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The World.
Planet Earth.
Everything we know, love and hold dear sits on this rock – the entire history of all
time as we know it is contained somewhere in our soil, in our seas or on top of our
land…but what if it was all gone?
Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions – the channel where we ask a breadth
of questions to satisfy the curious mind.
I am your host, Rebecca Felgate and today I am asking What if The World Ended in 7 Days?
And… blimey what a bomb shell!
Before we get into answering this question – I want to ask you what you would do if
you had just one last day on earth?
What a question!
I think I would wake up early, have a delicious breakfast with my friends and family, go on
a hike for four hours, have a big lunch, go to the pub, play board games, drink wine,
eat cheese tell everyone I love them and have a big banoffee pie to finish.
Sounds like a great day…shame it has to be the end of the world.
Okay, before we really get into this – lets consider what actually COULD end the world
– we’re not talking nuclear war – there are 15,000 nuclear weapons on earth and while
this could very much damage humanity and animal life, our actual rock would easily withstand
it even if they were all detonated at once – it would just be surface damage.
Volcanic eruptions are also hard for humans, but are part and parcel with planet earth.
Solar flares can’t end earth, despite what the Daily Mail tells you…but yes, the world
will end in some way when our Sun finally explodes, but that is billions of years away
and will take longer than seven days.
The earth’s core may eventually cool, too… but that will take a long period of time,
and wouldn’t so much destroy earth as render it inhospitable.
SO what actually could end earth?
The only options are planet or HUGE asteroid collision or destruction by a black hole….
Both of which are so wildly unlikely it doesn’t really bear worrying about.
But….
Well to answer this question we need to assume one of those things is happening.
I guess we could also factor in an alien species with an earth destroying weapon…just to
add some drama.
If the earth was about to be totally destroyed either by an asteroid, a rogue planet collision
or by being gobbled up by a black hole, we would have a warning of longer than seven
days – astrologists have their eye on what is going on at all times, so I guess that
just leaves Alien Death star lazer destruction attack.
Sure.
I mean would have ended any other way on this channel.
SO, the real question is – would the governments of the world tell us?
When it became clear that we had 7 days until D day, world leaders would meet to discuss
how to react and how to break the news, if need be to the global population.
Of course, organizations like Nato would try and come to a resolution – the bittersweet
blessing and curse of humanity is hope – and we would hold on to it until the very end.
The world leaders would try and find a way to save the earth.
Eventually, as the time drew close they would have a responsibility to tell the world, who
in turn would cling to a hope that something could be done.
Perhaps there would be a top secret getaway plan.
At the moment the world isn’t prepared for a mass evacuation of 7 and a half billion
people – there is nowhere set up for us to go even if we had the resources.
But, humans are planning on setting up a base on mars within the next decade…
I am near certain that NASA and other space agencies would make a last ditch scramble
to get some off us off this planet and headed towards survival.
Billionaires like Richard Branson with *** Galactic and Elon Musk With Tesla will also
try and crack on out of here.
Whether it would be possible to get out is one thing, how long the would survive is another.
An exodus in itself triggers a whole new line of questioning.
It’s a can of worms.
If all else fails, we will at least send some documentation of earth and our story into
space…our lasting legacy.
Back on earth, if the general public were told they had just seven days left on earth
– the first few days would be absolute chaos.
As much as I would like to believe we as a species are better than this when facing extinction,
I honestly think the number of people who wanted to behave lawlessly would send cities
into total mayhem.
What do laws mean now, anyway?
I would be among the number of people who would just want to get to my family and live
out my last days in peace…
I would want to enjoy a few nice meals and a few nice hikes, but how could I do that
when all grocery stores have been raided!
There would need to be a lot of military forces controlling the panic, but I imagine even
the forces would lose hope and not want to spend the last few days of their life at work.
I am thinking that airports will be shut down, roads would be gridlocked and wherever you
are when the news comes – within a 50 or so mile radius - will probably be where you
are when the end comes…so better find some end of the world buddies and bunker up.
Hopefully at some point over the seven days you could at least talk to your family if
you lived away from home like me – although it might be a struggle as phone networks would
be overloaded.
Social media would be a colourful place to be, too…with floods of images and messages
marking the end.
How would the end come?
Would there be live streams around the world – would certain places in the world go first
before we all follow, like meridian lines at New Year.
For all the chaos of the first few days, the last days on earth would be quiet and peaceful
amongst the smouldering wreck of society.
Perhaps we would finally learn to love those around us when we realise race, religion and
politics don’t matter.
Nothing we thought matters will matter at the end.
I imagine a global outdoors gathering of people smiling together, but maybe that is idealistic.
On the final day, our only hope for humanity would be those who got away, although their
struggle to resettle will be the hardest thing we have ever faced……if nobody survives
then there will be nobody to tell the story of earth…a rich 4 and a half billion years
of history reduced to floating space rock.
Our only hope of being remembered will be if another interstellar race intercepts our
space capsule…and even if they do, who is to say we would be able to decipher what we
said.
Well…what a question…
I am sure we could talk all day about what would happen if the world ended…
It is a multipronged topic with so much to cover.
Let me know if you want us to go into it in more detail!
For now though, do leave me a comment and let me know what you would do if you had just
one day left! – like share sub.
Thanks for tuning in to this video.
I am your host Rebecca Felgate, I’ll catch you soon but until then stay curious, stay
alert and never ever stop questioning.
Get away plan
First few days chaos.
Last two days, a quiet peace