It’s the end of the world as we know it... and we feel fine! Until we
watched Lars Von Trier’s gloomy planet collision flick 'Melancholia'
that is (out this week).
It’s not the first film to wipe out the human race of course but how likely it is that Hollywood’s doomsday fantasies could come true? We investigated...
Alien Invasion
In movie land space-dwelling civilisations love invading our dainty little planet to kill and/or enslave us all. See Roland Emmerich’s so-bad-it’s-brilliant ‘Independence Day’ and the many adaptations of both H.G Wells’ ‘War of the Worlds’ and ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’.
In the real world, or should that be universe, it’s generally thought that Earth is unlikely to be the only life-bearing planet in existence - we are indeed (probably) not alone. But what if we ever do meet little green men?
Super-nerd Stephen Hawking doesn’t rate our chances of surviving such an encounter particularly highly, saying in 2010: "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans.” Indeed.
Likelihood Rating: Apocalypse Maybe
Lack of sunshine
Solar flares were the inspiration behind the apocalypses (or is that apocali?) in awful Nicolas Cage film ‘Knowing’ and the equally bad but much more popular ‘2012’. They occur when the sun releases a massive amount of magnetic energy, which sometimes happens several times a day, but will they kill us all?
Nasa scientist David Morrison thinks not. In 2009 he said: “Solar flares pose no danger to us on Earth. The worst that can happen is some damage to electronics in satellites. In very rare instances there can also be an effect on power grids on the ground.”
None of these are big enough to fry our planet but having studied distant stars boffins have found that super-flares (nothing to do with the 70s) do occur, and they’re a million times more powerful than the common flare. But these are incredibly unlikely.
More likely is the possibility of the sun cooling down and throwing us into another Ice Age. How much does the sun have to cool down for that to happen? Just 1%. And it could happen at any time...
Likelihood Rating: Apocalypse Now (Maybe)
Infertility
The idea that men are useless might not be too foreign to the world’s population (let’s say, about half) but what if us chaps became genuinely useless and were unable to populate the Earth? Or for that matter, what if women couldn’t either? Those were the questions posed by Alfonso Cuarón’s chilling 2006 film ‘Children of Men’.
Is it possible though? ‘Our Stolen Future’ is a book that draws from over 4,000 scientific publications investgating future scenarios, one of which being the infertility of mankind.
The book concludes by saying: “The simple truth is that the way we allow chemicals to be used in society today means we are performing a vast experiment, not in the lab, but in the real world, not just on wildlife but on people.”
Likelihood Rating: Avoid sitting on microwaves
Technology
James Cameron’s films all (pretty much) concern the perils of technology. The inhabitants of Pandora in ‘Avatar’ weren’t happy about our Na’vi-killing, tree-burning hardware, while in ‘Titanic’ the wondrous technological marvel that was the ‘biggest ship ever made’ didn’t do Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio any favours.
Most famously it was the ‘Terminator’ series that tackled the issue, telling a literal man versus machine tale. Military computer Skynet became self-aware and dropped the bombs - a foreboding, ominous warning of what might come to pass as humanity becomes increasingly reliant on tech.
Science website Popsci asked Werner Dahm, the chief scientist of the US Air Force about the idea behind ‘Terminator’. “The biggest danger is not the ‘Terminator’ scenario everyone imagines - that’s not how things fail,” Dahm said.
He fears that powerful computers would “take over the large key functions that are done exclusively by humans [in the military],” only for us to one day find out that they just aren’t up the task. “We blink and 10 years later we find out the technology wasn’t far enough along.”
Likelihood Rating: Only if we’re stupid enough to let it happen (so probably)
Nuclear War
Ask anyone born before the mid-80s and they’ll tell you how terrifying the Cold War was. Perfect material for a comedy then!
Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 effort ‘Dr Strangelove or: How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’ was that comedy and despite all-time classic lines, like “You can’t fight in here, this is the war room!” and several perfect Peter Sellers performances, it was dark stuff.
All out atomic warfare was a distinct possibility back then (see the Cuban missile crisis), but thankfully not so much today. The biggest nuclear threat in 2011 is Iran, according to the US anyway. Back in 2006 then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran. This is a country that is determined, it seems, to develop a nuclear weapon in defiance of the international community..."
Another thing to lose sleep over: with so many nuclear bombs hidden away in silos and submarines, a war could technically happen the next time two foreign leaders look at each other funny. Don’t have nightmares.
It’s not the first film to wipe out the human race of course but how likely it is that Hollywood’s doomsday fantasies could come true? We investigated...
