Global Warming?
Out of context: Reply #72
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- designbot0
Here is Wikipedia's list:
* A global pandemic.[3]
* A geological event such as massive flood basalt, volcanism, or the eruption of a supervolcano. One such event, the Toba Eruption, occurred in Indonesia about 71,500 years ago. According to the Toba catastrophe theory, the event may have reduced human populations to only a few tens of thousands of individuals. Yellowstone Caldera is another such supervolcano, having undergone at 142 or more caldera-forming eruptions in the past 17 million years.[4]
* A gamma ray burst or other devastating blast of cosmic radiation.[5] One especially deadly hypothesized source is a hypernova, produced when a hypergiant star explodes and then collapses, sending vast amounts of radiation sweeping across hundreds or even thousands of lightyears of space. Hypernovae have never been observed; however, a hypernova may have been the cause of the Ordovician-Silurian extinction events. The nearest hypergiant is thought to be Eta Carinae, approximately 8,000 light-years distant.
* An abrupt reorientation of Earth's axis of rotation.[6]
* A drastic increase or decrease in the Sun's energy output. The Sun's tidal forces can also eventually swallow the Earth, then shed its outer layers in an explosion if the Earth has not been swallowed.
* An impact event caused by the collision of a large meteoroid, asteroid, or comet with Earth. A common theory postulates that the extinction of the dinosaurs occurred approximately 65 million years ago as a result of the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event when a large asteroid struck the earth, producing atmospheric dust which blocked solar energy and caused a significant lowering of temperatures worldwide. Evidence for this theory includes a sedimentary layer of iridium in the geological record and a large crater in the area of Chicxulub, Mexico. The Tunguska event (1908) was on a much smaller scale.
* A sudden change in the physical constants governing the universe, such as that created by a Vacuum metastability event.[7]
* The effect of a black hole on the planet Earth.[8]
* An exceptionally devastating hypercane.
* A universal Big Rip or Big Crunch ("Gnab Gib").
* Severe global warming or other climate change, can also be caused by anthropogenic sources.