do we have the power to destroy earth?

Do we have the power to destroy earth? I dont think we do. Whatever we do the earth will be able to heal itself. The human race can be destroy itself but it cant destroy earth. Radiation goes away after awhile. We probably cant even destroy a small country like japan with all the nukes in the world. Im not sure but thats what I think.

if by destroy you mean making it unhabitable,yes we are able to do so.

Of coruse we do, enough to kill Earth many times over.

I suggest reading this:

http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/1997/00/00_babst_consequences.php

I'm prety sure if Man wanted to spend time crushing the earth to a pulp and blow up every inch of crust we could do it. :P

However we're not ever going to be able to destroy the earth completely by, lets say, Nuclear war, enviormental destruxtion e.t.c.

as long as theres a planet to grow on life will continue in some form.

Do we have the power to destroy earth? I dont think we do. Whatever we do the earth will be able to heal itself. The human race can be destroy itself but it cant destroy earth. Radiation goes away after awhile. We probably cant even destroy a small country like japan with all the nukes in the world. Im not sure but thats what I think.

slipknot0129

The Large Hadron Collider has the possibility to create a black hole, so yeah, I think we could destroy earth...and our entire solar systemchaoscougar1

if by destroy you mean making it unhabitable,yes we are able to do so.

VaguelyTagged

[QUOTE="chaoscougar1"]The Large Hadron Collider has the possibility to create a black hole, so yeah, I think we could destroy earth...and our entire solar systemwis3boi

[QUOTE="VaguelyTagged"]

if by destroy you mean making it unhabitable,yes we are able to do so.

slipknot0129

no, but i think we are stupid enough to do it if we did

if by destroy you mean making it unhabitable,yes we are able to do so.

VaguelyTagged

I doubt that as well. We'd literally have to kill off every living thing on the planet.

[QUOTE="VaguelyTagged"]

if by destroy you mean making it unhabitable,yes we are able to do so.

slipknot0129

I'm prety sure if Man wanted to spend time crushing the earth to a pulp and blow up every inch of crust we could do it. :P

However we're not ever going to be able to destroy the earth completely by, lets say, Nuclear war, enviormental destruxtion e.t.c.

as long as theres a planet to grow on life will continue in some form.

Fundai

We wouldn't be able to spend much time doing it, since we sort of rely on the Earth in order to live. If we tried to do it via some slow process, then we'd kill ourselves off long before we ever got around to finishing our plan.

Only way to do it would be to do it QUICKLY. As in, one huge explosive event, like strategically detonating every nuclear weapon in existence. And even then...we'd fail. Never mind destroying Earth, I seriously doubt that would be enough to destroy all LIFE on Earth.

The Large Hadron Collider has the possibility to create a black hole, so yeah, I think we could destroy earth...and our entire solar systemchaoscougar1

Microscopic black holes, which decay in a tiny fraction of a second and can't possibly hurt anyone.

Radiation goes away after awhile.slipknot0129

[QUOTE="VaguelyTagged"]

if by destroy you mean making it unhabitable,yes we are able to do so.

MrGeezer

I doubt that as well. We'd literally have to kill off every living thing on the planet.

Destroy as in destroy the whole planet? No. Destroy as in make in barren of all life, I think were getting to a point where its possible.rzepak

I severely doubt that.

We could cause a "nuclear winter", but there are species right now that live entirely independant from the sun's energy.

Radiation? We know of species that can survive in space unprotected.

Global warming? Slow process that takes a long time. In order to use global warming to make the earth so hot that no life would survive, we'd have to ensure that we can get the process started very quickly and that it'll keep on going in our absence. And good luck with that.

[QUOTE="chaoscougar1"]The Large Hadron Collider has the possibility to create a black hole, so yeah, I think we could destroy earth...and our entire solar systemMrGeezer

Microscopic black holes, which decay in a tiny fraction of a second and can't possibly hurt anyone.

[QUOTE="MrGeezer"]

[QUOTE="VaguelyTagged"]

if by destroy you mean making it unhabitable,yes we are able to do so.

VaguelyTagged

I doubt that as well. We'd literally have to kill off every living thing on the planet.

There's life living almost entirely off of geothermal and chemical energy which is being expelled from the Earth itself. Life that doesn't rely on "the food chain".

[QUOTE="Fundai"]

I'm prety sure if Man wanted to spend time crushing the earth to a pulp and blow up every inch of crust we could do it. :P

However we're not ever going to be able to destroy the earth completely by, lets say, Nuclear war, enviormental destruxtion e.t.c.

as long as theres a planet to grow on life will continue in some form.

MrGeezer

We wouldn't be able to spend much time doing it, since we sort of rely on the Earth in order to live. If we tried to do it via some slow process, then we'd kill ourselves off long before we ever got around to finishing our plan.

