We're Doomed. What Now?

Disclaimer: I want to be clear that this post does not look at the arrival of the year 2012 as a possible way that the world could end, because as far as i know there isn't any specific scientific reason why it would happen simply due to that exact date. However if one were operating under that assumption, the thoughts and opinions expressed in this entry would still apply, so please continue reading.

We are all aware of the fundamentalist Christian idea of the End of Days, and many people who don't subscribe to that belief simply dismiss it. However, throughout my life I have heard a few scientific and pretty well backed-up evidence that--no matter how many thousands of years it might take--we are pretty much doomed. I always preferred not to think about it to tell you the truth, but let's be real for a few minutes and honestly look at some of the astronomical reasons why the human race cannot go on living on earth forever, because as you will see, it really is just a matter of time. 
We'll do this in a kind of "top 5" style.

Number 5: When two collapsed stars join together it can create something called a gamma-ray burst. These bursts have about 10 quadrillion (1000 000 000 000 0000) times more energy than the sun. If one were to happen close enough to us, there wouldn't really be any warning. At first, or atmosphere would protect us from the intense X-rays and gamma rays, but eventually the radiation would destroy the atmosphere--so, basically, instant global warming.

Number 4: Probably the most common theory going around about how the world could end is if we were hit by an asteroid. Now, if an asteroid did hit earth, experts say it would probably land in the ocean or hit an unpopulated area, however if one more than half a mile wide were to hit, it would cause firestorms and then global cooling. The civilizations we've built up probably would not be able to survive the impact, but we most likely would. Then, if one five miles wide hit us, we  would have some major extinctions on our hands, and finally, if one of the larger comets from the kuiper belt hit us, all higher forms of life would be kaput.

Number 3: My last post was about black holes, and in it I wrote that we, on earth, were pretty much safe from them because the nearest one was very far away and we would have to be pretty close to get sucked in. However, there are two things I didn't realize: First, if one was on it's way toward us, because it is a black hole and not that easily observed, we would have little warning. Second, I should have considered that we wouldn't actually have to be close enough to get sucked into a black hole for it to really mess with earth. If a black hole were anywhere in, or close to our solar system it could really change the orbits of the planets, especially if it sucked some of them in and that would just be one disaster after another. So, even with the very little warning we would have of the presence of a black hole, it would already have done a bunch of damage before it was due to approach us.

Number 2: So, coronal mass ejections or solar flares from the sun happen all the time, and earth's atmosphere and magnetic field protects from them but Bradley Schaefer of Yale University believes he has observed superflares from other sun-like stars, which are millions of times more powerful than regular solar flares. If one where to come from our sun, the earth would be cooked within hours and so would we.

Number 1: Well, remember how I mentioned in #2 how earth's magnetic fields protect us from solar flares? Well...as it turns out, they like shut almost completely off every few hundred years for about a century, and guess what? The last time this happened was approximately  780,000 years ago, so...we might be overdue, and guess what else? The strength of the magnetic field has actually decreased about 5% in the last century. If this were to happen, not tons of particles--not only from the sun, but from elsewhere in the universe--would begin striking our planet uninhibited, destroying our ozone layer in the process.

So, we're doomed. What now?


Well, people have proposed many answers: moving to other planets, building great underground civilizations, getting rescued by aliens...


[Here comes the part that is relevant to everyone, no matter how you think the end will come]


Honestly, I'm tired. I'm tired of hearing all these panicked, scared people running around grabbing desperately for solutions to this "problem". It's going to happen. We are doomed. We will not survive forever. And don't you think it's right? I mean, we've been on this planet for a while, and we've treated it like trash--literally. What makes anyone think we should be able to hold onto longer than anyone else has? What makes anyone think we deserve to, after how we've blindly gone about wrecking and poisoning it? I know that it's difficult to come to terms with, but this is just how it is. We know that this is the way it is because everything from cars to stars eventually break down and must be recycled, no matter how great or beautiful they were. We are no exception.
So, here's my advice. We live our lives. We do our best with how ever many decades we have left on this planet. We are all going to die anyway. Deal with it. Live.

SOURCES

http://discovermagazine.com/2000/oct/featworld

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Believer's%20Corner/pretribulation_rapture.htm

http://www.crystalinks.com/black_holes.html

http://www.impactlab.net/2008/05/23/super-flare-captured-by-nasa/

http://www.physorg.com/news159704651.html

http://www.armageddononline.org/asteroid-impact-climate-change.html