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Narrator: Earth thrown out of orbit...
Drifting into the outer reaches of space.
A world thrown into dark and cold in the face of an eternal
ice age.
Leading minds join forces to craft scientifically plausible
scenarios of Armageddon.
"I don't know where to go right now!"
"Oh my god!"
And find the secrets to human salvation
in the face of ultimate disaster.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: When we take a look around the solar system
it becomes very clear that the Earth is in a
very special place.
Its' orbit is perfect for sustaining all kinds of life.
Passenger: So we're going to get there on time, right?
Pilot: Ah, yes Sir, we'll be out in about 10 minutes.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: If something were to happen,
to take the Earth outside of this perfect zone,
everything would change...
and the first signs of such a change could take us
by surprise.
Control Tower: This is approach control, two-one Charlie.
Continue approach and report key see.
Pilot: Key West 21 Charlie reporting key see.
Control Tower: 21 Charlie, lower altitude alert.
Check your altitude.
Pilot: Oh wait a minute, wait a minute.
Altitude fine, I have a visual on the runway.
On final approach, wheels down.
David Bartell: There are forces in our universe that we're only
beginning to comprehend.
Forces powerful enough to change mankind's course forever.
Passenger: Why are they asking about our altitude?
Pilot: See right there in front of us?
That's the landing strip right there.
We're going to land there.
All Passengers: SCREAMING (Bleep)!
Passenger: That's not the runway! Pull up!
Pull up!
Reporter 2: Reports of multiple plane crashes around the world
...and several massive ships have run aground...
Reporter 1: The National Transportation Safety Board
has still issued no official explanation for the worldwide
navigational disaster that began 48 hours ago.
Reporter 3: Anonymous sources at the Department of Defense
have confirmed that the GPS networks across the globe,
which affect everything from our smartphones to major
transportation hubs, have been malfunctioning all at once.
Reporter 4: Officials are unsure what may be causing
the malfunction at this time.
Caleb Scharf PhD: What if we suddenly discovered that
all of our navigation systems, our GPS devices, were wrong?
Sending us in the wrong directions,
putting us in the wrong places...worldwide.
We would immediately have to ask the question of whether
something has happened to our own satellites.
Briefer: Good day, let's begin; we have a lot to cover.
72 hours ago, a massive failure in the Global Positioning
Satellite network led to a worldwide disaster
in navigation.
We have discovered that this occurred because
our GPS satellites are no longer where we placed them.
In fact, every satellite has been displaced.
Caleb Scharf PhD: We'd have to ask the question of whether
or not something has actually happened to the Earth itself.
Briefer: This disruption is not limited to just the satellites.
Ladies and gentlemen, all measurable bodies within
our solar system have - to some degree - been pulled out
of their standard orbits.
This includes the Earth.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: That Earth could be pulled out of its orbit
around the sun is extremely unlikely.
But there are things in existence powerful enough
to move entire planets.
Things that we're only beginning to understand.
One of those things is something called dark matter.
Caleb Scharf PhD: Dark matter is this mysterious stuff
that actually constitutes 85% of the mass in our universe.
So in our universe there's normal matter...
the stuff we're made of, the stuff planets and stars
are made of.
But then, over many decades of research,
astronomers have realized there has to be other stuff helping
hold everything together.
Konstantin Batygin PhD: We know that there's this mysterious
matter, this extra mass out there,
but we can't quite put our finger on it.
We don't know exactly what it is.
Caleb Scharf PhD: It's ghost matter.
It doesn't glow; it doesn't reflect light.
But it adds to the gravitating mass of objects.
And if such a clump of material passes through or near our solar
system, its' gravitational force could have a profound effect.
Presenter: It is our conclusion that these perturbations
are being caused due to a concentration of dark matter
near our solar system.
Konstantin Batygin PhD: It would pull gravitationally
on all of the planets and offset the planets from their current,
ah, rather delicate, orbits.
In time, this instability could grow and manifest itself
as orbits that slowly expand.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: So, what would happen if Earth's orbit
was altered - taking us out of the only path that Earth's life
has ever known?
Our very existence is made possible because we happen
to live at the perfect distance from the sun.
This thin band of livable space is known as The Goldilocks Zone.
It's not too hot; it's not too cold.
For all life on Earth it's just right.
If Earth were to leave The Goldilocks Zone,
life for humankind and everything we know,
would be changed forever.
