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Do you remember all the conspiracy theories surrounding the year 2012 and how the world was going to end on December 21, 2012? Of course you do, because the world didn’t end and you’re still alive!

But that doesn’t mean that a doomsday event won’t ever happen. Just ask the dinosaurs. Wait. You can’t. They’re all dead! The fact is, despite all our technological advances, we just can’t predict when a global catastrophe is going to happen.

Earth’s history shows that it happens from time to time due to various natural reasons and ‘our’ history shows that we have the capability and the tendency to cause such a catastrophe ourselves.

That’s why one of the brightest minds of our time, Stephen Hawking, thinks that humanity has only about 100 years to live if we do not do anything about it soon.

# Really? Only 100 Years?
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If some random person on the internet had said so, I would probably have laughed and brushed it off but if Stephen Hawking says so, it must have some credibility, am I right? 

So, how exactly could the world end in just 100 years? Well, there are always natural phenomena that could happen at any instant (we wouldn’t even have to wait 100 years), like an asteroid impact. We miss many of these and only hear about it after they just miss the Earth by a small distance. 

There are also deadly diseases that might cause a widespread epidemic killing a major portion of humanity. Just recently I read [an article](https://weather.com/news/climate/news/changing-climate-melting-permafrost-risk-new-diseases) about how the melting permafrost may unlock ancient diseases that we may know absolutely nothing about.

Then there is climate change that can cause wide spread extinction of life in various ways. If you want to know how exactly climate change can cause extinction, check [this article out](http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/royprsb/280/1750/20121890.full.pdf).

Then there are the human causes. If even by mistake, one of the many countries that has nuclear weapons were to launch one in the air towards another country, chances are, others would do the same, causing total annihilation. 

These are only some of the ways that we could go. There are tons of other ways which might lead us to our extinction and the possibility of each happening increases with time. So, what do we do about it?

# How Do We Survive?
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The answer is simple really. Just colonise another planet! Ok, it’s not that simple or even simple. Actually it is very hard and it will take sheer determination, lots of technological breakthroughs and time to achieve that. 

Thankfully, Elon Musk and some others have started this process and are eyeing for a permanent and self sustaining colony on Mars within the century. That puts us within the range of Stephen Hawking’s prediction.

NASA has its own plans to put humans on Mars too and so does China which plans to send humans there in the coming decades. UAE has similar plans as well. This might be the beginning of another space race, but this will help ensure humanity’s survival.

Right now humanity has all its eggs in one basket, called planet Earth and until we change that, we are in danger. We can also improve on a lot of our activities here on this planet, so that it has very less impact on the environment and therefore reduces the chances of any doomsday event.