There will always be those who are convinced the world is going to end soon, from religious groups expecting some kind of godly judgement to doomsday preppers getting ready for an event that would destroy the planet, ultimately making their efforts to prepare useless. The problem with most of these scenarios is that they are based on fascinations instead of probability, so with that in mind here are 5 of the most likely doomsday events that could change everything about the way humans live.
1) Return of the ice age
Most people don’t actually realise that we are still in an ice age. Around 11,000 years ago the last glacial period ended and the result was a much warmer inter-glacial stage were the earth temporarily warms up enough for plants to grow, and this is the stage we are currently in.
This stage of warmth is going to end one day and parts of the world will be covered with miles of thick ice, leaving Antarctica like valleys and frozen mountain ranges for people to survive in. Only the smallest fraction of the animals on earth will be able to evolve to the harsh climates and all the crops we depend on would not be able to grow.
After everyone else had starved to death and most of the animals had died, daily survival would probably be nothing more than coming out of your shelter only when you had to in order to gather fuel and food, which would most likely be nothing more than fish. As for the chances of this happening anytime soon i wouldn’t worry about it, as most estimates put the return of the glacial period at least another 100,000 years away.
2) Melting polar caps
It is estimated that there are more than 5000 cubic miles of ice on planet earth, and apart from holding back an enormous amount of water from raising our tidal line, they also cool the air and stop our planet from becoming too hot. Its no secret that both the polar caps are melting at an alarming rate, with countless videos of skyscraper sized blocks of ice falling off the main sheet and crashing into the water.
If both the polar caps completely melted the sea levels would rise upto 100 metres, which may not sound like a huge amount but this would see millions of square miles of land flooded. Populations would have to exist in cramped conditions while trying to feed themselves on only a fraction of the farmland they had before.
In 1900 the global sea level was between 5 and 8 inches lower than it is today, so it would take several thousand years for all the ice on both the caps to melt, but when it does the breakdown in society and starvation would cause many more deaths than drowning would.
3) A Yellowstone volcano eruption
Located in the state of Wyoming lies an underground lava chamber so massive its close the being the same size as Texas. This chamber is connected to a rather small opening on the surface that’s filled with water and is constantly bubbling away, pushing sulphur and various minerals to the surface which has turned the banks of the opening yellow and orange.
The volcano is last thought to have erupted about 630,000 years ago, but the scary thing is that scientists have determined it erupts about every 600,000 years, making it over due by 30,000. This kind of time delay on something that has such a long eruption interval isn’t anything huge, as it could realistically be another 100,000 years before it goes off again, but on the other hand it could also happen within the next few weeks.
When an eruption happens anyone within a 50 mile radius is pretty much dead no matter what they do, and everyone for the next 50 miles after that will have to try not to suffocate when a thick layer of ash falls on everything over the next few weeks. The eruption would cause so much movement within the earth that it would most likely trigger a number of other earthquakes around the globe, the combination of which could cause the atmosphere to become so think with ash it blocks out the sun for weeks, killing all growing crops on the planet.
4) Nuclear war
One day someone is going to push the button on their enemies, and when they do, that enemy is going to fire back which will most likely set off a chain reaction of everyone nuking their opponents before they get hit themselves. The scary thing about a nuclear war is that most of the countries that possess them have been at war with each other in the past, and all of them have the ability to hit launch at a moments notice.
If you were lucky enough to survive the initial blast of nuclear fire, then life would be a constant battle for food against your fellow humans. Multiple nuclear blasts would end society as we know it, with not enough people to rebuild and not enough land free of radiation to grow crops. Every single day would be a battle to hunt down the last pieces of non-radiated farm land and fighting off those that tried to take it from you, and unlike other scenarios there’s no possibility of clean up since radiation can last for thousands of years.
5) Super virus
The second a government found out that a super-virus was within, or close to their borders they would immediately shut down all kinds of access. When i say super-virus i’m talking about a medicine resistant and highly contagious virus that can kill, as no ones going to close down an airport over the sniffles. Such a virus has already been created by the darker departments of various world governments, with weaponised versions of the plague and other nasty illnesses turned into even more dangerous versions of themselves.
Luckily for us much of this testing was done during a time before the various agreements between countries were made, and today such research is considered illegal by most, but that’s not to say it still doesn’t happen. If someone released a super-virus or one managed to evolve naturally, it would take the world back to the days of the “black death” when half the population of Europe died, and that’s in the best case scenario.
The black death was carried by fleas which liked to make themselves home on the bodies of rats, and at the time rats were much more likely to be seen in homes and shops than they are today. If the virus was water or air born the death toll would be even worse, with the only people likely to survive being those in very remote places who also happen to have a fully self sufficient homestead.