A NASA thought experiment called, Defending Human Civilisation From Supervolcanic Eruptions, stated that a supervolcano eruption was more likely to happen in the future than an asteroid hitting the earth, according to the Daily Star. It said: “Supervolcanic eruptions occur more frequently than a large asteroid or comet impacts that would have a similarly catastrophic effect to human civilization.” Jet Propulsion Laboratory researchers found that collisions from asteroids which are more than 2km in diameter occurred “half as often as supervolcanic eruptions”.
[...]Yellowstone Caldera[*] is classed as a supervolcano which erupted 60,000 years ago and again 60,000 years before that.
Although there is no guarantee, if the volcano follows the same pattern then it is now due for another eruption.
Researchers have found that if a supervolcano like Yellowstone did erupt, then a “volcanic winter” would ensue which could surpass the “amount of stored food worldwide”.
People living on another continent would not be spared from the aftermath of a supervolcanic eruption.
[*] Wikipedia entry on the Yellowstone Caldera (aka Supervolcano).
The referenced NASA document — Defending Human Civilization From Supervolcanic Eruptions (pdf) — is less sensational; here is the abstract from the paper:
Large volcanic eruptions greater or equal to a magnitude 8 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (i.e., supervolcanic eruptions) eject >10 15 kg of ash and sulfate aerosols, sufficient to blanket sizeable fractions of continents and create a regional or global "volcanic winter." Such events could seriously reduce worldwide agricultural production for multiple years, causing mass famine. Supervolcanic eruptions occur more frequently than large asteroid or comet impacts that would have a similarly catastrophic effect to human civilization, especially now that many asteroid orbits have been mapped. We assess whether future supervolcanic eruptions could be dampened, delayed, or prevented by engineering solutions.
Related Stories
Yellowstone Scientists Find New Thermal Area:
Yellowstone National Park has a new thermal area that scientists think has been growing for the past 20 years.
The new area is deep in Yellowstone's backcountry between West Tern Lake and the previously mapped Tern Lake thermal area, the U.S. Geological Survey [(USGS)] announced earlier this month.
"This is exactly the sort of behavior we expect from Yellowstone's dynamic hydrothermal activity," R. Greg Vaughan, a research scientist with USGS, wrote in a blog post, "and it highlights that changes are always taking place, sometimes in remote and generally inaccessible areas of the park."
A thermal area is the visible result on the Earth's surface of magma activity underground. They can include geysers, like Yellowstone's Old Faithful; hot springs; and fumaroles, which are vents that allow volcanic gases to escape. They are surrounded by hydrothermal mineral deposits, geothermal gas emissions, heated ground and lack of vegetation, the USGS says.
Previously: NASA Warning: "Catastrophic" Supervolcano Eruption Could "Push Humanity to Extinction".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:17PM (44 children)
How is this less sensational?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:25PM (43 children)
What's the definition of sensational in context? The dictionary definition of Arousing or intended to arouse strong curiosity, interest, or reaction, especially by exaggerated or lurid details" is less than helpful.
Those aren't lurid details, they're kinda non-descript factual statements. Megadisasters are real and of a scale you can't even begin to put into the context of your life. They're also so rare that only one is known to have happened since the dawn of civilizations. (Unless you count "the year without a summer")
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:06PM (38 children)
I'd put the number at least at two with the Black Death and the disease-based depopulation of the New World. Physical disasters like supervolcanoes and large asteroid impacts really aren't that dangerous in comparison to a high lethality pandemic which can kill as many people, but has a much fatter tail - and often can continue to kill people long after the pandemic itself has ended.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:53PM (30 children)
The problem is, if there is a pandemic and you are self-sufficient in the deep woods, you should be okay.
If a super volcano goes off it could block the sun like crazy and kill off vegetation/cause winter everywhere, even for your garden in the woods which WOULD affect you.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:07PM (26 children)
But not the two years of rice and beans you buried in your bomb shelter. There's some people who've got this apocalypse thing figured out.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:01PM (25 children)
"Fuck you, got mine" works only so well and for so long. What happens when you poke your head out of your little rathole 730.48 days in, as forecasted? What is awaiting you? Do you truly think you'll be returning to anything even close to what you knew? And the knock-on effects of even another Krakatau, let alone another Yellowstone caldera blowout, would make themselves felt for decades.
