I know that "In keeping with the novel, the cause of the apocalypse is never explained" but, just for fun, I'd like to hear people's opinions on how they think The End was brought about....nuclear holocaust? Asteroid?
shareI always tought the bees went extinct. No asteroid could produce such an extreme worldwide lack of food in the nature that would even drive people into canibalism.
shareI think it is after Hillary Clinton won the election
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This is my opinion. You're welcome to yours, but you will be wrong.
There are 3 potential causes
Meteor hits the earth
Massive nuclear war
Supervolcano eruption
Seeing how they avoided the large cities, this would imply (to me) that a nuclear war happened as large cities would be targeted in this case. If a volcano or meteor hit, the large cities would be the best sources for supplies.
However I always felt it was a meteor.
But in the scene where the father said there was a loud boom, then lots of small concussions, that sounds like nuclear war.
I agree Nuclear War seems most likely and also inevitable after a Trump presidency. We're only a few years away from this movie being a reality if he wins..
shareClimate change.
shareI always thought it was a long period comet. Bastards come in at 70,000kmh and don't light up until they are passing Jupiter. Bad news right there, easily a planet killer.
shareI vote for supervolcanoes. Multiple powerful volcanoes erupting at the same time. I've read somewhere (too lazy to find where) that if several supervolcanoes erupt at the same time, the world could plunge into another Ice Age.
To me, this explains why the world in The Road is full of ash and why the skies are always dark. Also explains why earthquakes happen all the time. Shifting tectonics and magma and all that.
I think the bright light that signaled the start of the apocalypse is flying lava or burning rocks spewed out by the volcanoes.
The problem with all these scenarios is that there are a lot of people that survived.In the book they run into a lot of people, on the path they take. Now if there are all these people on the path they decided to take, then odds are that the path 5 - 10 miles over would have a similar amount and so on. And then there are the insects, where are they?Certain insects have survived super volcano's and meteor strikes in the past.
Maybe it's some sort of weapon we aren't aware of, but then again, there are a large number of people left, many years after it happened.
Hows this for an idea... (My simple guess, big rock vs Yellowstone. For a longer read, see below.)
All attempts to stop an impending asteroid fail, now the people of earth can only sit and wait for the impact, if they are told at all.
The 1000 km wide asteroid impacts directly into Yellowstone, causing a super mega eruption, upon a level not yet thought of. The impact sends a massive shockwave through the earth's magma to the other side of the world, causing volcanos to erupt there as well.
Between the heat of the impact and the multitude of now very active volcanos, the average surface temperature hovers somewhere around 135 degrees fahrenheit day and night, for weeks on end. The volcanos continue erupting for longer than that, though. Spewing their ash, sulfer, and carbon dioxide high up into the atmosphere.
The initial heat wouldn't hurt too much if you were far from the impact zone, but heat would be the least of the problems, because now it would be raining.
The volcanic clouds forever looming would not bring reprieve from the heat drawn thirst, but instead the impending doom of caustic sulfuric rain. The rain that had once brought life would distroy it.
Any living thing left out in this rain would be sure to wither away. Birds mid flight would drop like rocks from the sky, as the rain burned off their feathers. Some trees would combust in flame from the heat and from the acidity of the rain. That same rain would pollute the soils for years, that we know, so much that no current seed would grow.
As the vocanic ash and the remaining asteroid debris orbit the earth, the debilitating heat they once held would fade away. So too would the heat from the sun be blocked. For years, too many to be counted, the earth would be shroud and covered in a seemingly endless grey. Getting colder every day.
Until upon a time, that only near the equator would be warm.
At the end of The Road, welcome to the new ice age. Ever, will the Earth grow again..