NARRATOR: How will mankind's
reign on Earth meet its end? Someday, the human race
might be just more dust in the universe. NARRATOR: Will it be through
natural disaster, global war, or something far more ominous,
our darkest nightmares coming true-- a plague of infected
cannibals sweeping the Earth. Zombie apocalypse
is frightening because theoretically
it can be real. NARRATOR: Science
fiction becomes reality. If aliens wanted the
Earth, they'd take it. It wouldn't be like the movies. NARRATOR: Technology runs amok-- Do we really want machines
that think for themselves? NARRATOR: --leading to a
breakdown of all we hold dear. Within a few days, we
could turn our civilization back 1,000 years. NARRATOR: As deadly predictions
and modern science collide-- We cannot support
our population. We've planned our
society into a dead end. NARRATOR: --around the
world people are preparing. I have all of the
practical preparations so that we can
survive if we need to. You wake up. You look out of the window. The world's gone crazy. This is run for the hills stuff. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: This is
"Countdown to Apocalypse." [ominous music] NARRATOR: Ancient
apocalyptic prophecies from the likes of the
Maya, Nostradamus, and the Book of Revelation
have long foretold of a world on the edge of ruin. Is it human nature to want
to know when the end will come? We'd love to know how
much time we have left. What is the real risk? I mean, what is most
likely to kill you? NARRATOR: While some doomsday
scenarios focus on acts of God and others on the
dark works of man, a third category where
science and humanity converge present some of the most
horrific possibilities of all. These scenarios long relegated
to the pages of fiction have become ever more
plausible in our time. [dramatic music] There's something about
zombies that's very primal. It's plague. It's cannibalism. It's the dead walking the earth. [siren] You wake up. You look out of the window. The world's gone crazy. Your neighbors are
trying to attack you. And if you get bitten,
you become a zombie too. Zombie apocalypse
is frightening because theoretically
it can be real. And we don't have the tools, and
we don't have the organization to be able to
effectively fight it. NARRATOR: While zombie films
have terrified moviegoers for nearly 50 years, in 2012
a real zombie-like attack in Miami brought fears
of flesh-eating monsters on the front pages
around the world. A man called Rudy Eugene
attacked a homeless man, chewing off 3/4 of his face. It was almost like something
out of a horror movie. NARRATOR: When law enforcement
arrived on the scene, a vision of true horror
unfolded before their eyes. The crazed man
looked over at them with flesh hanging
out of his mouth and growled at the police. He was finally
subdued by the police, but subdued with multiple shots. It took a lot of bullets
to stop this individual. This was cannibalism,
but for real. This was zombies, but it was
happening on the evening news. NARRATOR: Although
this horrific attack appears to have been an isolated
incident, could zombie-like phenomena such as
this spread wider? And if so, how? The answer may be found in
the microscopic killers that have decimated populations
throughout human history. One of the most terrifying
elements of zombies is that they are an infection. They infect us. They're essentially a
virus with legs and teeth spreading across the planet. So they're the personification
of our worst fears of the worst disease
we could possibly face. NARRATOR: Mankind
has faced these sorts of unexpected nightmares before. In medieval Europe,
the Black Death wiped out maybe one in
three of the population. Spanish influenza killed
more people in 1918 who had died in the
entire first World War. We could have another
pandemic tomorrow, or we could have another
pandemic in another 20 years. What's certain though is we
will have another pandemic at some time in the future. If you told any
researcher in the late 1970s that there was going to be a
deadly, sexually transmitted disease that was going to
kill millions upon millions of people worldwide
and it's going to be completely incurable, they
would say that's ridiculous. HIV hit us completely
out of the blue, and that's what happens
with new diseases. Diseases can emerge suddenly
with no warning anywhere on the face of the earth. And we may not be ready. [music playing] NARRATOR: Could the global
spread of an existing disease lead to a zombie-like pandemic? A look around the world paints
a surprisingly bleak picture. Nature is full of diseases
and plagues that turn people into real-life zombies. The so-called nodding
disease that we see at the moment in Uganda
emerged in Sudan in the '60s. Little is known about. It turns people almost
into vegetables. You get kids affected