You don't seem to understand how interconnected and interdependent the bits and pieces of our civilization are. Even assuming you survive the aftermath, you may very quickly find yourself envying the dead...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:51PM
That entirely depends on how well prepped you are. I'm already fairly disconnected from civilization anyways, so wouldn't lose sleep over it largely disappearing. Not much value in it anymore anyways, at least not from what is visible. I got a place that meets the definition "the middle of nowhere", but has quite adequate water supplies, microclimate, and at least 5 years of stored food by now. Canning and drying veggies and fruits, pasta sauce, etc. It's where I will be disappearing to in a year or two.
If you are truly sustainable, then you need very little from civilization to keep going. Maybe 50 years in after some tech has broken down and you need repair parts, but properly prepared, you could sit tight for 5 years easy.
You also make the assumption that some people want to come back to society at all. Literally the only thing I get from civilization these days are more resources to get away from civilization at some point.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:47PM (16 children)
Come on now, you know khallow lives in a fantasy world where "rational actors"enact "voluntary contracts" between themselves.
It looks like he's one of those preppers I hear about occasionally too. I wouldn't be surprised if he's the A/C who unironically told me vaccines cause autism a few weeks ago.
If he thinks
then that might not be the nuttiest thing he believes.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:10PM (8 children)
Yeah, I know. He's fucking nuts. But until said apocalypse happens, the rest of us are stuck with him.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday April 09 2019, @10:30PM (7 children)
I suppose so, but it's quite fun having an arch-enemy sometimes.
Sort of like a really inept costumed villain who won't actually be able to do me any harm.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:04AM (6 children)
That kind of villain needs to be funny though. You know, like Johnny Rotten and the "We Are Number One" crew? Hallow...isn't. The only redeeming thing about him is that he is mortal and will one day die.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:51AM (5 children)
That's true. He's also never wrong even in the middle of shifting the goalposts which gets a bit wearing.
The funny thing is that I'm sure he has never traveled outside the awful mid-west state he lives in, where the height of sophistication is having a gun rack in your pickup truck.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:07AM (4 children)
He also complains when people assert things without providing evidence for the assertion. Of course, if people did that, then we're have less assertions.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:53AM (3 children)
Then he pretends the evidence didn't happen, rinses and repeats.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 10 2019, @06:05PM (2 children)
No pretending here. The evidence didn't happen.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday April 10 2019, @07:28PM (1 child)
Of course.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 10 2019, @07:39PM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:21PM (6 children)
Well, it does happen in the real world. Unless, of course, everyone who ever makes voluntary contracts is sufficiently irrational that they're, I don't know, legally incompetent or some such. I'm not sure why I'd ever want a human in charge under that situation, if they're so bad off.
Or maybe you are said AC because "it looks like".
I guess you never heard of preppers (despite your use of the term earlier), eh? For example, in my neck of the woods, there is the Church Universal and Triumphant [wikipedia.org] or CUT for short. They have bomb shelters, two plus years of food (hence why I used that particular number), and other prepper things. They wouldn't survive a Yellowstone supervolcano eruption because they're too close, but things like nuclear war and other global disasters whose certain death zones lie elsewhere, they'll survive.
Now, one can do a rational cost/benefits on the value of prepping for global disaster, but it's not nutty to assume that the choice to not prep will always win. For example, if the US and China are in a military conflict and nukes have already been used in anger, I'm not going to assume that everything will stay non-disastrous. That would be nutty.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:53PM (5 children)
Even the briefest of glances at your link the CUT shows that those guys are not surviving anything.
Like all cults, they need a way for disillusioned members to leave, or they will be killing each other in months.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:25AM (4 children)
"Like all cults". Not many cult mass murders. Maybe you're a bit off on the timing?
