There's been a lot of apocalyptic talk around here lately. Now I know stuff right now seems scary, but I have to tell you that for much of recorded human history, the world has been about to end for one reason or another.
Apocalyptica has been somewhat of a pet hobby of mine ever since the millenial groups started popping up in force as the year 2000 approached and even my parents got suckered into buying supplies to prepare for Y2K.
Think about it for a moment- has there really ever been a time in your life when someone hasn't been warning about the end of the world? Sure, most of the time we think they're kooks, but every so often, the world gets a little fired up about things and thinks we're all gonna die.
First of all, a few facts-
1) We cannot destroy the world. Period. The world is a giant ball, quite a bit of which is iron. Nothing we could possibly do would destroy all of it. The giant meteor that killed the dinosaurs couldn't do it. Even the mars-sized object that slammed into us and created the moon couldn't do it. We don't have a chance.
2) We cannot destroy all life on earth. Period. Won't happen. There are life forms that can survive anything we could throw at them- high radiation, intense heat, lack of water, you name it. They'd keep right on ticking. The amazing thing about evolution is that life is almost infinitely adaptable.
3) We very likely cannot wipe out all of humanity either. Humans are amazing survivors. There is very little we can do that would destroy all humans everywhere simply because we have the technology to support at least small groups in sealed environments for long periods of time. Even if there was some great nuclear holocaust, people out of the path of the bombs and the radiation (such as in South America where very few nukes, if any, would hit), would likely survive although life would be hard for them.
4) We just got here! When you look at all of human history versus the history of the earth, let alone the history of the universe, we don't even rate. Give us a little time before you wipe us all out.
That said- we all know ways that millions, even billions of people could die. Yes, it's possible. But here's the funny thing- people have been telling us it's been coming for all of our history and no one has been right yet.
Here's a few highlights taken from both wikipedia and the extremely entertaining A brief history of the Apocalypse about both distant and recent predictions about the end of the world-
According to Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts (1979), an Assyrian clay tablet dating to approximately 2800 BC was unearthed bearing the words "Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common." This is one of the earliest examples of the perception of moral decay in society being interpreted as a sign of the imminent end.
It really is that old. The world has been on the brink of extinction for that long.
Of course, the biblical end times prophecy is very dominant these days what with the success of the Left Behind books and other current Christian apocalyptica. But it goes back a long way. A very long way:
Jesus said, "Verily I say unto you, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." (Matthew 16:28)
You get that? Jesus said to people standing in front of him that they would see his return and the apocalypse within their lifetimes! That is actually in the bible from the deity's mouth- if you're a biblical literalist anyway.
Of course, many christian theologians have predicted the end of the world at various points in the last 2000 years. The Seventh Day Adventists and Jehova's Witnesses have done it so often that it was almost an annual event sometimes.
And it wasn't just the fringe groups. Lots of Christians, even people at the very top, got involved. For example, Pope Innocent III expected the Second Coming to happen 1284, 666 years after the rise of Islam. Sure, this was before the doctrine of Papal Infalliability so I guess we can safely say the Pope was just wrong on that one.
in 1500, the painter Boticelli actually wrote the following at the bottom of his painting, The Mystical Nativity:
"I Sandro painted this picture at the end of the year 1500 in the troubles of Italy in the half time after the time according to the eleventh chapter of St. John in the second woe of the Apocalypse in the loosing of the devil for three and a half years. Then he will be chained in the 12th chapter and we shall see him trodden down as in this picture."
Considering Italy was full of war, corruption and generally bad management at the time, maybe we can forgive him since his personal world was indeed coming to an end as the Italian Rennaisance began.
Of course, throughout the 19th and 20th century, everyone from Jesus to aliens have been reported to be at the hands of our imminent destruction. Apocalyptic cults like Heaven's Gate now make international press when they kill themselves en masse in the hopes of redemption before the end.
But let's get away from the really crazy stuff for a minute and get more down to Earth. Let's talk about 'World War III'- not in an abstract sense, but in the sense of Mad Max and The Day After- the mushroom cloud, the radiation, the whole works. It sure does seem like it's about to go off, doesn't it.
