system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[The Road] What exactly destroyed the world?
gpt
While it is never directly stated in either the book or film, there are hints that can be gleaned from the details of the world. Noting the ever-present ash and the progressive cooling of the earth and darkening of the sky, we can assume that the world ending event ejected enough particles into the atmosphere to create a "nuclear" style winter. Since there doesn't seem to be huge signs pointing towards a nuclear war (no descriptions of destroyed cities or danger from fallout) we can probably assume that the collapse of civilization was due to the eruption of a super volcano or an asteroid impact.