existential threat
Species-ending peril
An existential threat is a danger that could cause complete destruction or elimination of whatever it threatens—a nation, a species, an institution, or way of life.
Climate change poses an existential threat to island nations.
The phrase has become common in political rhetoric, sometimes applied loosely to serious but non-annihilating dangers: Rising costs are an existential threat to small businesses.
- nuclear warArmed conflict using fission weapons
- mutually assured destructionReciprocal nuclear annihilation threat
- asteroid impactSpace rock collision event
- mass extinctionLarge-scale species elimination
- species extinctionPermanent end of a lineage
viral outbreaks · annihilation · existential risk · catastrophe · apocalypse · end of days · societal collapse · civil wars · doomsday · oblivion · bioterrorism · biodiversity loss · climate change · climate collapse · point of no return · solar flare · cyberwarfare · desertification
- apocalypseapocalypse, Armageddon, end times, rapture, tribulation
- legal necessitynecessity, legal justification, justification, legal excuse, duress
existential threatminor inconvenience
non-issue · first-world problem · nuisance · bump in the road · tempest in a teapot