10 Ways The World Could End

The TED talk that I watched was one regarding the end of the world. Stephen Petranek speaks of 10 ways the world could end, through his research I'm assuming. From the beginning it seemed as if he was a bit naive and did not have as much experience in this subject as he should. He points out 10 ways the world could end, one by one.

Number 10 involves "Losing the will to survive" He talks about depression, stating that the World Health Organization estimates that 1 out 5 people are critically depressed. I don't really see how this would play out in being the cause of the end of the world. Number 9 involves Aliens invading Earth and sucking up our water on earth for hydrogen or something of that nature. Number 8 is the Eco System collapsing and the fact that our oceans, rain forests and such are all in great danger and need attention. Number 7 would be a particle accelerator mishap. Number 6 is a bio tech disaster.

Number 5 suggests a reversal of the earth's magnetic field. He states this takes place evey few hundred thousand years, the north pole goes to the south and vise versa, but as this happens, our magnetic field weakens and particles in space can come crashing down on us and cause havoc-And we are over due 480,000 years for this event to take place. Number 4 highlights giant solar flares hitting earth, which are outbursts from the sun. Number 3 highlights a global epidemic. Number 2 suggests getting sucked into a black hole, which are in space and do just that. A black hole only needs to get a billion miles away and we will be done. Finally, number 1 involves a really big asteroid heading for earth.

These are all basically gateways for my question on my paper. He definitely stays away from the religious aspects on the end of days but does not really follow through on his information provided. He suggests ways to prevent all these events, from starting to expand life on Mars to replenishing our Eco systems, but he just didn't seem that passionate about the subject.