# How well would modern society handle the dinosaur killing meteor if it happened today? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 27, 2021, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856 "2021-02-27T00:30:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/121 "2021-03-03T20:25:42Z")
If it kills 99% of us, it’s going to kill all of us. We are no longer the rugged generalists who survived previous bottlenecks. The people going into bunkers are not actually going to be the people best equipped to survive afterwards, they’ll be the privileged assholes who can politic their way in. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/122 "2021-03-03T20:28:33Z")
If we can do that, it seems we should be able to deflect the impactor. Significantly more easily, too. > [@brossa](#): > > Speaking of Seveneves, how would a lifeboat in, say, geostationary orbit do in a Chicxulub scenario? Is that high enough to avoid ejecta? Geostationary is 24,000 miles up. It is very unlikely that much, if any ejecta gets thrown that high, and if any does, it’s also a much larger area for an object to be missed. Probably most things in low Earth orbit, like the space station, starlink, and a substantial number of communication and weather satellites would be toast. But your Direct TV signal should be fine. > [@brossa](#): > > And what’s with this 100-years-underground business, anyway? What’s keeping you from emerging after two, or five, or ten years and building greenhouses to supplement your canned food stores? Depends on how bad the hit is, but a lack of sunlight and extremely frigid temperatures would prevent even greenhouses from doing much good until the fallout settled. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/123 "2021-03-03T20:29:07Z")
Probably not true, evolutionarily (its a word now) speaking humans are the same as the rugged generalists. 99% of humans is still a shitload of humans. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/124 "2021-03-03T20:35:34Z")
You don’t think that those privileged assholes are smart enough to bring along people who know how to make and do things? ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/125 "2021-03-03T20:44:37Z")
I don’t think that they could get enough people to build and supply the bunkers in the first place. I would think that most people would want to spend their last days on Earth enjoying time with their family rather than building a bunker so that a bunch of privileged people could survive. I don’t think that many people are so concerned with the survival of the human race that they would make that kind of sacrifice. And even if the bunkers were built, they would be overrun by people trying to get in. Technically we could probably build well-stocked bunkers strong enough to allow the inhabitants to live, but human nature is not likely to make that a reality. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/126 "2021-03-03T20:45:30Z")
> [@Chingon](#): > > Probably not true, evolutionarily (its a word now) speaking humans are the same as the rugged generalists. I’m not talking about physically. I’m talking about behaviourally. We are no way the same behaviourally. > [@k9bfriender](#): > > You don’t think that those privileged assholes are smart enough to bring along people who know how to make and do things? No, I don’t. I don’t even think they’re smart enough to know who those are… . ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/127 "2021-03-03T21:11:41Z")
The “bunkers” won’t just be huge massive things built by governments and megacorporations. In many cases, ordinary houses, built for no other purpose than being ordinary houses, would be sufficient. All you need is someplace that remains habitable in a bad winter, with enough food and fuel stored for a few years, and defensible from other people who want to have that food and fuel instead of you. And then you need someone inside that someplace, who knows how to grow food once they come out. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2021, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/128 "2021-03-03T23:40:58Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The “bunkers” won’t just be huge massive things built by governments and megacorporations. In many cases, ordinary houses, built for no other purpose than being ordinary houses, would be sufficient. All you need is someplace that remains habitable in a bad winter, with enough food and fuel stored for a few years, and defensible from other people who want to have that food and fuel instead of you. OP here. That’s what I’m wondering. Presuming, say, it smacked into Antarctica, what’s the chance that the average American, hunkered down in the home like the worst possible hurricane/tornado/forest fire was coming - all stocked up on food and supplies - based on some semblance of advance notice, would make it? ---
**Author:** ![Rix29](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@Rix29](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rix29)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/129 "2021-03-04T01:28:01Z")
Based on humanity’s response to less catastrophic problems–Covid 19, climate change, ecological devastation, etc.–Mankind would survive until the toilet paper ran out, then shoot itself in the face. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/130 "2021-03-04T02:15:10Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Even without having any current Deccan-level eruptions, we do have [plenty of current hotspots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotspot_(geology)#/media/File:Hotspots-more.jpg) that could be activated by impact seismicity. Interesting article here. [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/02/did-volcanic-eruptions-help-kill-dinosaurs](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/02/did-volcanic-eruptions-help-kill-dinosaurs) Pertinent points. It does seem like the asteroid strike moving already extensive volcanic activity into higher gear is a reasonable but not firmly proven hypothesis. Time course was not impact and immediate explosive volcanism. It was a change in currents leading to changes in activity over hundreds of thousands of years. > [@](#): > > The researchers’ dates suggest the eruptions began 400,000 years before the impact, and kicked into high gear afterward, [releasing 75% of their total volume](http://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aav1446) in the 600,000 years after the asteroid strike. If the Deccan Traps had kicked off global