The Discerning Tourist's Guide to the End of the World

By Lee Rotherham

The End of the World is a dangerous location and it’s very easy to fall off it. The author and publisher are not responsible for readers who get themselves rubbed out undertaking apocalypse tourism in advance of any genuine apocalypse. Remember in particular the old wise dictum: people kill, not ice ages. And never share a handkerchief.
A look at the many ways in which the End of the World might come about. Be it catastrophic climate change, meteor impact or a horde of Viking gods going berserk, people have imagined Armageddon in many ways. This book looks at them all, evaluates their likelihood and explains what we can do about them (usually not much).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bretwalda Books
• Release date: Mar 28, 2020

Book preview

The Discerning Tourist's Guide to the End of the World

Places to visit before you are eaten or vapourised

By

Dr Lee Rotherham

With a foreword by

Lembit Opik

CONTENTS

Foreword by Lembit Opik

An Introduction for Tourists

30 Ways to Go for a Burton

Planning Your Visit

Where to Visit

About the Author

Foreword by Lembit Opik

We’re all going to die. Really, we are. It’s just a matter of when. To tell you the truth, I don’t spend much time worrying about when I’ll end my days here. I’m more bothered about when the ENTIRE world will meet its final fate in one, dramatic calamity.

For some reason, which makes sense in a very human kind of way, the idea of our whole planet being wiped out, all at once, seems very absorbing. Why is the end of the world so tremendously fascinating? Maybe it’s because of the Hollywood film-makers. They’ve destroyed our poor little planet time and time again. Or perhaps it’s the gruesome possibility that our last moments could be spent collectively gawping at approaching catastrophe and thinking ‘we really should have done something about that.’ Whatever the reason, the end of everything is a horror story that just keeps on giving.

The so many ways it could happen: plague; super volcanoes; catastrophic climate change… take your pick! I suspect we’ve all got our favourite disaster scenario. I certainly do. I feel one end-of-the-world option literally outshines all the others – asteroids, or, to give them their proper name, ‘Near Earth Objects.’ They’re the scariest, fastest flying, hottest, deadliest danger of all.

Now, I’ve got a particular reason for obsessing about space rocks. My grandfather, Ernst Julius Öpik, was a brilliant and visionary stargazer. He spent his life studying space, and made many fantastic discoveries. Frankly, he was also a bit what might be described as ‘off-the-wall’ in his thinking. For instance, he reckoned there was a link between human political revolutions on earth and dark ‘spots’ on the sun. Another theory he had was that earth had been hit by giant asteroids and comets in the past. He was certain it would happen again. This caused some people to think he was bonkers. Then, in the 1980s, scientists found a 200 kilometre wide hole in the Gulf of Mexico, and concluded that this was the crater left behind after an asteroid hit earth 65 million years ago. That monster smashed into the surface of our planet travelling at many kilometres per second. Incidentally, the crater was named Chixulub: think of it as the tombstone for the dinosaurs - and for seven tenths of life on earth.

So, that was a really bad day on the planet. But it wasn’t the worst one. A few hundred million years before the dinosaurs got barbequed, there was an even more terrible event, which killed almost every living thing there was. It was called the Permian Extinction. It may have been an asteroid, or possibly something else. Whatever happened on that occasion, it goes to show that all the things we take as safe and constant and normal are only here thanks to the whims of nature – and that things can change in an instant.

What would it be like to live through such a big impact? The truth is, you probably wouldn’t. It depends on the size of the object, but anything over a few kilometres across is big trouble. That’s a tiny size compared to earth itself, which is thousands of kilometres in diameter. But a small iron asteroid is enough to burn, smash, shake and frazzle most of what the human race has built across the last 30,000 years. Our electronics would be overloaded in the first seconds by a giant electro-magnetic pulse that would race along all the wires and wreck all but the most battle-hardened computers, phones and robots. The searing heat would vaporise water, rock and life forms for thousands of kilometres all. The longer term effects would be worldwide, with a wall of fire circling the earth and darkening the sky with soot and ash for years. There would be no hiding place – no refuge. It’s possible that very few people – or none at all - would survive, and our living world would again have to pick up the pieces and evolve in new ways.

Does anybody care? I used to be a British politician – a Member of Parliament to be precise. I got so angry that the people who run our country didn’t seem concerned about the threat of asteroid impacts that I ran a campaign to prove it was a real problem. And I did prove it. I made them look into it and publish a report. It showed that you’re 750 times more likely to be killed by an asteroid or comet than you are to have the winning ticket in the British National Lottery on any given weekend. That’s when they stopped laughing.