Alien Invasion
In movie land space-dwelling civilisations love invading our dainty little planet to kill and/or enslave us all. See Roland Emmerich’s so-bad-it’s-brilliant ‘Independence Day’ and the many adaptations of both H.G Wells’ ‘War of the Worlds’ and ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’.
In the real world, or should that be universe, it’s generally thought that Earth is unlikely to be the only life-bearing planet in existence - we are indeed (probably) not alone. But what if we ever do meet little green men?
Super-nerd Stephen Hawking doesn’t rate our chances of surviving such an encounter particularly highly, saying in 2010: "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans.” Indeed.
Likelihood Rating: Apocalypse Maybe
Lack of sunshine
Solar flares were the inspiration behind the apocalypses (or is that apocali?) in awful Nicolas Cage film ‘Knowing’ and the equally bad but much more popular ‘2012’. They occur when the sun releases a massive amount of magnetic energy, which sometimes happens several times a day, but will they kill us all?
Nasa scientist David Morrison thinks not. In 2009 he said: “Solar flares pose no danger to us on Earth. The worst that can happen is some damage to electronics in satellites. In very rare instances there can also be an effect on power grids on the ground.”
None of these are big enough to fry our planet but having studied distant stars boffins have found that super-flares (nothing to do with the 70s) do occur, and they’re a million times more powerful than the common flare. But these are incredibly unlikely.
More likely is the possibility of the sun cooling down and throwing us into another Ice Age. How much does the sun have to cool down for that to happen? Just 1%. And it could happen at any time...
Likelihood Rating: Apocalypse Now (Maybe)
Infertility
The idea that men are useless might not be too foreign to the world’s population (let’s say, about half) but what if us chaps became genuinely useless and were unable to populate the Earth? Or for that matter, what if women couldn’t either? Those were the questions posed by Alfonso Cuarón’s chilling 2006 film ‘Children of Men’.
Is it possible though? ‘Our Stolen Future’ is a book that draws from over 4,000 scientific publications investgating future scenarios, one of which being the infertility of mankind.
The book concludes by saying: “The simple truth is that the way we allow chemicals to be used in society today means we are performing a vast experiment, not in the lab, but in the real world, not just on wildlife but on people.”
Likelihood Rating: Avoid sitting on microwaves
Technology
James Cameron’s films all (pretty much) concern the perils of technology. The inhabitants of Pandora in ‘Avatar’ weren’t happy about our Na’vi-killing, tree-burning hardware, while in ‘Titanic’ the wondrous technological marvel that was the ‘biggest ship ever made’ didn’t do Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio any favours.
Most famously it was the ‘Terminator’ series that tackled the issue, telling a literal man versus machine tale. Military computer Skynet became self-aware and dropped the bombs - a foreboding, ominous warning of what might come to pass as humanity becomes increasingly reliant on tech.
Science website Popsci asked Werner Dahm, the chief scientist of the US Air Force about the idea behind ‘Terminator’. “The biggest danger is not the ‘Terminator’ scenario everyone imagines - that’s not how things fail,” Dahm said.
He fears that powerful computers would “take over the large key functions that are done exclusively by humans [in the military],” only for us to one day find out that they just aren’t up the task. “We blink and 10 years later we find out the technology wasn’t far enough along.”
Likelihood Rating: Only if we’re stupid enough to let it happen (so probably)
Nuclear War
Ask anyone born before the mid-80s and they’ll tell you how terrifying the Cold War was. Perfect material for a comedy then!
Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 effort ‘Dr Strangelove or: How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’ was that comedy and despite all-time classic lines, like “You can’t fight in here, this is the war room!” and several perfect Peter Sellers performances, it was dark stuff.
All out atomic warfare was a distinct possibility back then (see the Cuban missile crisis), but thankfully not so much today. The biggest nuclear threat in 2011 is Iran, according to the US anyway. Back in 2006 then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran. This is a country that is determined, it seems, to develop a nuclear weapon in defiance of the international community..."
Another thing to lose sleep over: with so many nuclear bombs hidden away in silos and submarines, a war could technically happen the next time two foreign leaders look at each other funny. Don’t have nightmares.
Deadly Viruses
Deadly viruses are one of the most popular ways Hollywood has to kill humanity off. Whether transmitted by zombies (‘Dawn’ and ‘Shaun of the Dead’), birds (‘Contagion’) or sheer dumb luck (‘I am Legend’), viruses are always out to get us.
With sensible discussion of the likes of Sars and Bird Flu in short supply, replaced instead with tabloid-induced hysteria, no wonder Hollywood keeps exploiting the part of us that’s terrified of swans.
