Can meteorites change the diet of the inhabitants of the Earth

About 66 million years ago, an asteroid flew bythrough the Earth's atmosphere and crashed into the sea floor, causing an explosion 6.5 billion times more powerful than the US nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The impact sent clouds of debris and sulfur into Earth's atmosphere, blocking sunlight and heat for about two years. Photosynthesis stopped, which meant the cessation of plant growth. As a result, the surviving dinosaurs died of starvation. But the Earth has a very good recorder - natural processes, recording everything that happens so that we can study it. Such records show that mushrooms flourished after the events.

The end of the world may be different, but any of them is not a sentence for humanity, if everything is done correctly.

Content

• 1 What could be the end of the world
• 2 How to survive during a nuclear winter
• 3 What will happen if there are no people left on Earth
• 4 Where to get meat after the end of the world
• 5 Will people eat each other after the end of the world

What could be the end of the world

According to science journalist and Vox editor Brian Walsh, mushrooms have critical to the survival of mankindif such an apocalyptic event occurs in the future.

Walsh's 2019 book The End Times explores the impact of catastrophic events—hownatural and anthropogenic — on our planet. And most importantly, the way they threaten our existence. In the book, the author points out that three types of potential catastrophes - asteroid impacts, supervolcano eruptions and nuclear war - have one thing in common. What are the consequences of them can block the sunlight needed to feed the plants.

Take away the Sun, and even the most prepared surviving master of the wild will starve to death along with everyone else - writes Brian Walsh in the book.

How to survive a nuclear winter

He says that in order to survive, peopleit will be necessary to do agriculture without sunlight - to grow mushrooms, rats and insects. Studies show that the consequences of supervolcano eruptions and nuclear bomb explosions can be similar to the consequences of an asteroid impact that doomed the dinosaurs.

The factors that killed the dinosaurs may be repeated.

Near 74,000 years agoFor example, the eruption of the supervolcano Toba sent clouds of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, blocking 90 percent of the sunlight. According to the analysis, that volcanic winter could reduce the world's population to just 3,000 people.

According to the 1983 articleco-written with Carl Sagan ifIf enough nuclear bombs explode (several thousand), this could also trigger a nuclear winter that would reduce sunlight levels by more than 90 percent. In this scenario, global temperatures could drop to 25 degrees Celsius.

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“Such a rapid and sharp cooling could make farming impossible even in regions not affected bymissiles,” writes Walsh. In other words, without sunlight, our food system would collapse almost completely. The mushroom farming solution in Walsh's book comes from David Denkenberger, a civil engineer who suggested it in a 2014 book about post-apocalyptic farming called Feeding Everyone No Matter What.

Don't underestimate the importance of mushrooms.

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What will happen if there are no people left on Earth

In the book, he suggests that when humans die out,mushrooms will rule the world again, and he talks about why not eat mushrooms to survive. Mushrooms grow on trees with or without sun. If clouds of debris or ash were to eclipse the Sun and cause the climate to cool rapidly, trillions of trees would die. Humans, of course, would not be able to digest this dead wood, but mushrooms could.

According to Walsh's calculations, a log 1 meter long and10 centimeters thick should produce 1 kilogram of mushrooms in four years. Sounds reassuring. Is not it? On the other hand, this is not enough to feed the current population, but do not forget that the population itself will be greatly reduced. So, after a natural disaster, as long as mushroom production is efficient, it might work. Although we use wood to grow mushrooms, we could also use the leaves of dead trees. So the crushed leaves can be made into a tea to provide missing nutrients like vitamin C, or fed to ruminants like cows or rats, Denkenberger suggests.

The consequences of a sharp decline in population can be very grim.

Where to get meat after the end of the world

Rats, like mushrooms, can digest cellulose, sugar, which is 50 percentwood. Walsh suggests that whatever mushrooms leave behind can be fed to rats. Thus, we solve the problem of meat consumption. It doesn’t sound very appetizing, but from a survival point of view, this is far from the worst scenario.

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Moreover, rats multiply rapidly, and they,it probably doesn't need sunlight, Walsh adds. It takes a rat only six weeks to reach sexual maturity and only 70 days to give birth to seven to nine babies. According to Denkenberger's calculations, only two years should pass before the whole of mankind can include these rodents in their diet.

Insects can also provide protein, and manysome of them will survive the catastrophe caused by the lack of sunlight. Brian Walsh argues that the same qualities that make insects so numerous and resilient will enable many species to survive even the most powerful shocks. Here, again, everything rests on dead wood, which the beetles will feed on. And people in this case can eat ... Well, you understand.

It has been said many times that it is they who will save us from hunger.

Insects are already a staple foodin some parts of the world, and it is starting to gain momentum around the world. Even in developed countries, it is increasingly possible to try all sorts of creeping reptiles. And scientists are also considering them from the point of view of creating food products from a test tube in the future. Again, this sounds disgusting only when you can go and eat anything from the refrigerator, but after a global natural disaster or a nuclear war, we will not have a large choice of food.

Why is it good to eat insects? It turns out that this is indeed the case.

Will people eat each other after the end of the world

And Walsh debunks another popular ideaabout how to feed yourself during the apocalypse with the help of cannibalism. It is better to discard this option immediately, not only because of ethical standards, but also for purely practical reasons. It won't help after a disaster that puts people at risk of extinction, he says, because other people are simply not a sustainable source of food. Walsh points to a 2017 study in which a group of undergraduate students calculated how long humanity would survive if we subsisted solely on cannibalism. They found that after 1149 days (about three years) there would be only one person left. Again, if you look purely practically, people are needed to create a new world and populate it by reproduction.

Whatever the “end of the world” is, it is unlikely that it will lead to the complete extermination of all life. So, there are chances for salvation.

Creation of a new agricultural systemwill require collaboration. He believes that such cooperation would be the most likely and productive in the event of a disaster. If, as they show in the movies, there were gangs that would fight for survival on the principle of "survival of the fittest", then they would simply come to a standstill, because resources will eventually run out, if you do not reproduce them all together.

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With all our fear of what will happen after some kind of global catastrophe, it turns out that further survival and existence are quite possible. The main thing is to understand what will survive only a society in which people help each other, including at times when it seems that it is not in their interest.