Armageddon

By Herbert C. Fyfe

From Pearson's Magazine, July 1900. Illustrated by Warwick Goble

Many of us are apt, not without some reason, to regard the world we live in as the centre of the universe, and to look upon the sun, the moon, and the stars as objects placed in the heavens for the special benefit of the human race. That the earth is but a minute object in the Cosmos; that it forms one of a number of bodies, many of them larger than itself, revolving around their central luminary, the sun; that there exist in the realms of space myriads of similar suns, centres themselves of other solar systems; that millions of planets, which we cannot see, are inhabited with races of intelligent beings -- these are facts of which almost everybody must cognizant, but on which few bestow much time or thought.

Astronomy teaches that, just as our solar system had a beginning, so it must have an end, and that, as at one time life was impossible upon the earth, so there will come a time when man will no longer be able to exist. Science, cold and calculating, has foretold the physical end of the world -- has prophesied the destruction of the globe and all its contents. Birth, life, death -- it has been well been said --appear to be the rule of the universe at large, as well as in our own little corner of it. Suns and planets are evolved, they flourish, and at length decay; and new suns and systems will arise to take their places. The "End of the World" may be taken in two different senses, as meaning either the annihilation of our planet by sudden catastrophe, or by gradual decay, or else the disappearance of human life from the face of the globe, owing to some state of circumstances, possible, at any rate, if not probable. It is our purpose in this article briefly to consider some of the opinions held by men of learning and repute regarding the end of the world, and to emphasize the lesson taught by Nature that the individual counts for nothing in the history of the race, the race for nothing in the life of the planet, and the planet for nothing in the duration of the Universe...

Stephen Hawking has said that mankind must leave Earth within a century or face becoming extinct."Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth, are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill," he said. Mankind must look to colonize outer space withinthe next century or it will become extinct, renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking warned the Big Think website yesterday.

Professor Hawking said the human race is entering an increasingly dangerous period of its history.

View: Full article | Source: News.com.au

Salesman have used declining oxygen levels as an excuse to sell oxygen supplements - but how much truth is there to it ? It is true that human activity is causing a steady, measurable decline in the oxygen content of the world"s air, althoughas yet this decline is negligible.

Since 1989, Ralph Keeling has been monitoring oxygen levels around the globe.

View: Full article | Source: NewScientist

According to palaeontologists a mass extinction event occurs on Earth every 27 million years. For at least the last 500 million years, say Adrian Melott, an astrophysicist at the University of Kansas, and Richard Bambach, a palaeontologist at the Smithsonian Institute, there has been a burst ofextinctions every 27 million years.

The extinctions range from utter catastrophe, devastating the majority of species on Earth, to smaller ones like the most recent, which destroyed 10 per cent of known species.

View: Full article | Source: Telegraph