by this thing. They rock backwards
and forwards. They nod their heads. It affects their brains. They look at times like
they're near death or dead. Ultimately, it kills. But before it does that, these
children can become violent. They become mindless. NARRATOR: But the nodding
disease is not alone in causing disturbing,
zombie-like symptoms. There is also the human
variation of mad cow disease called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease or the CJD. It's caused by
a mutated protein. There are new
indications that VCJD can be transmitted from
person to person through blood contact. On top of that, the
symptoms are evolving. It causes you to go
violently insane, so much so that some experts have
recommended that if someone starts showing
advance signs of VCJD you should lock them in
a room until they die, because it's 100% fatal. There's no treatment. And if that person who is
violently insane attacks you, gets their blood on
you or in you, then it's 100% communicable. To me, that looks a lot like
what we think of as a type of zombie sickness. [music playing] NARRATOR: If the cause
of a zombie-like pandemic is an infectious disease, it
may be only a matter of time until a local
outbreak transforms into an apocalyptic
global disaster. The nightmare
scenario is something airborne with a slow
incubation period. Somebody breathes into your
face and you catch this thing, but you don't feel
ill for several days. In that time, you're
in public places. You're getting on a plane. This thing could be
halfway around the world before you even
know you're sick. And then it would have the
ability to mutate to drugs, to our immunity. It may be that we are
nothing more than the cattle to the virus, the harvest. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: If a zombie-like
disease ravages the planet in our future, the world
could quickly devolve into a nightmarish hellscape. Imagine a rage disease
spreading like a plague throughout the world. The government and the
military would step in, rounding up the population. It's panic. It's blood. It's destruction. Your civil liberties
would cease to exist. You might be quarantined. You might be experimented on. You might even be killed. It would be the end of
the world as we know it. If we went 10 years in an
unstoppable flu that destroyed brains, created zombies,
there would be nobody there to do research. There would be nobody there. And that's frightening. [music playing] NARRATOR: If there is a
zombie-like disease outbreak in our future, it could
be the spark that ignites the flame of our demise. So Matt Mogk, head of the
Zombie Research Society, is leaving nothing to chance. To survive a
zombie apocalypse, you need to worry
about the basics. You need to worry about water. You need to worry about food.
You need to worry about shelter. And you need to
worry about security. This is essentially
a battle flashlight. It's got the stun
on the end of it. [rattling] It's also designed to
be a bludgeon weapon. So if push comes to
shove, you can actually use this in the same way you
might use a baseball bat. So it's got several
different uses. Weapons are an essential
need in a zombie apocalypse, because the reality is others
will have weapons themselves. [dramatic music] Got a hybrid weapon, which
is the gunstock war club. What I would really want to do
is aim straight for the head with this. So you come down over
the top of your head and hit right on the top
of your threat's head. A 12-gauge shotgun is a
very popular zombie weapon. [clicking] You just pull the trigger. The problem with a shotgun
is that they're very loud, so they draw a lot of
attention to yourself. The last thing you want to do
in any sort of major disaster or infection outbreak is to
draw attention to yourself. You don't want to use your
weapons if you don't have to. In the event of a zombie
apocalypse, I'd be on the roof. I'd be under the house-- easy to escape, many
different exits. You need to be able to
survive on your own. You need the supplies. You need the strategy. You need the wherewithal to live
in a world that can no longer help you in any way. NARRATOR: Throughout
human history, mankind has grappled with
the mysteries of the cosmos and the possibility of
intelligent life existing beyond the planet Earth. We're fascinated with the
idea of extraterrestrial life, because the question
of whether or not we're alone in the universe is
arguably the biggest and most profound question we
can ask ourselves. NARRATOR: And if
the answer is no, what does that mean for the
future of our civilization? Also tied in with the question
of aliens is the threat. If aliens came here
with hostile intent, it wouldn't be like the movies. If they wanted the
Earth, they'd take it. NARRATOR: The idea
of an alien invasion has saturated popular