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday April 10 2019, @03:10AM (3 children)
Apart from Jonestown, Aum Shinrikyo, Order of the Solar Temple, or Heaven's Gate, you mean?
The other cults like the various Fundamentalist Mormon sects who practice polygamy force the extra men to leave.
If they didn't there would be violence.
From the CUT Wikipedia article:
That is really going to go down well when your dictations go against whatever the leaders have announced, won't it?
What happens when there's nowhere to run?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 10 2019, @03:56AM (2 children)
There's a lot more cults than four.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:51AM (1 child)
That's OK then.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 10 2019, @06:05PM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:04PM (6 children)
Two years is long enough.
It's better than starving to death. Unless, of course, you have (as an alternative to starving to death) some magic solution that fixes worldwide disasters inside of two years and requires that particular batch of rice and beans in order to work.
I would think rather the big problem is "Thank you, Mr. Khallow for providing that delicious food." *bang* *thump*. But then I guess thinking clearly enough to argue against yourself is not a skill you've cultivated.
Finally, I find it remarkable how individual planning to avoid the worst effects of disaster are considered selfish and foolish, even though it's quite obvious that it beats the alternatives. Better to be just another statistic than to be around to rebuild society?
Unless, of course, it doesn't turn out that way. Not really any point to your babble.
A natural disaster like Yellowstone is to an extent predictable, inevitable, and not the fault of humanity. There's no virtue to killing yourself so society can suck even more in the aftermath of the disaster. Instead, if I were you, I'd wonder who wants your head wired so that you'll dispose of yourself and conveniently get out of the way of competition for resources post-disaster.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:01AM (5 children)
Christ, this isn't even paranoia anymore. *I'm* paranoid. THIS is some kind of persecution fantasy.
I'm with the poster below who says he wouldn't want to survive something like that, personally. As it is, the world is already an awful enough place. If anything, my plan for something like this would be a well-hidden and very large dose of barbituate or something similar.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:18AM (4 children)
Maybe you should stop doing that then?
Ok, so what? I think that's mental illness myself. One can't even think rationally about large disasters if one gives up before even seeing how the disaster turns out. I think this sort of thinking came out of the Cold War with urban populations, particularly of the Hollywood kind, trying to convince themselves (and others) that nobody could survive a nuclear blast. This later got expanded to any tribulation which was perceived as ending civilization. End result is a mental paralysis when it comes to thinking about such things.
My view is that I take what comes. Hopefully, there's no disasters in our future for a long time and we make our world better than ever before, but I'm not planning on giving up if things turn out poorly. Sure, if I get buried tonight by several hundred meters of superhot ash, that sucks. But if I get an opportunity to adapt and fix things, I will. Setbacks happen, but that doesn't mean that we have to accept that.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 10 2019, @03:20AM (3 children)
> Implying you contribute anything to society
Delusions of grandeur are a mental illness :) I wish you luck in your newly-irradiated, cropless brave new world, Sir Hallow.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 10 2019, @03:56AM (2 children)
Last I checked supervolcanos don't irradiate anything? But maybe they're nuclear powered now?
And as to crops, the climate will return to something that lets light through. Then crops will grow normally again.
Sure, these sorts of events suck. But they don't stay that way.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday April 10 2019, @05:19AM (1 child)
Like I said, have fun in post-$DISASTER world. Somehow I don't think you're the rugged-individual hybrid of Galt, Wayne, Mad Max, and Iron John you think you are :) I'll see you in (front of) Hell, buddy.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 10 2019, @06:03PM
So what? Real people have survived real disasters before.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DannyB on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:08PM
Maybe I'm unusual, but my spouse and I feel that we do not want to have a place to hide out and survive the destruction of civilization. My sincerest hope would be that if something that bad is going to happen (nuclear war, volcanic winter, windows 11, etc) then I personally do not want to survive it. I am happy in my life and am not looking to hasten my own demise. But that type of outcome is not a world I want to live in. No matter how 'prepped'. Just sayin'
