km from the crash site was literally burned, and irreversible climate change began on the rest of the planet.
Fortunately, such encounters are extremely rare: according to available data, the approach to bodies larger than 10 km occurs only once every 70 million years, larger than 1 km - 250 thousand years. However, even a 100-meter asteroid, if it falls on a populated area, will create very significant destruction. But the worst thing is that it is extremely difficult to detect such objects even with the current state of technology. So far, no bodies seriously threatening the Earth have been found - but who knows?..
There is an opinion that the greatest danger to us is the asteroid (99942) Apophis with a diameter of 325 m and a mass of 27 thousand tons. Its approach to the Earth is expected in 2036, but NASA experts have practically ruled out the possibility of a collision. In general, the number of potentially dangerous objects for the Earth is estimated at almost 5 thousand - only those whose diameter exceeds 100-150 m, and the trajectory can pass at a distance of closer than 7.5 million km. Of these, no more than 30% remain open. A threat can appear quite suddenly - and humanity has no way of stopping it somehow.
In addition to global catastrophes that may happen in the foreseeable future, there are long-term threats to life on Earth. Moreover, these threats are more specific. So, after 1.1 billion years, irreversible transformations will begin on the Sun, and the star will burn all life on our planet. And in another 1.4 billion years, the star Gliese 710 will approach us, and its attraction will cause disturbances in the gravitational balance of the entire solar system, which is fraught with serious asteroid and cometary bombardments.
Gamma radiation
But space travelers are not the only danger. Back in the early 2000s, University of Texas scientists John Scalo and Craig Wheeler put forward the thesis that distant gamma ray bursts could have a huge impact on the Earth's biosphere.
Such a burst is ejected in a narrow stream during the most powerful supernova explosions, when a collapsing star ejects "relativistic jets" of radiation from its poles. These streams are narrowly directed - and if suddenly somewhere near us there is a large dying star, if the gamma-ray burst accidentally turns out to be aimed at the Earth, you will not envy us.
Already high in the atmosphere, a stream of hard radiation will rapidly destroy the ozone layer. Below it will lead to the splitting of nitrogen and oxygen molecules, and the formation of nitrogen dioxide, a highly toxic gas, unpleasant even outwardly: red-brown, with a pungent odor. However, it is dangerous not only as a poison: NO2 will block the flow of sunlight to the Earth's surface, reducing the productivity of almost all ecosystems.
According to the American scientist Adrian Melott, a gamma-ray burst could have caused the Ordovician-Silurian extinction 440 million years ago, when 60% of all marine invertebrates died. The subsequent onset of the Ice Age could also be associated with it. However, there is no real evidence for this hypothesis.
Gamma flash as seen by the artist. High-energy beams shoot out from the epicenter with two powerful, highly directional jets
NASA
Short-term gamma-ray bursts are now and then recorded by astronomers, but all known sources of radiation are far outside our galaxy and do not carry any harm to the Earth.
Global pandemic
Disease has claimed more lives than all wars and armed conflicts combined. Let us recall at least the Black Death in the middle of the XIV century, when the plague pandemic in Europe alone claimed 25 million people - about a third of the continent's population. Things were no easier in modern times: in 1918-1919, as many as 100 million people died from the Spanish flu, more than in the fields of the First World War!
Of course, the discovery of antibiotics was a huge breakthrough in medicine. At first, such drugs were considered almost a panacea for all infectious diseases - but only until some new aspects of their use were clarified. Too frequent and not too disciplined use of antibiotics stimulated bacteria to develop defense mechanisms - and by the 21st century this process began to gain really threatening momentum.
In April 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially announced that antibiotics are rapidly losing their effectiveness. Experts are forced to admit that many of them no longer have practically any effect. The bacteria that cause pneumonia, blood infection, gonorrhea, or diarrhea are increasingly resistant to antibiotics. At the same time, not a single new class of such drugs has been created over the last quarter of a century.
WHO experts are sounding the alarm and demand to take this problem seriously. It is very possible that soon the habitual "defeated" diseases will raise their heads and again pose a serious threat to millions of people.
Natural cataclysm
Natural disasters - perhaps the most favorite story among fans of dark scenarios of the future. But the collapse of the entire global civilization as a result of natural disasters is a rather controversial issue. Such a cataclysm could affect the economy of the region or cause uncontrolled migration, but it is unlikely that a flood, earthquake or volcanic eruption can destroy the world.
However, some volcanoes can really scare you, just remember the eruption of the Siberian traps, which covered an area of about 2 million square meters. km and could cause the largest extinction in the history of the Permian. Today Siberia is calm, and the first in a series of underground threats is, apparently, the Yellowstone supervolcano.
The caldera in Yellowstone is really huge - 55x72 km, and occupies a third of the area of the national park of the same name. It is capable of throwing out so much that the rising volcanic ash will hide the sky for a long time, and the sun's rays will no longer be able to reach the Earth - a nuclear winter will begin, albeit without the participation of warheads. According to a number of researchers, if the Yellowstone volcano does not destroy the world, then it will destroy the United States for sure.
However, the Americans themselves are in no hurry to sound the alarm. Jacob Lowenstern even believes that the once formidable volcano has been weakening over the past millennia: the scale of each next eruption is smaller than the previous one. But even if a new cataclysm is the same as the last one that happened 640 thousand years ago, nothing particularly bad will happen. In any case, it will not raise enough ash for a global catastrophe.
Frame from the film "2012"
Nanotechnology
We are not talking about nanotechnology as such, but about "gray goo" - bringing death to an uncontrollable armada of self-replicating nanorobots capable of swallowing literally everything on the planet. It is possible that the absorption of biomass for one's own needs - self-repair, self-development and replication - can be incorporated into the operation of these machines from the very beginning, but it can accidentally get out of control. Countless armies of "gray goo" will begin to devour all living things.
Today the idea of "gray goo" is at the level of a very deep theory: in fact, it is just a science fiction plot. Few scientists are ready to seriously talk about the danger posed by miniature robots - they believe that the function of self-reproduction is too complex, and such machines will be easier to manufacture industrially, so that there will be no problems with them.
In general, the threat posed by artificial intelligence and all sorts of "intelligent" machines is one of the most controversial theories of the end of the world. Despite a rich history of resistance to technological advancement, there is no evidence that such technologies pose a real threat to humans.
Demographic collapse
Demographic problems can really put an end to the history of our civilization. According to UN forecasts, by 2050 the world's population may reach 10 billion people. To feed such a "horde" will be at least problematic. Uncontrolled population growth can lead to a lack of resources, hunger, wars and, as a result, to a deep decline of the entire civilization.
But we may also be threatened by a demographic crisis of a different kind - a widespread decline in the birth rate. This process does not bear a pronounced cultural background and, to one degree or another, is characteristic of all post-industrial countries. Roughly speaking, having reached a certain level of development, society gradually begins to die out. And if the birth rate around the world drops to the level of modern developed countries, then by 2500 there may simply not be people left on Earth.
The idea of the death of civilization as a result of overpopulation and hunger was first expressed by the founder of demography, the English scientist Thomas Malthus. Finding that the number of humanity is capable of growing exponentially, he was shocked - and shook the whole world with his dark prophecies. However, over the two centuries that have passed since the time of Malthus, it has become clear that such growth is characteristic of agricultural economies, and in the post-industrial era, society is expected to decline rather than increase in number.
Ilya Vedmedenko