culture for over 100 years. But on Halloween in 1938,
a broadcasted radio drama performed in the style of
an actual news report nearly touched off a nationwide panic. It was an Orson
Welles radio play based on the classic
alien invasion novel "The War of the Worlds." It caused mass panic because
people thought it was real. NARRATOR: Around the country,
citizens reacted with terror. But as significant as the chaos
over "The War of the Worlds" radio broadcast was, news
of an actual alien invasion would be another
matter entirely. In 24/7 media society-- the internet, social
networking sites-- panic would spread
like wildfire. If we faced an alien invasion,
it would be the ultimate shock and awe. NARRATOR: Although some
still believe that Earth is the only planet
that can sustain life, others insist that life
elsewhere in the universe is not only possible,
but probable. I think in the universe,
life is more abundant than not. Places that would develop
like a planet Earth, I don't think they're that rare. There are billions of stars in
our own Milky Way galaxy alone. Out of the billions, there
must be other Earths out there. It would be beyond
arrogant to think that in this infinite
universe it's just us. Play the numbers game. It's inconceivable
that we're alone. NARRATOR: 2011, NASA researchers
discovered that DNA molecules found on meteorites were
actually created in outer space and not from earthborn
contamination as previously believed. This discovery
supports the theory that meteorite and comet impact
assisted in the origin of life on Earth. And if DNA, the
blueprint of all life, can be created in
the vacuum of space, is it possible that
similar material has crash landed
elsewhere in the universe and helped life take root? It's the same on the
other side of the universe as it is from here. DNA builds up into cells, larger
cells, into intelligent life. And so this is a process in the
universe, and it's universal. Alien life really isn't
science fiction anymore. It's science. NARRATOR: And if
intelligent alien life does exist, what does
that mean for when humans and these
extraterrestrials do cross paths? Is the universe fundamentally
altruistic or competitive? Are civilizations going to
help other civilizations, give them technology, give
them the secret of interstellar travel, or are they
going to wipe them out? [booming] Stephen Hawking
is quoted as saying that if there is
intelligent life out there, we should not try
and contact it. And I agree with that 100%. NARRATOR: Stephen Hawking,
regarded as the most brilliant theoretical physicist
since Albert Einstein, believes intelligent
extraterrestrial life poses an enormous threat to humankind. He likened it to
the European explorers encountering the
Native Americans. And he said, this time we'll
be the Native Americans. Look at what's happened. Every single time you have had
a higher technology interact with a lower technology,
the lower technology is raped and enslaved. What happens if they
come from outer space with their superior technology? How are we going to fight back? There's an old
expression, don't take a knife to a gunfight. And that's what
we would be doing. NARRATOR: Many believe that the
sheer volume of reported UFO sightings in the modern era
proves that alien civilizations have been observing
mankind for decades. There's no smoke without fire. Even if you eliminate 99
out of 100 UFO sightings and say they're hoaxes
or misidentifications, you'd be left with thousands
of genuine reports. NARRATOR: Reports of
unidentified flying objects continue to surface
throughout the world. Government and
military personnel have also investigated
the phenomenon. And some have even begun
planning for an alien invasion. I spent three years researching
and investigating the UFO phenomenon for the British
government at the Ministry of Defense. I can tell you the whole
alien invasion scenario has been planned for,
has been war gamed. There is a culture of high
classification and secrecy that runs through the whole
relationship between government and UFOs. They know far more than
they're telling the public. NARRATOR: Is it government
policy to conceal knowledge of a real
extraterrestrial threat? And if the threat is
real, why would Earth, a small speck of dust
in a boundless universe, be such an important
target for alien invaders? Just because there's a lot
of life in the universe doesn't mean that the Earth is not one
of the most unique and most valuable places in this galaxy-- the fact that we
have water here, which is the rarest element
in the entire solar system. We have a genetic diversity
of races and people here, literally a DNA warehouse
that is a treasure trove. You could populate
millions of other planets with the different
races and beings. Aliens might come
here to colonize. Aliens might come here because
