Think your day's going poorly? Trust in this: It really, truly could be worse. The trip to Armageddon has many a vehicle, be it nukes, comet strikes or lost biodiversity

For those who grew up during the Cold War, when the idea of being wiped-out at any given moment was a familiar concept, the latter half of the past century is a stretch thankfully left behind.

This doesn’t mean that getting nixed before you know it is now beyond the realm of possibility, however, as even though the Iron Curtain was taken down, there are still plenty of brinks out there for us to teeter upon.

Obliterating projectiles from outer space, the total loss of necessary biodiversity the world-over and the time-tested threat of good old nuclear annihilation all continue to loom.

So on that note, sit back, have a look around, give thanks for what you’ve got, and then read on.

Small Nuclear War Would Devastate Global Climate, Scientists Warn

National Geographic News – December 13th, 2006, by RICHARD A. LOVETT

Although the thought of a ‘small nuclear conflict’ rings along the same lines as ‘minor fatal beating’, it remains that recent reports by the American media reveal the White House has deemed a number of its smallest nuclear warheads as ‘useable’, while drafting speculative America-Iran war simulations.

With that in mind, a report by Richard A. Lovett in National Geographic News has addressed a recent study showing just how deadly even a contained, regional exchange of nukes would be. According to the report's findings, any nuclear engagement, no matter how carefully confined, would result in a notable global climate drop, widespread crop failure, terminal ozone depletion and migratory clouds of radiation; all sure to quickly add bodies to the tens of millions already killed by the initial blasts.

Killer Space Rocks

Popular Science – August, 2007, by KEVIN KRAJICK

All manmade mushroom clouds aside, there could still remain an all-natural concluding conflagration in our future.

According to Kevin Krajick’s PopSci-published report, there are more than one million NEOs (Near Earth Objects) – heavenly bodies that may pose the threat of colliding with Earth – currently being tracked. Of these, hundreds fall into the ‘global nightmare’ category, while one in particular was recently given better than one-in-forty odds of striking Earth sometime in the mid-2030’s (further data has since seen that likelihood greatly reduced).

His readers now suitably terrified, Krajick moves on to discussing the various methods currently used to track these heavenly haymakers, as well as several potential procedures for deflecting an impact that are currently under development. These possibilities range from the obvious nuclear bombardment approach, to a complicated system of gravity tractors, solar sails and other to-be-developed technologies that would gently prod the behemoth out of our path.

Here's hoping.

Vanishing Before Our Eyes

TIME Magazine – April 26th, 2000, by EDWARD O. WILSON

Nukes and celestial bombardment would certainly make for a flashy end, but humanity’s Big Exit may indeed come not as a bang, but a whimper.

Though he apparently never wrote as much down, Einstein is rumored to have once said that, should the bee vanish from the face of the earth, humanity would have but four years to live.

Well, the bees are indeed vanishing, and as Edward O. Wilson warns, so too is an astounding number of other species.

To hear that we’re wiping out whole populations without breaking a sweat is nothing new for most, and many take comfort in such answering assertions as the fact that species were vanishing long before the great hairless ape ever came along.

According to Wilson, however, we’re not only speeding up the rate of extinction, but making it increasingly difficult for the evolutionary process to replace eradicated species with new, naturally developed ones.

Wilson raises several justifications for a concerted effort to curb our global impact, though the most compelling is that regarding the vital dependence of two mandatory human practices – agriculture and medical development – upon biodiversity.

If one were to view the earth as the world’s most complicated bicycle, the pace at which we’re now riding it has nuts and bolts – individual species – flying off in every direction, and it can be only so long before something truly vital finally drops away, ultimately leaving humanity sprawled in the dirt as well.