Konstantin Batygin PhD: The size of the orbit was to grow,
then the winters would get much, much colder,
and the global temperatures would drop...significantly.
Presenter: Projections show that Earth's orbit will continue
to spiral away from the Sun.
As it does, Earth's temperature will fall.
It will drop 1 degree per year.
In 20 years, it will be freezing at The Equator.
96 years from now...
the average global temperature could be -430 degrees.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: As we begin to move away from the Sun
out into space, our source of light and heat would not go away
all at once - but it would begin to fade.
Our biosphere would begin to change
altering our ecosystem forever.
David Robinson PhD: In the short term,
we see a rearrangement of both plant and animal life on Earth.
A drop in average global temperatures would start
this chain reaction going.
Where it stops, we don't know.
Reporter 1: Six months after the "Dark Matter Incident",
bizarre animal migrations are now occurring
all over the globe.
Herds of giraffes have begun leaving protected game reserves
in South Africa, becoming targets for poachers.
Reporter 2: Thousands of birds dropped from the sky yesterday
in Edinboro, Pennsylvania.
Reporter 3: Nearly 100,000 whales beached themselves
along the Chilean coast.
Reporter 4: Scientists are blaming these phenomenon on the
alteration in the Earth's orbit and the changing temperatures.
Reporter 5: Religious fundamentalism is on the rise
and many people are preaching Doomsday.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: You might think that a drop of just a few
degrees is insignificant - but we're talking about the average
temperature of the entire planet.
Jeffrey Stehr PhD: In the middle of the last ice age,
the planet Earth was only 5 degrees Celsius colder
than it is today.
So that's a really narrow window.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: A drop of 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the global
temperature could mean cold snaps of 20 to 30 degrees cooler
in your hometown.
Jennifer Francis PhD: People who are unaccustomed to winter
conditions - at first it's kind of exciting because
it's so extreme and so different.
Reporter: It was another week of record-breaking summertime
cold throughout the Midwestern United States.
Some, like these folks shown here, in Evansville, Indiana,
kept their spirits high by having some fun outside
and posting it online for others to see.
I have a cup of boiling hot water.
Check this out.
negative 19 degrees, boiling water turns into mist.
Jennifer Francis PhD: And then pretty quickly thereafter
it gets old.
It's hard to go outside without putting on some pretty extreme
clothing.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: We can handle putting on warmer clothes
and layering before we go outside.
But most people won't realize the dangers of a cooling planet
until the cold takes away something that
we can't live without...
...our food.
David Robinson PhD: Colder temperatures are going to bring
later freezes as plants are trying to germinate,
so we are going to shorten the growing season and all of
that is going to conspire to limit the amount of food grown.
David Bartell: Despite all of our technological advances,
our food supply chain is still very fragile.
REPORTER: In what's become the second straight year
of uncommonly cold temperatures for Europe's farmers,
resulting crop failures are affecting millions.
Britons have been warned to brace themselves for sticker
shock at food markets as some of the worst-hit areas
are reporting prices rising by 100% in a matter of days.
David Bartell: In the short term,
a food shortage would cause prices to skyrocket.
Anyone with enough money would buy as much food as they could
and stockpile it - and the poor would begin to starve.
Riots and looting could break out anywhere food is stored.
Paul Levinson PhD: It will lead, in short order, to violence
and this, will in turn, lead to a breakdown of government.
So, there's no good or easy way out of that process.
And that will set in motion a fearsome mess
no matter what is done if people believe that their family
and loved ones will die or they'll be in jeopardy,
they're not going to accept any way of doing this.
Don Resio PhD: People would begin to - I hate to say it,
but I think they would panic.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: While we're fighting amongst ourselves,
a much bigger problem is growing worse.
For six years we've drifted away from our Sun,
moving further and further into the cold of space.
The freezing at the poles is intensifying, and moving down,
into the populated areas.
Survivors are running out of time to find places warm enough
to stay alive.
Jennifer Francis PhD: I think we're going to see a mass exodus
of people heading for the warmest place they can find,
so the tropics and the countries around the tropics are going
to be inundated with immigrants.
Don Resio PhD: And that of course would be incredibly
disruptive, tremendously threatening to people who
already live in the places that the exodus wants to move into.