Deep impacts aren’t the only danger. The world has been hit by vast plagues, huge lava eruptions and long periods of searing heat. At other times biting cold has frozen the very surface of the earth for millions of years. We’re actually living in the tail end of an Ice Age right now, but it doesn’t seem weird because we’ve all grown up with ice caps on the poles and, sometimes, snow in the winter. At other times in earth’s history, the atmosphere has been more like a sauna, with temperatures that would make you faint before too long. So, although we seem to live in an unchanging world, there are plenty of things which could happen to change the state of things very quickly indeed.

If all this ‘death talk’ is making you feel a bit low, maybe facing the risks isn’t for you. If that’s the case, just put this book down and go and listen to nice music or have a lie down. On the other hand, if you actually want to know the big story of our world – the way it could end, and how we can actually do something to stop that happening, then read on. There’s no tale more intriguing that the story of life on earth, and no account more important than how it could end and what we can do about that.

None of us are here forever. I reckon that’s just as well. If we did live for 10,000 years, there would quickly be far too humans for earth to cope. It’s a sure-fire certainty that Mother Nature would then find a way of reducing the numbers – perhaps with a killer bug or a great famine. That said, even if life on earth makes it through the next few million years, eventually - far, far in the future – this little blue island of ours will get incinerated like an overcooked potato as the dying sun expands to surround us with choking fire. Maybe by that time we’ll have found a solution, but either way, that’s five BILLION years ahead, so we don’t need to lose sleep over that in the 21st Century. It’s the cosmic collisions and deadly diseases which threaten us today which are the real issue.

Our species, the Human Race, is the first in our planet’s long history to have the power do something to stop a global extinction. We have the magic of medicine, science and our sheer creativity to seek solutions to threats that challenge our survival. That’s why I see this book as more than just entertainment: it’s a call to arms, a plea for us to take a stand on behalf of all living beings.

In truth, this book is also a very bold tourist guide. While the attraction of visiting the Apocalypse must surely be regarded as something of an acquired taste, like strong unpasteurised cheese and oysters, there is not more authoritative guide to a holiday at the end of the world than this particular offering. Remember, the information contained in this work is not available in most travel agents. As such, it is a goldmine of unique insights for those who would like to ‘be prepared’ in the event that the very, very worst appears to be about to happen.

Nor is the author afraid to contemplate the more improbable possibilities. I, for one, have tended to ignore the perils of being terminated by an alien invasion. Still, it must be said that such an eventuality is not entirely impossible. In all probability, any conventional insurance policy would fail to pay up in such a situation without the great legal pressure. This would be made all the harder in the event that the extra-terrestrials also take the predictable step of assuming control of our legal system. As such, the pointers in this book may provide priceless assistance in a dispute with the space invaders, though, of course, neither I nor the author can accept liability if you are nevertheless the hapless victim of a death ray gun.

Aggressive, super-advanced aliens do certainly present potentially irritating, and even insuperable, challenges. Unless these aliens are in some way allergic to popular music or coffee, they could have the edge over us. On the other hand, the fact is that some other forms of ‘Armageddon’ are preventable. We have the ability to step forward as the guardians of our precious, beautiful and unique home planet.

In a world where you can’t even drive a car without buying insurance, it’s time to get serious about an ‘insurance policy’ for earth. When you’ve finished this work, you’ll know the reasons. This is why I sincerely hope you do reach the end of the book before we reach the end of the world. If you don’t, there is self-evidently no possibility of a refund.

Lembit Öpik is the grandson of pioneering astronomer, Ernst Öpik and the son of nuclear physicist Dr Uno Öpik. He’s also a former Member of Parliament in the UK and led the political campaign to deal with the dangers which Near Earth Objects present to life on earth.

An Introduction for Tourists

What is Armageddon?

The Apocalypse, Armageddon, day of doom, End of Days – they all amount to the same thing, the biggest bad hair moment of all existence. It’s the time when, pretty much literally, the world falls apart.

Everyone dies horribly. With perhaps a few exceptions amongst the exceptionally well prepared (by devoutness, or constructing effective flood-resistant shipping).

But there’s no reason why utter global cataclysm and destruction shouldn’t be a time for taking a few fun snaps, heading off on a tour of what’s happening and getting a feel for the more spectacular continent-ripping events. Just make sure that your camera’s digital since you won’t get your film developed in time, that’s all.