they need us as slave labor. Or the Earth might occupy some
sort of strategic position in the cosmos. NARRATOR: Whatever the reason,
if an aggressive alien force decides to invade
Earth in the future, humankind may be wiped off
the face of the planet. [dramatic music] If you look at the statistical
likelihood of us encountering an alien invader with
technology just 500 years ahead of our own, it's ridiculous. We cannot even conceive of some
of the weapons that we might face. If we can't conceive
of them, we may not be able to defend against them. They could basically just
destroy the entire planet to basically, you know, a
bright blue marble, if you will, wiping out all life on
Earth as we know it. If they wanted to
destroy us, no problem. We couldn't fight back. It would be death. It would be destruction-- game over. NARRATOR: If an advanced
extraterrestrial force launches a global attack on our
planet in the future, humanity could be outclassed
by superior weapon technology and possibly exterminated. But as we'll see, many believe
a more immediate threat to mankind's survival is not
in a galaxy far, far away. NARRATOR: With the countdown
to apocalypse stoking fears in some circles
of alien invaders or exotic zombie-like
diseases, others are focusing on an even
more immediate threat to our day-to-day lives. And if this apocalypse
does come to pass, we may only have
ourselves to blame. [music playing] Imagine how dependent we are,
in almost everything we do, on computers. A potent cyber weapon
could end civilization in the developed Western world. Everything that we have,
everything that society depends upon runs on electricity,
runs on power. You take down the power,
you take down society. [music playing] NARRATOR: In June of 2010,
a malicious computer virus known as Stuxnet began
spreading throughout the world. It was followed two years later
by a related cyber espionage program called Flame. These pieces of malware
have apparently been out there for quite some time. No one knew about them. These things were
incredibly sophisticated. They were targeted to
take down certain systems. NARRATOR: Particularly
hard hit by these programs was a series of nuclear
centrifuges in Iran vital to the uranium enrichment
necessary for developing nuclear weapons. What Stuxnet did was it
made the centrifuges that enrich uranium run very fast,
and very slow, and very fast, and very slow until
they burned out. NARRATOR: While
no one officially admitted responsibility
for this attack, few today doubt
who was involved. It's been widely reported
that Flame and Stuxnet were developed jointly by the
US and Israeli government. NARRATOR: The Stuxnet
and Flame attacks were celebrated in
the West for hampering Iran's nuclear ambitions. But upon closer reflection,
they raise a troubling question. Was this just the first shot in
a full-fledged cyber war that could spiral beyond our control? What's not clear, that once
you unleash the dogs of cyber that you can always keep
the dogs on your leash. NARRATOR: While miles and oceans
have long protected our shores from invasion, they
provide little barrier to cyber attacks. As there's more access
to these technologies, as the barriers to
entry get lower, it's not clear how we
maintain our superiority. Right now in cyber, all the
advantage is with the offense. Terrorist groups could take
down the air traffic control computers. You could slam aircraft
into each other. You could take a
nuclear power station, and you could cause a meltdown. You could open the
floodgates of a dam and devastate hundreds of
square miles of the countryside. NARRATOR: And some are
fearful that a cyber assault on our financial infrastructure
could be even more devastating. The entire economy is
now what we call photonic, where all your money
is not gold, or silver, or even Federal
Reserve note paper that you have in your hand. It's all blips of light
in a computer somewhere. NARRATOR: A well-coordinated
cyber attack can cripple a country
in a matter of minutes. All your bank data is gone. Your money simply
isn't there anymore. And pretty soon the whole
fabric of society breaks down. When you say "end of
the world," people think it means "Armageddon." But it might not
happen that way. It might simply mean
the end of civilization. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: A successful cyber
attack on our infrastructure has the power to bring
America to its knees. And as our enemies
evolve and adapt, government scientists
struggle to keep up. But a cyber attack is
not the only threat to our technological
civilization. [beeping] An EMP creates a huge
electromagnetic current that creates a
tremendous power surge. And the power surge would
be great enough to knock out any electrical device. The main way to