Reporter 1: Major highways in the Phoenix area are at
a standstill for miles as a massive number of Arizona
residents began their exodus to warmer areas following
a national emergency announcement.
I was planning on heading over to the West Coast,
but I don't think I'm going to make it now.
It's been snowing all through the night and all day,
it hasn't let up. At all.
Jennifer Francis PhD: The people who hang back
and tough it out, I think are going to end up having
a much harder existence.
It's going to be a very difficult place to live.
David Bartell: Even in regions that are normally warm,
people will be unprepared for the rapid cold snaps
headed their way.
Radio: Dispatch to patrol, do you read me?
Dispatch to patrol, do you read me?
Patrol, what's your 20? Patrol...
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: It's now been a decade of global cooling
on planet Earth, and the average temperature has plummeted
by 10 degrees.
Snow and ice are blanketing North America
from Northern Canada to Pennsylvania.
By now, less than half of the Earth's population
is still alive.
Jennifer Francis PhD: You know, some places along the equator
might be happy for a while because their temperatures
are reduced a little bit.
But where the majority of the population is,
is going to get a lot colder.
Those people are not going to be happy.
Jeffrey Stehr PhD: We have this clash between the cold air over
the continents and the warm, moist air out of the oceans.
We might see it get a lot stormier.
So the Earth is going to respond in dramatic ways.
Jennifer Francis PhD: Ultimately as we get farther
and farther from the sun, we will get to the point where
all the precipitation does fall as snow.
David Bartell: Think about that for a second.
There might never be rain showers on this planet again.
At a certain point, as the freezing intensifies and marches
towards the equator, the only precipitation will be snow.
And the only season will be winter.
Jennifer Francis PhD: Instead of affecting places like Seattle
and Chicago, they'll be more running along Houston, Miami.
David Robinson PhD: They would be faced with snows
that they've never seen before, and they'd have to develop means
of removing that snow.
Jeffrey Stehr PhD: When it snows,
it doesn't melt - and it piles up and piles up and piles up
and the bottom of that snowfall turns into ice.
David Robinson PhD: The weight of those ice sheets
and gravitational forces will spread that ice
down into the main cities.
Jeffrey Stehr PhD: You're going to start to see glaciers
forming around you.
Oh my god! Nikki, look!
This is crazy! Look at this!
Oh my god!
Reporter 1: Hundreds of terrified residents
were barricaded into their homes today in Jackson, Mississippi
as massive sheets of ice surrounded
entire neighborhoods.
Much of this population could be at high risk or even death
staying in their home for that long with no heat.
Reporter 2: Volunteer rescue teams are working with the
National Guard into the night to find those still missing.
This drift is over 20 feet high!
You'll see he's roped the top of the edge of the roof.
Don Resio PhD: As more and more of the planet is encased
with ice, permanently,
the impact is going to be catastrophic.
The roads will be impassable; the power would be terminated.
If the people did not have a way to get in from the cold
starvation will kill and the cold will kill.
They would perish.
David Bartell: With nowhere to run from the cold,
people would begin to suffer from the physical effects
of the freezing temperatures.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: At 40 below, our skin freezes
almost instantly, so it can't be exposed.
Jennifer Francis PhD: It's hard to go outside and you have
to cover pretty much every square inch of exposed skin
to avoid getting frostbitten.
Frostbite is when the actual cells in your skin start
to freeze - the water in those cells.
If it goes deep enough and you actually kill the cells
in the skin that make new skin cells,
then you end up with frostbite.
You tend to get frostbitten first in your fingers
and your nose, and your ears if they're exposed,
because your body does shut down the circulation
to the extremities first.
You can live without arms but you can't live without
your vital organs.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: A drop of only 4 degrees Fahrenheit
in core temperature can cause uncontrollable shivering,
confusion and weakness.
As your organs begin to cool death can strike long before
your body actually freezes.
Caleb Scharf PhD: As the Earth begins to cool,
it can actually be an accelerating process.
This is because frozen water reflects more sunlight
than liquid water.
As the Ice Caps expand, the Earth becomes more and more
reflective.
And so it actually absorbs even less sunlight.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: As glacier-like ice sheets
move beyond 30-degrees latitude, covering places like Houston,
New Orleans, and Cairo... we would reach a tipping point.
Caleb Scharf PhD: And it's a runaway process,
sometimes it's called a "Snowball Earth Effect".
