The Discovery downer

Discoveriy has been airing some really pessimistic shows lately. I just finished watching the mega quake that told me that the northwest of the US is doomed to a big earthquake tsunami combo...and now we move on to the super volcan under Yellowstone that will erupt and probably issue in another ice age (just guessing there but by the size of the volcano and the amount of ash it would pump into the air I have to imagine global temperatures would fall).

It is sort of interesting as I reemmber studying theser and other events back in college a decade ago, but now they are being made into TV specials and I can really see them scarey the crap out of a lot of people.

I just look at it this way. If it happens, its the end of the world. When that happens bring on Gamma Terra!*














*(or some other like post apocalyptic subgenre)

Not the end of the world, the end of our civilization but mankind survived the last ice age.

If the caldera under Yellowstone were to blow in a super eruption it could make Krakatoa look like an Earth-fart. Aside from the substantial percentage of people at immediate risk due to being in the erpution zone, building collapses across the Midwest US, and death by choking in the ash cloud, the contamination of the water supply (not just rivers and small lakes near the eruption zone but also the Great Lakes account of about 20% of the world's fresh water), the drop in temperature would shame the few degrees drop that came after Krakatoa. Worldwide famine would probably kill more people over the following decade with a series of crop failures around the planet. A super eruption from the caldera in Yellowstone could easily wipe out several hundred million over time.

Regarding the megaquake possbilities caused by a pressure release at the subduction zone off of the northwest US coast, the damage and death from the quake and the Tsunamis to follow could easily surpasss what happened last December in the Eastern hemisphere.

These events aren't so much fiction as they are cyclical events that we are just now beginning to more fully understand. Pessimism isn't the driving force behind the current trend so much as education. The more we know, the more we can do to avoid some of the death and destruction that follows such events. Geologically speaking, these aren't a matter of "if" so much as "when" even if there's no guarentee that they would happen in our lifetime. Remember, "this might not even happen in our lifetime" is the same as what they said while musnig over computer models the last few years that approximated what happened last December.

I know that this is only a matter a time stuff, geologically speaking. And the worst case scenerios are very very bad. Education is good and it is important for people to at least realize this stuff can happen. It is just Discovery Channel has just been airing a lot of them.

*Me goes out and buys a studded leather jacket, a shotgun, ammo, and football pads... just to be on the safe side.*

I honestly have not really watched the Discovery channel for a very, very long time now. History Channel has taken its place on my TV.

Crothian said:

I know that this is only a matter a time stuff, geologically speaking. And the worst case scenerios are very very bad. Education is good and it is important for people to at least realize this stuff can happen. It is just Discovery Channel has just been airing a lot of them.

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I think that they have caught on to the fact that they need to create a fervor to get most people to even notice, let alone listen. The sky is falling, afterall, there's just no telling when.

Whisperfoot said:

*Me goes out and buys a studded leather jacket, a shotgun, ammo, and football pads... just to be on the safe side.*

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is that going to save you from the volcano, the earth quake or the tsunami??

Ankh-Morpork Guard said:

I honestly have not really watched the Discovery channel for a very, very long time now. History Channel has taken its place on my TV.

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the shows have been really well done you are missing some good stuff. Great fodder for RPGs too