//Are we doomed? An investigation

Are we doomed? An investigation

Cristina Daura for Vox

At the conclusion of a dystopian year, we look to historians, preppers, and even the heavens in search of answers: What exactly was 2020, and what happens now?

History is full of bad years. 536, for example: a nonstop catastrophe. An Icelandic volcano erupts, coating the entire northern hemisphere in ash, and ushering in the coldest decade on record. The ash dims the sun. There is no summer that year, and so the crops fail, leading to famine in Ireland, Scandinavia, Mesopotamia, China. The situation does not improve. A few years later, the Plague of Justinian threatens much of the world’s population.

Or 1348: legendarily terrible! The Black Death sweeps through Europe, eventually killing roughly 40 percent of the continent’s population. People go to funerals and die on their way home, an endless cycle of death.