Only way to do it would be to do it QUICKLY. As in, one huge explosive event, like strategically detonating every nuclear weapon in existence. And even then...we'd fail. Never mind destroying Earth, I seriously doubt that would be enough to destroy all LIFE on Earth.

What i meant is that the only way we could posibly destroy eart is if we were actively trying to break the planet apart. rendering it inhabitalbe by means of pulution or nukes would only be temporary.

What i meant is that the only way we could posibly destroy eart is if we were actively trying to break the planet apart. rendering it inhabitalbe by means of pulution or nukes would only be temporary.

Fundai

I seriously doubt that every nuclear weapon ever created, combined, would be even close to being able to do that. We'd literally have to exceed the gravitational binding energy of all the mass on the entire freaking planet. And I'd like to see one person propose a plausible way for us to ever be able to do that.

[QUOTE="Fundai"]

What i meant is that the only way we could posibly destroy eart is if we were actively trying to break the planet apart. rendering it inhabitalbe by means of pulution or nukes would only be temporary.

MrGeezer

I seriously doubt that every nuclear weapon ever created, combined, would be even close to being able to do that. We'd literally have to exceed the gravitational binding energy of all the mass on the entire freaking planet. And I'd like to see one person propose a plausible way for us to ever be able to do that.

I think we have the ability to kill every living thing on Earth, but not destroy the Earth itself.

Maybe? We're not stupid to try though,racing1750

We're breaking apart the ozone layer , feeding the atmosphere with dust , smog and other harmful chemicals , using something as dangerous as nuclear energy , have nukes stored in just about every country , leaving gigantic carbon footprints on this planet of our's , killing thousands of species ever since we set foot on this planet , chopping down the forests which provides oxygen , defiling the seas and oceans with oil and chemicals , melting the ice caps which leads to global warming and the rising of the waters and modifying the genes of other animals.

I think we pretty much have the power and means to destroy this planet by turning it into a ball of waste.
Not smite it into pieces or anything - but we can probably turn it into a ball of brownish waste.

Of course we can, but only if we find Earth-Prime and destroy that one

I dont know. Nukes seem real scary, but the energy they release is actually dwarfed by a lot of natural disasters. However, its possible we could creat a nuclear winter that could destroy all life on the planet.

However, its possible we could creat a nuclear winter that could destroy all life on the planet.

sonicare

We probably cant even destroy a small country like japan with all the nukes in the world.

slipknot0129

I'm almost certain we could.

No. We can make it where we can't live anymore, but I doubt the planet will give a rat's ass about that.

No because eventually the Earth will 'fix' itself.ZumaJones07

Fix it self? the Earth for the majority of its lifespan has been lifeless.. The current and past environments that allowed life to exist on the planet is a rarity/abnormal period to the lifeless streak of the planet.. I would like to know what "fix itself really means.. No mankind can not physically destroy the planet, but something like a nuclear war would wipe out the majority of life.. And who knows if the Earth will ever have a sustainable envirnoment for life to thrive after that.

We can dig to the core and it will melt yes.

[QUOTE="ZumaJones07"]No because eventually the Earth will 'fix' itself.sSubZerOo

Fix it self? the Earth for the majority of its lifespan has been lifeless.. The current and past environments that allowed life to exist on the planet is a rarity/abnormal period to the lifeless streak of the planet.. I would like to know what "fix itself really means.. No mankind can not physically destroy the planet, but something like a nuclear war would wipe out the majority of life.. And who knows if the Earth will ever have a sustainable envirnoment for life to thrive after that.

The Large Hadron Collider has the possibility to create a black hole, so yeah, I think we could destroy earth...and our entire solar systemchaoscougar1

This is the beginning and end of it really. We can wipe out life on earth with a combination of phased biological, chemical, and nuclear attacks. As you say though, Earth is a big (I'd say massive) rock... or rather molten metals and the magma. If some detonation (and it couldn't be fission, there's a limit) "cracked" the planet, it would just do what it did when it formed; collsapse back to a roughly spherical shape under its own gravity.

I think in this discussion, that consideration has been missing: to destroy a planet you really would need to "sandblast" it bit by bit (as Sol will do eventually), tear it apart with a black hole (not going to happen), or somehow disrupt its orbit and send it into another massive body. Despite some comments here, the LHC has no capacity to create a black hole of the type and mass to cause ANY destruction. Far more energetic collisions occur in the upper atmosphere, and have for billions of years without incident. This also tends to rule out the notion of conversion to "strange" matter, which is highly theoretical.

Destruction of a planet through explosive force would have to eject the bits of planet so far apart that gravity wouldn't cause the mass to "clump" together again and reform. Earth really is incredibly massive, and composed of everything from diamond and iron, to gasses in the upper atmosphere.