Q. How much did Santa's sled cost?
A. Nothing. It was on the house.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:29PM (1 child)
You'd think that, wouldn't you. Considering its vector, look into the strange way they think that the Black Death spread to isolated communities sometime, if you don't want to go back that far, have a look at the 1918 influenza pandemic and how it both unexpectedly spread to isolated locations, and, paradoxically, seemed to bypass the occasional population centre in the middle of infected areas (can't give you references, all my paper books are packed away, some google-fu might show up some links)
Caves and Mushrooms FTW!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:58PM
Yea, the 1918 epidemic during which doctors overdosed people with aspirin, which has the same symptoms as the flu. Good luck sir.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:54PM
*scratching head*
It's hard to imagine any biological - especially naturally evolving - agent devastating life on earth, so thoroughly as a kinetic weapon, or a volcano. Think of the theory of the moon, originating as ejecta from a big rock impacting earth. That is one HUGE impact. Everything on earth felt that impact, from the highest mountain top, to the deepest ocean valley. The black death? It only affected mankind, and maybe a few other species, in a relatively slow, and quiet fashion.
On a global scale, germ warfare doesn't really rank as high as a volcano on the threat scale. At least after the ultimate pandemic wiped out mankind and all the simians, the ants and the cockroaches would be available to evolve into something awesome. Or, the octopus, or maybe raccoons, or - something.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:15PM
I'm sure all the dinosaurs around today would agree with. you
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:56PM
The Black Death was no picnic, but some of us survived. And there was a sudden surge in demand for backhoe rentals, so kind of an economic win, for some people. In fact, some say it was the catastrophic depopulation that broke the feudal system, and allowed for the emergence of a new liberal bourgeoisie capitalist order. Counter-factually speaking, then, no Black Death, no khallow.
Nothing like a super-volcano caldera explosive eruption, but it you total up the entire destructive effects of capitalism, . . .
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:42PM (1 child)
You mean the conquistadors had nothing to do with it? ;)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:28AM
Sure, they did. They were carriers.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:17PM (1 child)
The Black Death wasn't even remotely a megadisaster, the two biggest reasons being:
1) Hardly anyone died: It was mostly confined to Europe and nearby portions of Asia, and only killed around 30-60% of the population, while most of the world was untouched. A megadisaster can reasonably be expected to kill at least 80-90% of the global population, eventually quite possibly into the high 90s or even 100%.
2) Only humans were affected: If you survived the black death, the fields and woods were still thriving and healthy to support you - probably better than ever thanks to the lowered demands of the human population. In a megadisaster pretty much the entire global ecosystem is hit just as hard or harder than us - there will be no thriving ecosystem to support the survivors. And it will likely be centuries or millenia before there is, as new species will have to evolve to fill the many niches important niches left empty by the extinction of most species on Earth.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 11 2019, @11:33AM
Then Yellowstone and those asteroid strikes probably aren't megadisasters either. There's probably been hundreds to thousands of supervolcano eruptions since the end of the dinosaurs without significant impact on the fossil record. Similarly, there's been a number of significant asteroid strikes (though none as big as the one that ended the dinosaurs).
Which is still a lot of the world's population dead. I brought it up precisely because that's the scale of a Yellowstone eruption - IF we don't bother to prep for it when we figure out it is coming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:25PM (3 children)
The dawn of the current civilizations...
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:57PM (2 children)
No, really, human beings settling down, doing agriculture and industry in an organized fashion. That whole time frame had one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:05AM (1 child)
Records are pretty shoddy before ~10k BC.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:20PM
True, but that's around the time agriculture began, and it's relatively unlikely that prior civilizations existed without at least leaving evidence of their agriculture behind.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Freeman on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:30PM (14 children)
Caution, your next breath may be your last!
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:42PM (12 children)
Yellowstone is supposedly overdue for an eruption. We want to study and even prevent this.
It's possible that we could tap volcanoes for geothermal energy and completely prevent eruptions.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:57PM (4 children)
Obviously I am in favor of preventing, but I wonder about the side effects...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:53PM (1 child)
That's indeed the problem. Scientists and geologists cannot say with 100% certainty that geothermal heat mining wouldn't end up triggering it itself. It's a hair trigger; monkeying with it could make it go off earlier than it otherwise would.