warming, their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions had to come before the lava flows really got going—which, Sprain adds, is plausible, given how much CO2 scientists see leaking from modern volcanoes, even when they’re not erupting. > > The dates, and the increase in lava volume after the impact, also line up with a previous suggestion by Sprain’s team, including her former adviser, Paul Renne, a geochronologist at the University of California, Berkeley, that the two events are directly related: [The impact might have struck the planet so hard that it sent the Deccan Traps into eruptive high gear](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/350/6256/76.full.pdf). … > … The dates recovered from the crystals suggest that the Deccan Traps [erupted in four intense pulses](http://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aau2422)rather than continuously, as Sprain suggests. One pulse occurred right before the asteroid strike. That suggests the impact did not trigger the eruptions, he says. Instead, it’s possible this big volcanic pulse before the asteroid impact did play a role in the extinction … ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/131 "2021-03-04T02:15:20Z")
> [@Chingon](#): > > 99% of humans is still a shitload of humans. If you took 1% of humans (~78M) and scattered them in groups of 10-100 spread over half the planet, where the average distance between the initial groups was about 50 miles AND THEN took away all travel except foot, no it’s not. You’re talking about a world-wide population equivalent to around 2000 BC, but not in stable populations with developed infrastructure, rather in tiny isolated groups. Humanity lasts 30-40 years and then it’s sayonara. Some _humans_ will live longer, but as a species? No. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/132 "2021-03-04T03:15:01Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > You don’t think that those privileged assholes are smart enough to bring along people who know how to make and do things? For every doer that the high-privileged make room to accomodate in the bunker there’s another slightly-less-highly privileged person who just misses the cut-off for access. I’d bet in the political tussle the slightly-less-highly privileged person wins that argument. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/133 "2021-03-04T04:54:25Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > It was a change in currents leading to changes in activity over hundreds of thousands of years. I never said human extinction would be an instantaneous event. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/134 "2021-03-04T11:54:03Z")
I question both your premises and your conclusions. First, why would all the survivors be spread out so thinly? There would definitely be some larger clumps. Second, why wouldn’t they have any other forms of transportation? Cars will keep working as long as fuel reserves hold out (which can be a while, with such a small population, and hopefully rationing it), and anywhere humans survived, our domesticated animals would, too. Third, 1% of humanity surviving would mean people would be a lot closer together than 50 miles. And fourth, 50 miles isn’t even all that far to travel by foot. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/135 "2021-03-04T12:31:10Z")
It was an extinction level event. The impact was equivalent to around 10 billion nuclear bombs. Our civilization would be completely annihilated. Whatever might be left of humanity could be properly called “remnants”. They would have to claw and scratch just to survive, constantly searching for food and drinkable water. They would have to survive the “nuclear winter” that would result from the huge amount of pulverized rock and earth thrown into the atmosphere by the impact. ---
**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:** [March 4, 2021, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/136 "2021-03-04T12:45:16Z")
Curious–has there been a decent, at least semi-hard SF novel dealing with the aftermath of such an event? I’ve seen plenty of post-apocalyptic stories, and (spoiler ahoy) it’s possible that this is the premise for the decidedly non-hard-sf novel _The Road_; but I’m not sure I’ve seen a novel set in the aftermath of a 15-km asteroid hitting modern Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/137 "2021-03-04T13:17:38Z")
Based on what happened when relatively modest volcanoes Tambora and Krakatoa went up, we could expect serious climatic shifts for a few years, probably a decade at least. The botany of the Cretaceous-Paeogene boundary suggests really serious collapses and shifts in plant ecosystems. You should not assume the survival of pasture, wheat, or viable agriculture under those conditions. Some basic things to remember to pack with your swimming trunks and a spare phone charger: > [@Banksiaman](#): > > - People, plus food for them > - Seeds and plant stock that was absolutely not going to be eaten, and enough room to propagate it for multiple generations > - Any animals we might want, and the food for them, that were absolutely not going to be eaten ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/138 "2021-03-04T14:13:29Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Cars will keep working as long as fuel reserves hold out Gasoline has a shelf life, and it’s months, not decades. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/139 "2021-03-04T16:41:50Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Curious–has there been a decent, at least semi-hard SF novel dealing with the aftermath of such an event? Well, there is this. Apparently, there would be roving gangs of jive-talking cannibals. > **[Lucifer’s Hammer](https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/lucifers-hammer)** > > The 1970s were a golden age of disaster movies and books; skyscrapers burned down, nuclear reactors melted down, and earthquakes leveled cities. First published in 1977, Lucifer’s Hammer was a late entry into that genre0 but what it lacked in... ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2021, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856/140 "2021-03-04T17:59:43Z")
eh, depends on how particular your car is. I wouldn’t put gas from a few years ago into a modern car, it’d probably not like it. But get a 1970’s car with a carburetor, and it probably won’t mind. Diesel lasts even longer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-well-would-modern-society-handle-the-dinosaur-killing-meteor-if-it-happened-today/933856.md?page=8)