David Robinson PhD: With that tipping point,
things could move at a faster pace and make it more difficult
for the human race to keep up with it.
Jennifer Francis PhD: We're heading off into territory
that we cannot return from.
I think at that point we should be very worried.
Ultimately as we get farther and farther from the sun,
we will get to the point where everything on the surface
is freezing.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: Ice is enveloping the planet.
We're running out of time, but what options do we have?
The surface is becoming too cold for even the strongest
to survive.
PIRATE BROADCAST: This is survivor radio,
broadcasting from the surface in Kenya.
If you can hear my voice you're not alone.
I'm getting spotty info recently about places where people
have somehow been generating energy or heat.
I'm getting conflicting reports on where these locations are,
but I'll keep you posted as soon as I hear more.
Stay warm.
Survivor radio signing off.
Tim Broyd PhD: It comes down to having a sufficiency of energy.
It really does.
If you haven't got energy you've got nothing.
If you've got energy, then you've got a chance.
Caleb Scharf PhD: If we're losing the sun's power,
what do we do?
Well we know we have fossil fuels, but those are finite.
We know we have nuclear power, but that's tricky.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: It's a problem we haven't faced before.
Many things we rarely think about are powered by our sun.
Photosynthesis, light so we can see,
heat to keep us from freezing.
All of this now has to be generated another way.
Caleb Scharf PhD: So we're gonna have to start thinking seriously
about really producing a lot more energy than we've ever
produced before.
Tim Broyd PhD: If we're clever enough we can tap
into geothermal energy sources.
Caleb Scharf PhD: The Earth itself is an energy source.
Geothermal energy, the heat from the planet,
has been with us forever, and it's not going away anytime soon
Tracy Gregg: The center of the Earth is about
9,000 degrees Fahrenheit
There is a lot of heat there that we could use to power
our needs on the surface but we have to get it from there
to the surface.
Jeffrey Stehr PhD: One of the things you could do
in this scenario is, you drill down a ways,
and if you dig deep enough you can get a lot of heat out of it.
And you could in fact boil water away,
and you could use that steam to drive the turbine to create
energy and electricity.
David Robinson PhD: It's going to give you the heat to power
energy, light, and grow the crops you need to survive.
David Bartell: So if we know the energy we desperately need
exists underground - where is the best place to access it
in order to save the maximum number of lives?
David Robinson PhD: Any place where you see a lot of volcanic
action, is where you would want to go to find that heat...
The place you would most want to look would be around
the Ring of Fire, which essentially encircles
the Pacific Basin.
Paul Falkowski PhD: There are some major geothermal mining
systems that generate electricity
for Southern California.
It's a relatively untapped but very abundant source of energy.
David Bartell: The dream scenario would be to find
a hotspot with large infrastructure near a city
that can house a large number of survivors.
And we're in luck.
It exists.
The largest geothermal development in the world
is The Geysers, which lies about 72 miles North of San Francisco
in California.
David Robinson PhD: You want to be able to tap the most
available energy, and if it's near a populated area,
such as San Francisco, then that's what you go for.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: We know we can use that geothermal heat
for all sorts of things once we tap it,
but we'd still have to find a way to keep that heat in,
and insulate ourselves from the cold.
Don Resio PhD: Certainly one option would be to build
a geodesic dome.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: We've built domes like this on a smaller
scale in the Arctic.
These geodesic domes are built in the Arctic to keep people
safe from the frigid temperatures and extreme winds.
David Robinson PhD: And if a geodesic dome has the right
geometric configuration, then that's the way to go.
But there needs to be some creative engineering to best
secure that heat and ward off the cold from outside.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: Now, think bigger.
If you want to protect a large area,
an effective way to do it might be to create a large,
massive geodesic dome.
One large enough to fit over an entire city.
The buildings inside could be heated with geothermal energy
which would keep everyone warm and safe.
David Bartell: The dome would have to be made from a cutting
edge material, designed to withstand extreme cold.
Les Johnson: There are ideas for how you might put, for instance,
carbon nano tubes or other things impregnated in some
of these materials to make them stronger and more robust
at lower temperatures.
David Bartell: We'll need these materials,
because up on the surface the world is going to be a much
different place than we've ever known.
Konstantin Batygin PhD: As we get further and further out,
the sun begins to look like a dim ball of white light
in the sky.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: It's been 35 years since the Earth began
moving away from the Sun, over 98% of the world's population
has either starved or frozen to death.