But wait a second- we've been here before. Many times. Just look what Wikipedia has to say about the subject-
Before the collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War, an apocalyptic war between the United States and USSR was considered likely. The Cuban missile crisis in 1962 is generally thought to be the historical point at which the risk of World War III was closest. Other potential starts have included the following (see External links below for further examples):
* July 26, 1956 - March, 1957 -- Suez Crisis: the conflict pitted Egypt against an alliance between the French Fourth Republic, the United Kingdom and Israel. The USSR threatened to intervene on behalf of Egypt, Canadian Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Lester B. Pearson feared a larger war and persuaded the British and French to withdraw.
* October 27, 1962; Cuban Missile Crisis: the conflict pitted the United States against an alliance between the USSR and Cuba. The USSR was attempting to place several launch sites in Cuba in response to the United States installation of missiles in Turkey. The United States response included dispersal of Strategic Air Command bombers to civilian airfields around the United States and war games in which the United States Marine Corps landed against a dictator named "ORTSAC" (Castro spelt backwards). For a brief while, the U.S. military went to DEFCON 3, while SAC went to DEFCON 2. The crisis peaked on October 27, when a U-2 (piloted by Rudolph Anderson) was shot down over Cuba and another U-2 flight over Russia was almost intercepted when it strayed over Siberia, after Curtis LeMay (U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff) had neglected to enforce Presidential orders to suspend all overflights.
* October 24, 1973 -- As the Yom Kippur War was winding down, a Soviet threat to intervene on Egypt's behalf caused the United States to go to DEFCON 3.
* November 9, 1979, when the US made emergency retaliation preparations after NORAD saw on-screen indications that a full-scale Soviet attack had been launched. No attempt was made to use the "red telephone" hotline to clarify the situation with the USSR and it was not until early-warning radar systems confirmed no such launch had taken place that NORAD realised that a computer system test had caused the display errors. A Senator inside the NORAD facility at the time described an atmosphere of absolute panic. A GAO investigation led to the construction of an off-site test facility, to prevent similar mistakes subsequently.
* September 26, 1983, when Soviet early warning system showed that a US ICBM attack had been launched. Colonel Stanislav Petrov, in command of the monitoring facility put the warning down to computer error and did not notify his superiors, who would have most likely launched a counter-attack.
* November 1983: Exercise Able Archer 83 -- The USSR mistook a test of NATO's nuclear-release procedures as a fake cover for a NATO attack and subsequently raised its nuclear alert level. It was not until afterwards that the US realized how close it had come to nuclear war. At the time of the exercise the Soviet Politburo was without a healthy functioning head due to the failing health of then leader Yuri Andropov, which is thought to have been one of the contributing factors to the Soviet paranoia over the exercise.
* January 25, 1995 (see Norwegian Rocket Incident), when Russia almost launched a nuclear attack after a Norwegian missile launch for scientific research was detected from Spitsbergen and thought to be an attack on Russia, launched five minutes from Moscow. Norway had notified the world that it would be making the launch, but the Russian Defense Ministry had neglected to notify those monitoring Russia's nuclear defense systems.
In addition to the above there are two other points during the Cold War that may have resulted in world war. These, however, are not generally listed as they do not relate to the United States-Soviet Union rivalry, but rather the events following the Sino-Soviet Split of 1960. The ideological split between Maoist communists (represented primarily by China) and Stalinist communists (represented primarily by the Soviet Union) divided the entire communist movement worldwide -- which controlled governments or significant rebel factions on most continents. Thus a war between China and the Soviet Union may well have resulted in world war, whilst not necessarily involving the U.S. and the capitalist west (although the U.S. may have opportunistically intervened whilst its two communist rivals were distracted by war with each other). The two points the communist powers almost entered into all-out war were:
* March 1969, when border clashes broke out between Soviet and Chinese troops over Zhen Bao Island in the Ussuri River. In total, the Soviets suffered about 90 casualties to 800 for the Chinese (these numbers are based on Soviet claims). At the time there were almost one and a half million troops deployed along the border.
* 1978 and 1979, in which the pro-Soviet Vietnam invaded the pro-China Cambodia and removed Pol Pot. China in turn invaded Vietnam in retaliation and the Soviets denounced this action strongly, although it fell short of taking action. The next year the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and the Chinese claimed this was a continuation of a strategy of encircling China with Soviet allies that had begun the previous year with the invasion of Cambodia.
And that doesn't count local possible nuclear fights like India vs. Pakistan.
The truth is, yes, maybe one day someone will use a nuclear war in a hostile way, but the truth also is that world leaders are not as insane as they appear. Even someone totally nuts like Stalin new it was too risky.
So cheer up. The world might be about to end, but it's been about to end for a very, very long time.