In real life if there was a big pandemic, like another instalment of classic plague The Black Death, it at least wouldn’t wipe out our species, according to Professor Maria Zambon. A virologist and head of the Health Protection Agency's Influenza Laboratory, she said: "It is not in the interests of a virus to kill all of its hosts, so a virus is unlikely to wipe out the human race, but it could cause a serious setback for a number of years.”
Which to me still sounds undesirable.
Likelihood Rating: Apocalypse... ACHOO!
Lack of Recycling Bins
We’re a messy bunch us humans, whether its polluting the atmosphere with our diesel-powered toothbrushes, discarding Wispa bar wrappers willy nilly on the streets or emptying bins into roads for the sheer hell of it.
No wonder we’re all doomed to drown in garbage, as prophesied in Pixar’s classic ‘Wall-E’. In the film we all escaped to live life on an enormous space ship and turned into fat lazy slobs in the process. Some might argue that’s happened already.
The implications of pollution, and therefore global warming, are debatable but it is most definitely around us, laying in wait, ready to give us more summers like the one we just escaped. Al Gore will make sure we never forget it.
In his film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ he said, “I don't really consider this a political issue, I consider it to be a moral issue.”
Then again if it means a robot as cute as Wall-E gets made then maybe it’s worth it.
Likelihood Rating: Apocalypse Inconvenient
Asteroids
Towards the end of the 1990s there were two asteroid-plagued films that came out at the same time. One was Michael Bay silly-fest ‘Armageddon’, the other the all-together more grounded ‘Deep Impact’.
We all know that asteroids and meteorites are out there, you may have even been lucky enough to see one shoot across the night sky. They hit more often than you’d think though.
The chances of them colliding are relative to the size of the crater they create, according to Nick Bostrom, a philosophy professor at Oxford. Apparently ones with a diameter less than 10 metres hit Earth roughly 500 times each year.
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was 10 kilometres in diameter so another one of those hitting us is unlikely. However in 2000 ‘Discover Magazine’ published a list of 20 possible sudden doomsday scenarios and asteroids came out on top as the most likely.
Deadly viruses are one of the most popular ways Hollywood has to kill humanity off. Whether transmitted by zombies (‘Dawn’ and ‘Shaun of the Dead’), birds (‘Contagion’) or sheer dumb luck (‘I am Legend’), viruses are always out to get us.
With sensible discussion of the likes of Sars and Bird Flu in short supply, replaced instead with tabloid-induced hysteria, no wonder Hollywood keeps exploiting the part of us that’s terrified of swans.
In real life if there was a big pandemic, like another instalment of classic plague The Black Death, it at least wouldn’t wipe out our species, according to Professor Maria Zambon. A virologist and head of the Health Protection Agency's Influenza Laboratory, she said: "It is not in the interests of a virus to kill all of its hosts, so a virus is unlikely to wipe out the human race, but it could cause a serious setback for a number of years.”
Which to me still sounds undesirable.
Likelihood Rating: Apocalypse... ACHOO!
Lack of Recycling Bins
We’re a messy bunch us humans, whether its polluting the atmosphere with our diesel-powered toothbrushes, discarding Wispa bar wrappers willy nilly on the streets or emptying bins into roads for the sheer hell of it.
No wonder we’re all doomed to drown in garbage, as prophesied in Pixar’s classic ‘Wall-E’. In the film we all escaped to live life on an enormous space ship and turned into fat lazy slobs in the process. Some might argue that’s happened already.
The implications of pollution, and therefore global warming, are debatable but it is most definitely around us, laying in wait, ready to give us more summers like the one we just escaped. Al Gore will make sure we never forget it.
In his film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ he said, “I don't really consider this a political issue, I consider it to be a moral issue.”
Then again if it means a robot as cute as Wall-E gets made then maybe it’s worth it.
Likelihood Rating: Apocalypse Inconvenient
Asteroids
Towards the end of the 1990s there were two asteroid-plagued films that came out at the same time. One was Michael Bay silly-fest ‘Armageddon’, the other the all-together more grounded ‘Deep Impact’.
We all know that asteroids and meteorites are out there, you may have even been lucky enough to see one shoot across the night sky. They hit more often than you’d think though.
The chances of them colliding are relative to the size of the crater they create, according to Nick Bostrom, a philosophy professor at Oxford. Apparently ones with a diameter less than 10 metres hit Earth roughly 500 times each year.
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was 10 kilometres in diameter so another one of those hitting us is unlikely. However in 2000 ‘Discover Magazine’ published a list of 20 possible sudden doomsday scenarios and asteroids came out on top as the most likely.
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