yes it can

Trigger events do not necessarily have to be globally catastrophic.

In microcosm, a trigger event could be the extinction of a single species or resource... which causes a cascading effect within that environment.

Think the fungal issues we are seeing in crops, bats, birds, bees and other pollinators, etc., which could lead to a global collapse of life over time.

Which brings up another point...

Cascading events can take decades, or centuries to occur; perhaps eons in some cases... and just like exponential function as it could apply here... man has not understood the concept of *cause* when witnessing these things... specifically because of the *time* element (occurring over generations\centuries) and the *action* can, and most often is multifaceted. It is why people argue over these things - most people want to *blame* something specific - when there is most often no one single thing to *blame*.

For instance while an event may be a *trigger*... all other aspects of the *cascade* must be in place in order for total devastation of the environment in question - whether on a local scale, or the entire universe.

As a rather understandable concept of this, the desertification of land due to abuses in land use by any species (overgrazing, etc.), including man is a rather slow process... but *measurable*.

In macrocosm, at least as far as man is concerned, it could be the extinction of one or more *cornerstone* species... such as a key food source... corn, wheat, soy, cattle, sheep, pigs, fish, etc.

grz-

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