posted
Anne Kate's post on asteroid defense reminded me of a special I saw once on Yellowstone. Pretty much the entire park is sitting right on top of a supervolcano that erupts once every 600,000 years or so, causing what we've come to term a "nuclear winter". Guess what? We're overdue.
The Yellowstone caldera has also been showing the typical signs of a volcano about to erupt (gysers, tremors, etc.) for decades so geologists really have no idea if or when it will do so. But what tipped them off in the first place? For one, trees started sinking. Or rather, one of the lakes seemed to have started moving. The caldera began rising significantly enough to push the water of one of the lakes of yellowstone into areas that had once been dry.
I suppose my only point was that sources of a potential apocalypse exist right here at home as well as in space and that such things may simply be inevitable. I mean, how do you stop something on that large a scale when you are likely to have little to no prior knowledge of the event and few or no means with which to prevent it?
Posts: 1548 | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I saw a program on this. When the volcano blows, which should be any time now, North America will be totally destroyed and the whole world plunged into permanent winter for four years, so not much food. Last time this happened (thousands of years ago) there were only about a hundred thousand people left when the sun came out again.
A bit disturbing really.
Posts: 119 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
um... how will the whole world be affected by just one volcano? what if we live on the other side of it? (please excuse my ignorance..)
Posts: 109 | Registered: Nov 2003
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It wasn't in North America the first time. I think it was somewhere in Asia. I don't know how many people there were, but clearly a lot more than a hundred thousand. The main point which worries me is that without the sun food doesn't grow, and I for one do not want to starve to death. So I'm hoping that it doesn't happen for a few hundred years.
Posts: 119 | Registered: Nov 2003
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The valcano will spew out ash that will travel through the air causing less sun to get through. This lower temperatures and less things grow.
I suppose I could be glad I'm sitting on the correct continent to not have to worry about what to do after such a thing happen. Posts: 872 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Oh, and I'm not a geologist, I'm only working on what these scientists on the BBC said about a year ago. I think the volcano throws ash into the atmosphere or something and so the sunlight can't get through.
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is there anything to do against it? can't we plug the volcano up or something? (maby something more scientific but around the same lines?)
Posts: 109 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
'Cos in real life there isn't always something you can do. Having a last minute magic plan which sorts everything out is mostly the reserve of movies and books.
Posts: 119 | Registered: Nov 2003
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posted
Perhaps we could move to the moon. Or to mars. Interesting I'd never thought of this but perhaps the reason humanity will have to expand beyond its planet is for survival. But not because they've wrecked it but because sometimes stuff just happens. *ponders*
Posts: 872 | Registered: Mar 2002
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you know, after all the stuff we've done to the enviorment i kinda think we deserve whatevers comeing our way
Posts: 109 | Registered: Nov 2003
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Not sure you'll still have that opinion when the end is nigh. If you do, tell me and if I'm not too busy cowering under a table somewhere in abject fear, I'll really respect you.
We've been doing ecology in science and talking about how when a species gets too big nature does something to make it smaller, ie. sickness, limited ability to reproduce, etc. It seems to me that humans are overdue for this process as well, or maybe it's started but we've just been out-smarting it with medicine and modern science... Now it's trying harder?
Posts: 3420 | Registered: Jun 2002
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quote:Perhaps we could move to the moon. Or to mars. Interesting I'd never thought of this but perhaps the reason humanity will have to expand beyond its planet is for survival. But not because they've wrecked it but because sometimes stuff just happens. *ponders*
I was thinking we could get a really, really, really big tube that stretches into space, and then aim it at a planet we don't care about (like Pluto).
Posts: 2292 | Registered: Aug 2003
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That would be a pretty big tube. Maybe if we launch it just right we can glue shut the San Andreas Fault.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I think that Richard Gere might have a tube like that kicking around somewhere. It's got some scrabble marks on the inside, though...
Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
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I dunno. I don't think it would be as big of a deal. I mean, we have electric lights and heaters, and as of right now we don't live in the matrix so our power doesn't come from the sun. It comes from coal and oil and nuclear power. So, we could probably create enough food in the affluent countries to maintain a sizeable percentage (number pulled out of butt: 30%). Sure, places like Kenya would be toast. But we've got greenhouses, and UV lights, and enough twinkies and beef jerky to last us for ages. Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Hmm...I wonder if reincarnation works on a multiple planet scale? It would be kinda conceited to think that it didn't, I suppose. I've never thought of this before. Thank you, AK and Pixie, for forcing me to think beyond the little box.
Posts: 701 | Registered: Jul 1999
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i don't know if this has anything to do with this thread but i heard somewhere that we're coming close to a nother ice age (because of the ice thats melting in the poles. has something to do with floods and stuff ) would this volcano stop it? maby you really cant lose a lot without gaining a little
Posts: 109 | Registered: Nov 2003
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quote:We've been doing ecology in science and talking about how when a species gets too big nature does something to make it smaller, ie. sickness, limited ability to reproduce, etc. It seems to me that humans are overdue for this process as well, or maybe it's started but we've just been out-smarting it with medicine and modern science... Now it's trying harder?
Let's try not to anthropomorphise things unnecessarily, shall we?
Posts: 2443 | Registered: Apr 2002
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