For example, since we can only mine the heat of a relatively small portion of the magma bubble, if we reduce the heat in a small part, the heat difference may create a convection flow that ends up setting the whole thing off. It's hard to build a magma submarine to study it fully.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:57PM
Cixin Liu, 'Through Her Eyes'
<sarcasm> The Chinese have it covered. </sarcasm>
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:55PM (1 child)
Side effects? If an erection lasts for more than four hours, please contact a physician immediately.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:53PM
That's only, if you've taken the pill. Otherwise, it's more of a you're using it wrong kind of thing.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:05PM (5 children)
Tap volcanoes for energy, yes.
Completely prevent eruptions ? The supergiant LOL, as they say (then they add something about not ROTFL, cause the floor is lava)
The amount of energy you would have to extract is patently absurd ... And you'll never get the financing for such a huge facility, since some third-rank analyst will type a report about the impossibility to insure a multi-billion facility built on an active expected-to-explode volcano, and direct to invest cash into something totally better in case of planet-wide apocalypse, like tulip bulbs. Then He'll board Ark B, of course, and get the fuck away from the explosion.
On the other hand, while we are what-should-be-terminally stupid, we're also cockroach-grade muthafuckas. The giant supervolcano might easily kill 95% of humans, but the last few ten or hundred of millions will make it, to grow and fuck up the place again. Ain't gonna be no extinction.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:03PM (4 children)
There might not be a total extinction, but consider this: we've already used up all the cheap energy. IF we get blown back to the Iron Age, we won't have the means to kickstart a second Industrial Revolution. Surviving that may be a fate worse than death; our history will be forever frozen in, at best, a parody of the old Roman Empire.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:07PM (3 children)
I think you are over-optimistic. More likely a parody of the Mayan civilization, since we've used up all the readily accessible ores. It's true there will be numerous sauce-pans and car engines around, but I'm not sure how useful those would be. The metals are all alloys. Even pennies aren't copper anymore.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @01:44PM (2 children)
Except we haven't "used up" any ores - they'll all still be right where we left them. Power cables are still relatively pure copper or aluminum, and iron is the real civilization builder. And alloys aren't really much of a problem so long as they preserve the basic features of the primary metal. It's not like the metals of the bronze- and iron-age were remotely pure. Besides which, separating alloys is a simple and well-understood process (typically, heat it slowly to melt away one metal at a time.) Even if things collapse so far that the knowledge is lost, that's the sort of thing that's likely to be rediscoverd by accident while trying to save on the cost of charcoal.
The material ores will all still be around, in a quantity, purity, and accessibility far greater than present when civilization arose the first time. Energy though - that's the only ore we actually permanently destroy by using. There are still massive deposits of coal available, more than enough to rebuild a civilization, but what's left isn't easily accessible without the tools and metallurgy of an advanced civilization, so it may not do any good. Much like what happened in the Americas - where the absence of easily accessible surface metal deposits prevented the natives from advancing beyond an extremely sophisticated stone age. There were plenty of copper and iron deposits here, but they were deep underground and inaccessible to a people that didn't already have iron tools and the knowledge of what to look for. Unlike in Eurasia, where surface deposits were vast enough to allow the metals to drive a series of technological revolutions.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:14PM (1 child)
Copper wires I'll accept as a legitimate claim. Steel, however, has a much higher melting point than do the original iron ores.
No, the original ores aren't where they were dug out, and the pit mines are so deep that they're inaccessible without powered pumps.
That said, it might be possible to re-purpose stainless steel cutlery. And there's still some sterling sliver. But it's spread around in lots of separate places, not concentrated in ore bodies. For the stainless steel that's probably no problem, there the problem is that you won't be able to melt the pieces together. So it depends on how long the recovery takes. If it can be started within a century (most unlikely after anything really major) then there shouldn't be a problem. If it's five generations later, all the background knowledge will be gone forever, and the stainless steel will just be hammered into usable small shapes. Nothing large.