set off an EMP blast is with a nuclear explosion. [booming] That can be as devastating,
if not more so, than the nuclear attack itself. NARRATOR: Ever since the first
detonation of a nuclear device in 1945, mankind has feared
the power of the atom. But it took nearly 20 years
to discover a secondary effect of a nuclear explosion, an
electromagnetic pulse or EMP. The Starfish
Prime test in 1962 really told the world
what a problem this was. This was detonating a nuclear
bomb 250 miles up out in space. They knocked out the power
lines as far away as Hawaii. The phones went down. The power went out. Radios didn't work. There was interference. It was all coming apart. [dramatic music] Starfish Prime showed
that there was more going on with atomic weapons than
was perhaps realized and that the electronic pulses
and the magnetism that they produced from a long distance
could affect the power grid in a way that people
hadn't really anticipated. NARRATOR: As rogue nations
and terrorist entities acquire more and more
powerful weapons, many fear that a crippling
EMP attack may not be far off. A lot of people take the
EMP threat very seriously. The US EMP Commission, they've
issued several damning reports about the preparation or
rather the lack of it. Speaker Gingrich, for
example, has been very public about this, as well as
some members of Parliament in the UK, that
within a few days you could essentially turn our
civilization back 1,000 years. NARRATOR: A
devastating EMP attack would mean the end of
the electronic age, and ultimately the components
of modern civilization will topple one by one. First, you knock out
all of the communications. It's gone in an instant. Communication's out. That means transportation's out. Emergency resources are out. The health personnel
can't find out what's going on in the next
block, let alone across town. There would be civil strife
of catastrophic proportions. There's a very, very thin
line between civilization and our collapse into
complete and utter barbarism. Have we become so dependent
on machines, and technology, and comforts that if
that's taken away from us our very survival is at stake? Ordinary members of the public
are terrified about this. This is run for the hills stuff. NARRATOR: A major
EMP attack would threaten the very framework
of modern civilization. And in case this doomsday
scenario should come to pass, preppers like Utah
housewife Peggy Layton are hunkering down and
making preparations. People are afraid. I'm talking to people every
day and kind of getting a sense for where they're at. And people really are scared. We're going down
underneath the building. [music playing] This is my bunker. Anything from nuclear attack to
an EMP, we could bug out here, and we could use this facility. We have everything we need here. We have enough for six people. We have a lot of these
5-gallon containers of water. I have all of the food to
last about two or three years. Sanitation is a really
big issue when you've got people in tight quarters. So I've got a couple
of porta-potties with everything that we need
for sanitation here also. The dollar's going
to be worthless. And so I've started
collecting silver. Really feel like this will
be a currency that we will be able to trade and barter with. Yes, I have a bunker. Yes, I have food stored. Yes, I have silver. I have all of the
practical preparations so that we can
survive if we need to. NARRATOR: As
technology continues to advance in the
21st century, many fear that the lines of
science fiction and reality have already merged. Is humanity prepared
for when our greatest technological creations
evolve beyond our control? A robot apocalypse is
almost like your children turning on you. That's the point where we've
created not Homo sapiens, but Homo superior. That's the point where the human
race is no longer at the top of the evolutionary tree. Through technology, we
are creating new threats for ourselves. There is a chance-- I think everybody agrees-- that we will not survive
the next 100 years. NARRATOR: Many point
to recent advances in artificial intelligence, not
only as the greatest example of humanity's
technological prowess, but also signs of an evolution
that may be our undoing. Let's say you develop true
artificial intelligence, an AI that can actually think, that
can reason, that has logic. Let's just say that
their prerogative is to save the Earth. Let's say they come
to the conclusion that the real threat
to the earth is man. So in order to save the Earth,
humanity must be destroyed. [dramatic music] We can write code, and we can
create artificial intelligence systems that are beyond the
reach of the human ability to control them. NARRATOR: Artificial
intelligence has already been integrated into
the mainstream-- smartphones that can
understand voice commands, autonomous cars that
