WI: Earth had rings like Saturn

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
If the climate would be very different with the ring, you might well butterfly away the birth of life, or even if life can come into existence, the evolution of mankind.
 
Note that there may have actually been rings around the Earth at the end of the Eocene (35 million years ago).
So, the POD could be that such an event occurred in the late Pliestocene instead.

"Rings around the Earth: A clue to climate change?"
http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/2002/earth-sci-fossil-fuel/ringworld.html

"The terminal Eoceneevent: formation of a ringsystem around the Earth?"
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v285/n5763/abs/285309a0.html

And there was no mass extinction? well I see no reason man wouldn't survive the event then, even if there was cooling. Might even make more ice and create falling sea levels and that would be pretty interesting
 

Keenir

Banned
And there was no mass extinction? well I see no reason man wouldn't survive the event then, even if there was cooling. Might even make more ice and create falling sea levels and that would be pretty interesting

except that that the disaster would flatten civilizations. mankind might survive - though its not a certainty - but civilization would be kicked back to the curb.

(and not all extinctions are large-scale dino-killers)
 
(and not all extinctions are large-scale dino-killers)

I really think this one could be, though. Yes, we're dealing with less velocity than, say, a cometary impact, but given the masses involved the level of destruction could easily approach mass extinction levels.
 
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