Generally, I like to stick with the doom that has already occurred, rather than worry about things that haven't. So what exactly is an ELE? Wayward planets, supervolcanos, and scary comets aside, in the case of the Fukushima Accident – 3 nuclear meltdowns which have gone China Syndrome and have never been contained – is this term really being used correctly?

An ELE is a BIG DEAL. So when laying down the ELE-card it is important to understand exactly what an ELE is, and how it changes the game. By definition:

An Extinction Level Event (also known as a mass extinction or biotic crisis) is a widespread and rapid decrease in the amount of life on earth. Such an event is identified by a sharp change in the diversity and abundance of macroscopic life. It occurs when the rate of extinction increases with respect to the rate of speciation.