# Could we destroy ALL life on Earth if we wanted? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 8, 2009, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-we-destroy-all-life-on-earth-if-we-wanted/502310 "2009-07-08T07:15:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-we-destroy-all-life-on-earth-if-we-wanted/502310/21 "2009-07-09T11:33:52Z")
> [@slaphead](#): > > I think humanity would struggle even to eliminate all life from e.g. the island of Manhattan, never mind the whole planet. Trying to set up and maintain a completely sterile environment even in a purpose-designed building is pretty challenging. In the open it would be horribly difficult. Even without taking microbes into consideration, imagine trying to eliminate cockroaches, ants and flies on a planetary basis. Not easy. Again, this is why I’m thinking of an environmental, not a chemical, change. I can easily kill any cockroaches in my oven just by turning it on. The layer of livable temperature in the atmosphere is a good point. Maybe we can combine three different methods? Temperature via greenhouse-effect-run-amok, chemical via mass-production of some broad-spectrum biocide, and how about robotic, if we can design some self-replicating nanite that devotes all energy to reproduction and uses carbon as a base building block? As long as the nanite isn’t defined as alive, that triple threat might do it. ---
**Author:** ![joemama24\_98](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce7236/32.png) [@joemama24\_98](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joemama24_98)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-we-destroy-all-life-on-earth-if-we-wanted/502310/22 "2009-07-09T21:13:59Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#): > > Do we want to use actual _poisons_ into the oceans to kill the plankton, or should we go with biological agents (granted, I don’t think anything’s been specifically designed for _ocean_-area denial), or radiological warfare? Nuking the oceans might be less efficient than building new reactors dedicated solely to contaminating them. > > Still, good luck killing every last damn microbe on the planet, though. Realistically, the asteroid route’s probably the best way to go—and no screwing around with it, either. The _last_ extinction event caused by an asteroid impact didn’t finish the job, after all. I’ve read if you really deplete the ozone than the sun will do it for you - the plankton is pretty much the foundation of the food chain, and if it goes just \*about \*everything else does, too. But everything - mostly your more complex organisms. Microbes and the lot will still survive, especially those below the surface. I suppose the only way to do this is to move the earth off axis, or some how pop it out of orbit. Not sure if/how we could do either. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-we-destroy-all-life-on-earth-if-we-wanted/502310/23 "2009-07-09T21:25:13Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > [How to Destroy The Earth](http://qntm.org/?destroy); so you don’t need to search for them ! That site says that the earth has already been destroyed. Did I miss something? ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-we-destroy-all-life-on-earth-if-we-wanted/502310/24 "2009-07-09T21:54:57Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > That site says that the earth has already been destroyed. Did I miss something? [yes](http://qntm.org/?board) ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-we-destroy-all-life-on-earth-if-we-wanted/502310/25 "2009-07-09T23:14:51Z")
Yep. It’s official, folks. Between this thread and [this one](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=522178), I appear to have budded. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-we-destroy-all-life-on-earth-if-we-wanted/502310/26 "2009-07-09T23:55:03Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > That site says that the earth has already been destroyed. Did I miss something? What **Superfluous Parentheses** links to is a joke they put in referring to the panic by certain people over the LHC. I didn’t realize they’d left in in, actually. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-we-destroy-all-life-on-earth-if-we-wanted/502310.md?page=1)