can drive themselves. But the science of
AI is being pushed beyond the realm of modern
convenience and amusement. More recent approaches
to artificial intelligence are mimicking what we now
understand the human brain to do, as the human brain is
designed in sort of modules. And that modular AI
may get us to the point where you actually have
creative thinking, and context, and judgment. That may be a game changer. The ultimate moral
question is going to become, do we really want machines
that are smarter than us? Do we really want machines
that think for themselves? NARRATOR: Many believe
that the next arena for artificial intelligence
is on the battlefield, as military tactics continue
to integrate emerging technologies. AI is scary at
the best of times. But when you're dealing
with military AI, it's even more scary
because there's a weapon attached to it. [music playing] We already have devices on
ships that can engage missiles autonomously. But having machinery
that can do that without a human being
in the loop offensively, that's another step. NARRATOR: Combat drones are
remotely piloted aircraft that have traditionally required
a human finger on the trigger. But according to the US Air
Force's Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan
report, by the year 2047 advances in
artificial intelligence will enable these flying
robots to make attack decisions without human intervention. [booming] This is the
ultimate nightmare. You have the machine
deciding whether or not it's going to attack someone. And this is not science fiction. People are planning
for it right now. When you have technology
divorced from compassion and morality, you have
a horrible danger. NARRATOR: And
without regulations, advances in weaponized AI
may spiral out of control. There need to be international
conversations about conventions to prohibit autonomous
offensive lethal engagement. There should always be a human
being in the decision loop. We could lose control
over this one. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: And of course,
AI with the power to kill is not just morally
troubling, but can threaten our very survival. What happens when
it malfunctions, turning on the very
humanity that created it in the first place? NARRATOR: A future where
artificial intelligence holds the key to life and death
decisions is not far off, but there's another terrifying
vision of a robot apocalypse, one where microscopic
intelligent machines destroy us from the inside out. [ominous music] Nanotechnology is a fancy
word for microscopic physical engineering. These are minuscule,
billionth-of-a-meter objects. You might call them robots,
sometimes called nanobots. And they have tremendous
possibilities in theory. We're going to
have nanotechnology to solve all sorts of
illnesses and disease. We're going to inject
ourselves with nanobots. And they're going to
wipe out cancer cells, cure heart disease. They're going to take the
clogging out of our arteries. NARRATOR: But while
some see nanotechnology as a cure for everything
from disease to world hunger, others are far more wary. What if something happens
to them because of the way that our bodies affect them
that causes their programs to malfunction? What happens when you
have this nanotechnology and it's inside your
body, and it starts off zapping the disease
cells and the bad stuff, but then it starts zapping
the good stuff too? All machines can break down. Technology can go wrong. NARRATOR: As intelligent
machines continue to develop and integrate deeper
into our lives, many fear the future
rise of the robots could endanger our
very existence. The problem probably isn't
going to be any of these things individually. It's going to be when they
start happening together. And we may not know where that
point is, where so many of them are interlinked that the
thing effectively becomes one superorganism. Suddenly you can't stop it. It's irreversible. And that's when you get
the robot apocalypse. NARRATOR: If technological
growth continues on its present course,
humanity's supremacy on Earth may come to an end. [lightning cracking] But even if we are able
to harness this threat, our day of reckoning
could still be at hand. NARRATOR: As the
countdown to apocalypse looks to the exotic
terrors of the future-- zombie-like pandemics,
alien invasion, and modern technology run amok-- there is a ticking time
bomb we may be missing, a doomsday scenario that
is already underway. In human history, we've
gone from horse and cart to space rocket and stealth
fighter in just a couple of hundred years. The population has
increased exponentially. NARRATOR: At the
dawn of agriculture, the population of Earth numbered
approximately five million. [lightning cracking] It took nearly 10,000
years for that number to increase to one