This book is a guide for beginners to apocalyptic events. Crucially, we want to cover all bases. So we explore both the religious as well as the scientific predictions associated with the subject, the prophetic back story and also the practical manifestations on how it might take place - from a humdinger of a meteor swarm through to some lunatic with a lab coat, a white feline and a penchant for cackling. We also look at the mini-apocalypses where some people might actually survive and be able to put their holiday pics together as a slide show for their family (assuming they’re not all slavering zombies by that point).

We also have a few pointers on key spots where you are most likely to observe some of the best special effects seen outside of Hollywood. Of course, there’s no clear schedule when all this is going to happen, so we include some sites associated with the end of existence and/or humanity you can visit at any time, just to get an advanced flavour of what it’ll be like.

So pack yourself a beach towel and some exceptionally thick sun cream for when the solar flares hit, and enjoy the ride.

The Really Big Picture

It’s very easy to get anthropocentric and all human-obsessed about the prospect of everything going for a burton. Perhaps the key starting point is to accept that mass extinctions are just part of the way things are.

They may happen slowly over time, Darwin-style, as the environment changes and one species finds itself outcompeted by another. A classic example of that is what happened to the woolly mammoth, or the woolly rhinoceros, or the woolly practically anything once the Ice Age went away. Imagine going on holiday to Tenerife with nothing packed but leather biker pants and sweaters and you get the idea.

Ultimately, even without a single extinction event, mankind will vanish. Homo sapiens sapiens – which is what we are biologically-speaking – will eventually evolve into something else, or something elses. Like in HG Wells’s Time Machine, our distant descendants will become Morlocks and Eloi, though hopefully with better culinary tastes.

All things come to an end. The world will be consumed by an expanding sun as it uses up its fuel and becomes a red giant. Our sun will shrink and cool and die, until having burned up every last element it blazes in a spectacular last-gasp supernova.

Then there are the countless and unimaginable aeons and ages that follow, stretches of time so massive they are fathomless and nameless. In a distant age all stars will die, leaving the night sky dim with the tired trace of failing scattered red suns as they dim to black. Then all light and colour will be gone.

Over 10,000 trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion years, it seems that even imperishable matter will have evaporated and photons cast off by forgotten suns grown moribund; and perhaps as the silent final fragments of past existence dissipates, the universe becomes utterly unchanging and all time itself measured against nothing shudders into nothingness.

Which is all rather depressing. No wonder there are so many Goths about. Then again, it somewhat puts an hour wait at a bus stop somewhat into perspective.

If you think that our solar system is only 4,568 million years old, this still leaves a lot of time on the hands of any patient observer, during which it must be admitted very little of tourist value will ultimately be going on.

That’s the big picture. Of course, by definition we won’t be around to see it. Even the lifespan of our sun is but a tiny blitz of yellow in a sea of despondent black.

At some point our world does get to end as the hungry red sun expands across the earth’s orbit. We won’t be around to witness that either. If life escapes destruction in the interim, our descendant entities in whatever form and shape they have adopted to may get a fantastic ring side seat. Hopefully it will be from a nearby dimension-hopping vessel rather than looking up baffled from the edge of a rock pool.

Extinction: Nothing New for Planet Earth

Unless you have a truly exceptional Mediterranean-style diet you’re not going to make it that far to witness such events (which may be just as well – next time you’re in the library, look up the rather grim Greek legend of what happened to a fellow named Tithonus – gaining perpetual life but forgetting to ask for perpetual youth).

However, horrible global catastrophes don’t just occur at the end of a planet’s life, they can happen anytime.

Indeed, over the Earth’s history to date, scientists assess there have been five cataclysmic periods of mass extinction. These have had differing causes, and it’s not at all certain to what extent they were drawn out affairs, or indeed were caused by several catastrophic events adding up to cause something truly abysmal. Let’s look at these ‘big five’ in turn.

The first was the End-Ordovician Mass Extinction, which happened around 440 million years ago. This was rather horrendous. Life at the time had yet in the main to clamber out of the sea, and seven eighths of the species never got the chance. The top of the food chain at the time was the nautiloid group, and they came of very badly, depriving the squid from today running the planet. Trilobites, which had been developing into some wonderful variations reminiscent of adventurous Christmas decorations designed at a primary school, took a very bad knock. Current theory blames this on the fact that the land mass took the form of a single supercontinent which had moved down to straddle the South Pole. The body of ice that came into in play led to sea levels dropping by perhaps 200-300’, which did for the species that liked paddling around in shallow and warmer waters. Then perhaps a million years later the cold snap ended. Sea levels rose massively, reflooding the old shallow areas with water low in oxygen, which then did no favours at all to the survivors in the rest of the marine ecosystem. This was a bad time to be a fish,