David Bartell: Those people who are not in a geodesic dome
but have somehow managed to protect themselves from the cold
up to now won't be safe for very long.
Tim Broyd PhD: One thing that is almost certain to happen
is that the assemblage of buildings
and infrastructure will increasingly start to fail.
The reason for that is that we build largely with a very small
number of types of material.
Generally concrete, glass, and steel.
We know the properties of these materials,
but we design and use them within a fairly narrow
temperature range.
Les Johnson: Steel, which seems really strong in our everyday
applications, when you get to be 100 degrees below 0 can actually
be very fragile and very brittle.
Tim Broyd PhD: Water will infiltrate the pores of concrete
and buildings will fall down.
Bridges will fail.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: Standing in temperatures this cold would be
like soaking these structures in liquid nitrogen.
Eventually - the slightest tap could make them shatter
like glass.
PIRATE RADIO BROADCAST: This is my final broadcast.
My equipment is falling apart.
If you're on the surface, you have to move - get underground.
It's too cold to last up here any longer.
Get into a Geo-Dome if you can.
They have heat and food.
There's one in San Francisco, and another one right here
in Africa.
There could be others.
Coordinates will be on loop at the end of this message.
I'm headed under myself.
Stay alive.
Survivor Radio signing off.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: By now, Earth has cooled by over
100 degrees Fahrenheit.
And its' transformation to an icy rock is well underway.
The planet barely resembles the place that survivors remember
from their earlier days, but some have found a way to hold
off the cold inside geo-domes, using heat from inside the earth
David Bartell: While domed cities will save many lives,
they won't be the answer for everyone.
There are only a handful of cities near active geothermal
areas... Not everyone will get a spot inside.
So what options are there for the rest of mankind?
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: We're not entirely out of luck.
With or without a dome - we still have our energy source
at the Earth's core, and places where that energy is close
to the surface.
The surface is too dangerous to stay on for any real amount
of time, so the most important thing for Earth's remaining
human beings is to get underground.
David Robinson PhD: Now, you go down into mines,
that go a mile or more underground, and it gets warmer,
you go near geothermal vents and such,
and it can be considerably warmer.
So there are some places to take cover.
Les Johnson: The Earth is a great insulator;
it's a great thermal insulator because it stays at a fairly
constant temperature under the ground.
Tim Broyd PhD: So given enough energy,
given the right sort of equipment,
we can engineer the spaces.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: But tunneling holes deep underground
is a very delicate business.
We're not just talking about a single mine
we're talking about building entire underground cityscapes.
As we dig deeper into the Earth to access more energy,
we're going to have a whole new set of problems on our hands.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: While our planet's surface continues
its' deep-freeze, people might find safe haven underground
by building networks of tunnels.
Engineers will have to move very quickly to accommodate
the growing numbers of survivors who want to move in
but the deeper we go, the greater the risk.
Worker 1: So how far below grade are we?
Worker 2: We've been getting three hundred feet a day,
but we've had to cut production a little bit.
We're real close to a methane pocket.
We've altered the alignment slightly so we can get around it
It's killing our production.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: Workers digging those tunnels
would be under immense pressure to move quickly,
and this would increase the probability
of accidents occurring.
Worker 2: We can't go very long like this.
We've got to go man.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: And when you're deep below the surface,
one false step can have serious consequences.
Controller 1: We've got a problem in Tunnel 112.
David Bartell: The deeper down we dig, the greater the risk.
The supporting structures of your shelter have to hold up
all that weight above you.
And if they can't hold that weight, you get buried alive.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: Some accidents will inevitably
happen. But, if we're safe and smart about it,
we could build underground cities around the world...
Don Resio PhD: I think all of that is possible,
it just takes a lot of imagination and will power,
and a total commitment, and technology
that I'm not sure exists today.
But there's a problem, we'd have to solve first,
how we can grow food with no sunlight.
Tim Broyd PhD: If you have good energy supplies,
and enough space on the ground, you might just be able
to engineer conditions in which you can grow food
under artificial daylight.
Don Resio PhD: As long as I have an ability to generate the same
spectrum of light as the sun, then I can grow the same crops.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: Thankfully, in this scenario,
we will have access to water.
As long as we can mine ice from the oceans,
and from the glaciers that form on land.
