What kind of world would await us if we traveled back in time to Earth's harshest period?
It is often said that manmade climate change is causing extreme heat and abnormal weather, and that the Earth is becoming an increasingly uninhabitable planet. However, in the Earth's long history, there have been many mass extinctions caused by large-scale environmental changes due to volcanic eruptions. Educational YouTube channel Kurzgesagt has released an animated video that allows you to experience some of the harshest times on Earth.
The movie begins with a man from the future whose time machine breaks down and he is left stranded on Earth during the early Triassic period, millions of years after the last great mass extinction, about 250 million years ago.
At that time, the Earth had become a scorching hell due to volcanic activity and global warming, and carbon dioxide concentrations were three to five times higher than in the time of humankind.
This time, the people from the future make an emergency landing in the largest desert in the history of the Earth, created by the supercontinent Pangaea.
Modern deserts are teeming with life, but this extremely hot and dry desert is lifeless.
The 50 degree hot air burns your lungs with every breath and quickly dries out and cracks your skin and lips.
To make matters worse, a red sandstorm hits. The time machine is still not repaired, but the people from the future manage to fly, and narrowly escape danger.
They escaped to the shores of
The ocean water is cloudy, and a layer of bacteria covers the surface like an oil slick.
In stark contrast to the dry hell that was before, the humid seaside is as suffocating as a sauna, and since sweat doesn't evaporate, you can't cool your body down.
Only bivalve mollusks and bacteria can thrive in the hot, oxygen-poor waters, which are a thick, rainbow-coloured soup, and every time the waves break on the shore, a plume of hydrogen sulphide that smells like rotten eggs rises up.
As the heat, stench, and thick carbon dioxide made us drowsy, we saw the most massive storm we had ever seen loom on the horizon. With immense energy provided by the vast, hot oceans, this storm was far more powerful than any hurricane of our time.
The person from the future activates a broken time machine and manages to escape to another time.
Next came the equator, about 320 million years ago, during the Late Carboniferous period.
The supercontinent, which has no seasons other than summer, is home to the largest wetlands in the history of Earth and jungles growing faster than dead vegetation can decay and decompose.
It may be a paradise for plants and life, but not for humans. The proliferation of gigantic plant communities has increased the oxygen concentration in the atmosphere to 1.6 times that of the human era, and breathing in oxygen makes our eyesight more sensitive and we feel restless.
Arthropods dominated this era, and thanks to the rich oxygen available, insects grew to unprecedented sizes.
Overhead,
Meanwhile, on the ground,
The humid air during this time also creates extreme thunderstorms, and the abundance of oxygen can turn even a small lightning strike into a major firestorm.
Cursing the storms that come our way everywhere we go, we move on to the next era.
Going back even further in time, we arrive at the Early Devonian period, about 400 million years ago.
The oxygen content would be around 15% compared to today's 21%, making the sky look eerily pale, but it would also be relatively warm and there would be no severe storms.
The landscape is filled with prototaxites, gigantic fungi that can grow up to eight metres tall, and their floating spores sparkle and glitter in the sunlight, creating an alien, starry sky.
Among the towers of fungi grow primitive leafless and flowerless plants and tiny fungi.
There is no sign of life, and the only movement is from insects boring holes into the giant mushroom.
As the sun sets, the stars and Milky Way are visible with eerily sharpness through the thin atmosphere, making the eerie mushroom towers stand out in white light.
The main story of the movie ends with the time machine suddenly regaining its function while resting, and the man from the future traveling to the next era.
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