billion around the turn of the 19th century. [lightning cracking] Today, just over
200 years later, there are seven billion
people on Earth. And this population
surge was made possible by the energy that fueled
an industrial revolution. Power, oil, gas, petroleum-- everything in modern
life runs on it. [dramatic music] People don't realize just
how much is essentially made from oil. It's not just your gas. It's fertilizers, pesticides,
plastics, clothing. If the supply shrinks,
if you take it away, everything begins to collapse. There probably isn't a product
in the supermarket that doesn't have petroleum in it somewhere. Petroleum is just central to
every aspect of our lives. NARRATOR: While demand for
oil is ever increasing, many believe that the supply
of this finite resource has already peaked and
will soon drop off rapidly. The scary thing is that
peak oil is here now. NARRATOR: According to OPEC,
the world's proven reserves are estimated to hold 1.5
trillion barrels of crude oil, while global consumption is
over 85 million barrels a day and rising. More and more countries are
becoming industrial nations. More and more countries
are using power in ways that they've never
used them before. [music playing] Right now we are withdrawing
petroleum from the ground, consuming at three times the
rate of its being discovered. NARRATOR: In the face of
this frightening math, pressure is mounting
to increase oil output and keep up with soaring
demand, no matter the economic and
environmental cost. [ominous music] It's a scary situation. Nine out of the 21
major oil fields are already declining
in terms of production. Studies have shown that most
of the easy to get to oil has already been gotten out. The oil that's left is
the tough to get stuff. NARRATOR: What will
happen to life on Earth as runaway population growth
consumes more and more of the available energy supply? The minute population
continues to grow and production stops, whatever
that surplus population is must die. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: Without oil,
huge swaths of the planet will fall into starvation. It's estimated that it
takes 10 units of energy, mainly from petroleum, to
produce one unit of food energy on your dinner plate. It just indicates that
every bit of our food supply is dependent on petroleum. If you don't have gasoline, you
can't get food from the farms into the stores. And so the food rots on
the farms, and people, they are starving. I mean, that sort of thing
multiplied a million times over is the kind of problem you have
in the shortage of petroleum. We cannot support our present
population in the long term. We don't have the
energy resources. We don't have the
food resources. We've planned our
society into a dead end. [music playing] History tells us every
empire that has ever existed has fallen. Something brings their
reign of power to an end. Is oil going to be what
brings our civilization down? NARRATOR: As the peak
oil crisis threatens to bring on societal
collapse and starvation, Peggy Layton has taken the
necessary precautions to ensure her family's survival. If we have a gas crisis and
the trucks stop bringing food to our local grocery
stores, we are going to have to be
the grocery store. But without food and water,
you won't last very long. So we have our short-term
emergency supply. Then I also have a
three-month supply. I have a six-month
supply, a one-year supply. This is our
185-gallon water tank that we store extra water
that's all purified and ready to drink. I want to show
you my greenhouse. Right now we've got some
plants that are started. And then just as soon as
the weather breaks outside, we can get them out
into the garden. You have to have a water
tank in the greenhouse. And so this is an
800-gallon water tank, and it is specifically for
keeping the temperature constant year round so that
it never freezes and it never overheats. We are trying to make our
entire property productive. Got about a quarter of an acre
that we utilize for our garden area. In this small amount of
space, we get enough food for about three families. I know we could be
wiped out at any moment, but we have the
skills to rebuild. We can grow a garden. We know what to do. And so if we had to start
over, we could do it. NARRATOR: Zombies, aliens,
runaway technologies, peak oil-- as our feet remain planted
in an uncertain present, these future terrors could
make our current concerns seem quaint by comparison. If we do not prepare for the
dangers of what is ahead of us, what conceivably could
occur in the future, then, folks, lights out. Party's over. NARRATOR: With the countdown
to apocalypse ticking down, how much longer can
we hope to survive? The answer to this question
that has preoccupied mankind for millennia will only truly
be revealed when the doomsday clock strikes midnight.
