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CrowdScience

How Could Humanity Become Extinct?

CrowdScience

BBC

Science

4.81K Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2017

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nuclear weapons and mega asteroids: what would the aftermath look like? CrowdScience explores past extinction events and future dystopias.

In a past episode, CrowdScience headed to Denmark to find out whether humans could go the way of the dinosaurs – mass extinction triggered by a large asteroid impact 66 million years ago. Although no killer rocks are on route to Earth any time soon, we do not have to look far for other dystopias.

“Do we have enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world?”, listener Ronald from Uganda asks CrowdScience. It turns out there is a web app which can help answer this question. Together with its maker nuclear historian Alex Wellerstein, presenter Anand Jagatia tests hypothetical nuclear disaster scenarios and uncovers the nature of nuclear destruction in interviewees with climate scientist Alan Robock.

Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.uk

Presenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Louisa Field

(Image: Explosion of a nuclear bomb Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of

0:07.0

Happiness Podcast.

0:08.0

For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want

0:14.4

to share that science with you.

0:16.1

And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley.

0:19.4

I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that

0:25.4

calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. This rock does seem very crumbly, look, it just crumbles in my hands so you could hear that breaking apart and there's a

0:43.7

bit of a landslide just literally over the corner does it happen a lot here?

0:47.1

Yeah it is it is a very dangerous place to stay below a war hagen cliff face.

0:53.0

Hello I'm Anan Jagatier.

0:55.0

This is crowd science and those are the sounds of me, my producer Louisa

1:00.0

and geologist Jesper Milan coming close to extinction on some cliffs in Denmark last year

1:05.8

when we travelled to Stairn's Clint to answer a question from listener Zareen in Bangladesh.

1:11.2

Could humanity go extinct like the dinosaurs? This week we are

1:15.9

revisiting the question of how the dinosaurs met their sticky end, but do not fear

1:20.9

if you have listened to the original program we're going to be covering plenty of new ground in this one.

1:26.0

In particular, we'll be answering some questions about potential doomsday scenarios for the human race.

1:32.0

Now, I can think of a few ways that humanity might

1:35.1

go extinct, perhaps a deadly disease pandemic might infect us all, or maybe

1:39.6

artificial intelligence will eventually turn on us with a vengeance, or possibly will suffer a

1:44.7

slow and steady death from the effects of climate change. But the apocalypse that's perhaps on everyone's

1:50.7

mind right now is a nuclear one.

...

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