Jennifer Francis PhD: Sea ice is so fresh that you can actually
melt it and drink it.
As seawater freezes, the salt actually gets rejected
into the water beneath.
When they go up on an Arctic Expedition, for example,
they chop out a chunk of old sea ice and melt it
and it's fresh enough to drink.
David Bartell: So underground cities could succeed.
We have energy, shelter, food water, everything we need
to survive.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: And the small, remaining population
could thrive.
Which is good, because the surface is transforming
into a bizarre landscape.
It's starting to look like the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
As the planet continues to move away from the sun,
the surface begins to take on strangely alien features.
Konstantin Batygin PhD: If the Earth's orbit were to expand
beyond the orbit that is shared by Neptune today, at this point,
our atmosphere would begin to rain out and collapse away.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: Oxygen and nitrogen make up 99%
of our atmosphere.
As the global temperature reaches below
a -290 degrees Fahrenheit, these gases will condense to liquid
and fall to Earth in the last precipitation
the planet will ever see.
When the last oxygen and nitrogen flakes land
that would be it.
Our atmosphere would be gone.
Don Resio PhD: Eventually, becoming a giant,
solid mass of all of what was once our atmosphere.
David Bartell: At this point, we'd have to seal off our
underground home to prevent our breathable air from escaping.
But that's only a temporary solution
because we'd soon use up all that oxygen.
What we'll need to do is find a long-term air supply.
Caleb Scharf PhD: If gases like nitrogen and oxygen and carbon
dioxide have frozen as solids on the surface of our planet,
we still need them as raw materials.
We might be able to go to the surface,
harvest this frozen atmosphere, bring it back with us,
and then thaw it out to make use of the gaseous compounds
it contains.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: The main problem here is that
our atmosphere doesn't just provide us with breathable air.
It's also our defense mechanism.
And without it, Earth is left exposed.
Jeffrey Stehr PhD: When we have objects that fall down
on Earth like an asteroid or a meteor, the atmosphere slows
that debris and it burns it up before most of it can reach
the ground.
If we were to lose our atmosphere,
then we lose our shield from all these things,
all these rocks that could come in from space.
Konstantin Batygin PhD: With this protection mechanism gone,
even small meteorites could do a huge amount of damage.
David Bartell: Without the atmosphere to protect them,
the geodomes on the surface would become vulnerable.
Eventually, those living aboveground will feel
the full wrath of the cold.
Hakeem Oluseyi PhD: Ultimately, without an atmosphere
to protect life on the surface of the Earth,
anything trying to survive there is at risk.
Despite our best efforts, we really can't expect to survive
on the surface.
David Bartell: But remember; inside the Earth,
we'll still have heat and energy for billions of years.
And where there's energy, there can be life.
Including a human civilization that's thriving underground.
Caleb Scharf PhD: What would the future hold for humans?
We've moved underground.
We're living off geothermal energy.
And we're living off our incredible ability to innovate.
David Bartell: As long as we can maintain an atmosphere
underground, and provide our survivors with oxygen-Mankind
has a chance to live on.
Paul Levinson PhD: For people who have lived above ground,
they're not going to be seeing the sun anymore.
They're not going to feel the wind on their faces.
They're not going to be able to look up at the stars at night.
Not be able to see the moon.
All these things that we take for granted make us feel
comfortable as human beings.
But if they survive and they have children,
and this goes on for generations,
someone who is born in this underground environment for them
that will be all that they ever knew they won't miss
what they didn't know in the first place.
Jeffrey Stehr PhD: One of the things that's most beautiful
about the way life survives on Earth is that it is incredibly
adaptable.
It finds the tiniest bit of energy and thrives in some of
the most inhospitable environments.
So the odds are since our planet is full of life and we have a
hard time finding any place that doesn't have any life on it,
that life would continue on.
Don Resio PhD: I think for a lot of people this would sound like
science fiction, but that goes back to both the optimism and
my thought that the ingenuity of humanity being able to bring it
back to where we want it to be.
I think that without a doubt in my mind, given enough time,
we can do it.
Caleb Scharf PhD: It's possible that the pressure of trying
to survive in this extreme and alien environment would actually
help us come up with new ways to exist in the universe.
Conceivably, even new ways to retake our planet.
Perhaps we could find a way to engineer our whole world
into something not the same as it was, but new.
A new world that we could then claim again as ours.