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Can you please provide a credible example for such an event. Regarding your first example, Toba: we have no record of what may or may not have happened to a sm

Can you please provide a credible example for such an event. Regarding your first example, Toba: we have no record of what may or may not have happened to a small population of Neanderthals 75.000 years ago, and your source itself states "Both the link and global winter theories are highly controversial". Your second example marks the decline of a civilization, but does not even come close to what could be described as an "extinction".

flukus 10y ago
For Toba, I wouldn't expect it to be definitively settled one way or another for a long time, if ever. Volcanology, geology and genetics are very young fields of study, particularly in developing nations that are home to much of the evidence. The theory is that it caused a population bottleneck in humans though, not Neanderthals (who probably had a pretty hard time as well) and that humans nearly fell below the genetic diversity needed to survive. It's the only example that I know of because humans have only been around for the blink of an eye, Toba maybe be the worst that nature has thrown at us, which is a fraction of what it's capable of. There are some other more documented examples the merely bought down civilizations (or helped anyway), like the Justinian Famine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather_events_of_535%E2%80%93536 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather_events_of_535%...) thought to be caused by a volcanic eruption. > Your second example marks the decline of a civilization, but does not even come close to what could be described as an "extinction". I didn't mean to imply otherwise, though I would say they are one and the same thing in the long term. For humanity to survive and spread beyond our planet we need civilization and we've used up so many natural resources that I'm not sure we could rebuild one to match what we have today without them.
- antisthenes 10y ago
  > I didn't mean to imply otherwise, though I would say they are one and the same thing in the long term. For humanity to survive and spread beyond our planet we need civilization and we've used up so many natural resources that I'm not sure we could rebuild one to match what we have today without them. There's no point in spreading beyond our planet if we cannot create a fully sustainable planetary civilization first. The energy expenditures of GOING to another STAR and terraforming a planet in its orbit are many magnitudes more than it takes to create a paradise here, on Earth, at least from the perspective of energy requirements of modern countries.

flukus 10y ago

For Toba, I wouldn't expect it to be definitively settled one way or another for a long time, if ever. Volcanology, geology and genetics are very young fields of study, particularly in developing nations that are home to much of the evidence. The theory is that it caused a population bottleneck in humans though, not Neanderthals (who probably had a pretty hard time as well) and that humans nearly fell below the genetic diversity needed to survive. It's the only example that I know of because humans have only been around for the blink of an eye, Toba maybe be the worst that nature has thrown at us, which is a fraction of what it's capable of. There are some other more documented examples the merely bought down civilizations (or helped anyway), like the Justinian Famine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather_events_of_535%E2%80%93536 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather_events_of_535%...) thought to be caused by a volcanic eruption. > Your second example marks the decline of a civilization, but does not even come close to what could be described as an "extinction". I didn't mean to imply otherwise, though I would say they are one and the same thing in the long term. For humanity to survive and spread beyond our planet we need civilization and we've used up so many natural resources that I'm not sure we could rebuild one to match what we have today without them.

antisthenes 10y ago
> I didn't mean to imply otherwise, though I would say they are one and the same thing in the long term. For humanity to survive and spread beyond our planet we need civilization and we've used up so many natural resources that I'm not sure we could rebuild one to match what we have today without them. There's no point in spreading beyond our planet if we cannot create a fully sustainable planetary civilization first. The energy expenditures of GOING to another STAR and terraforming a planet in its orbit are many magnitudes more than it takes to create a paradise here, on Earth, at least from the perspective of energy requirements of modern countries.