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Asked by anon-248603 to Zoya, Tom, Stacey, Laura, James, Connor on 13 Mar 2020.
Question: What kind of event could lead to the most damage (or even complete destruction) of life on Earth (not just humans, iM TALKING ABOUT ANIMALS, BACTERIA, VIRUSES, PLANTS AND FUNGI)
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Stacey New answered on 13 Mar 2020:
I think an asteroid impact would probably have a good chance of completely destroying life on earth, and maybe even the earth itself if the asteroid was big enough!
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Connor Prior answered on 13 Mar 2020:
This is a really interesting question!
In my opinion, global warming will see a near destruction of life on earth as we know it – in the extreme case. If we warm the planet too much the sea temperatures will rise – increasing the pH of the waters which will see destruction of fish, whales, coral, algae etc. These systems rely on a very unique pH and temperature system. altering them will cause real issues.
For the Northern hemisphere, it has been hypothesised that warming of the earth’s temperature will cause the Arctic polar ice caps to melt, this influx of now colder waters will disrupt and potentially destroy the gulf stream. The Gulf Stream bring warm water from Mexico and the Americas up to Europe and Britain. If you look on a map you’ll see that the UK is on the same longitude as Toronto (Canada) and Moscow (Russia) so we should have similar winters ( ~ -20 C). The Gulf Stream prevents this. It has been theorised that we may have an ice age if this was eliminated.
@stacey should be able to give a much better answer than myself though! She is a climate scientist!
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James Lees answered on 13 Mar 2020:
To kill off ALL life on earth basically the only way to do it is to destroy the earth itself. Unfortunately there are lots of ways this could happen such as a very large asteroid impact. Gamma Ray Burst, Supernova, black hole getting too close or all sorts of other things. Fortunately the chance of any of these happening is very small.
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Stacey commented on :
Thanks Connor! I could be here all day writing about climate change! But you’ve summed it up nicely. Climate change is definitely something that we should be worried about, it’s happening now and it is something that we are having a direct impact on, and it’s something we can work together on to reduce it’s impact on the earth! But I don’t think it would completely destroy life, viruses, bacteria etc are very good at evolving and adapting so they would probably survive climate change. So I’m sticking with an asteroid impact!!