Also, supplies of coal and oil are gone. Not totally, but in any way accessible without the use of power. So you're back to wood. Ceramics will be the top of the development. Possibly at some point someone will build a huge lens or mirror and use that to power a furnace, but why would they? The knowledge that metals melt would be gone. (Well, there is an answer to that one, kilns use really high temperatures to produce advanced ceramics like china. But it's an "outside chance", less likely than the discovery of vulcanized rubber.
So I guess it all depends on the size of the disaster one is contemplating. But a five year famine isn't going to be easy to survive, and the population is likely to drop to less than 1/10th of it's current size (probably much less). And the survivors won't be concentrated. I expect that the best chance for survival is some island culture that survives by fishing and doesn't depend much on power. The question is how much "technical" knowledge would they have in the first place. (Building boats and fishing involves lots of technical knowledge in the wider sense, but not usually in the sense of metallurgy, electronics, chemistry, etc. Or even the scientific method [though even some scientists seem to have trouble with that one].)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @08:27PM
>Steel, however, has a much higher melting point than do the original iron ores.
A fair point, however, steel is actually purified iron - melt it and add more carbon and it becomes an iron alloy again. There are some other impurities added in many alloys, but carbon is the big one for most alloys, and most alloys (such as stainless) can be denatured far more easily than they can be melted (Ever seen a rusty stovepipe? The originally stainless steel got too hot due to a chimney fire). https://www.quora.com/Can-you-turn-steel-back-into-iron [quora.com]
Also, rust doesn't much care about most alloys, and is basically extra pure iron ore.
>No, the original ores aren't where they were dug out
I didn't say they were where we found them, I said they were where we left them - in scrapyards, landfills, and cities. I suppose I should have said "metals" rather than ores, since the impurities have been removed, but I thought my point was clear nonetheless.
>Also, supplies of coal and oil are gone
Not remotely - we've got reserves to power us for at least another century or two, though the environmental price of actually using them would be high. But if civilization collapses they may as well be, since the remaining reserves are mostly inaccessible without modern technology.
>So you're back to wood. Ceramics will be the top of the development.
Why. Charcoal is easy to make from woody biomass, and while it doesn't burn quite as hot as coal, it will get the job done for most metallurgical purposes. Even if you can't easily get steel hot enough to melt, it will soften the same as copper and aluminum do at much lower temperatures, making the fact that the problem is the temperature limitations of the forge readily apparent - just as presumably happened the first time around with iron.
> and the population is likely to drop to less than 1/10th of it's current size (probably much less)
Agreed. I'd lean towards *much* less - perhaps 1/1000th or less - after all, a megadisaster doesn't just hurt humans, it brings the entire global ecosystem to its knees, and it will likely take centuries if to recover.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday April 09 2019, @08:27PM
Do you know what will happen if we let all the air out? Why, it would be a scandal [indystar.com]!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:10PM
Yes, pointless to worry about volcanoes when the CO2 we exhale will burn us alive anyway. The only solution is to raise taxes, ban some shit, and spy on everyone more.
(Score: 2) by CZB on Tuesday April 09 2019, @04:44PM (5 children)
People have been buying gold just because it might possibly be a good idea some day. You can do the same thing with your local grain silo company. And being the friendly helpful neighbor is always the most valuable currency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:05PM (2 children)
Is there a website that helps me find them? Currently I would have to go to a farmers market, etc to find out. Seems like it could be easier.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:06PM (1 child)
Doesn't every town have a grain company? (grin)
Ours isn't geared toward human consumption, but we have two feed mills here. One in town, right on the railroad tracks, and another outside of town, served by trucks. I don't think either of them can be found on the internet. Oh - also a nut place - can't call it a "granary", can we? They process peanuts, and pecans in the same place.
TBH, I've never though about investing in a food storage or processing plant. Sounds like a fine plan for a survivalist, though.
“Take me to the Brig. I want to see the “real Marines”. – Major General Chesty Puller, USMC
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:10PM
The problem is, investment shares only have value when backed by a government. After a real collapse, the only governments around won't recognize titles guaranteed by the prior government.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:54PM (1 child)
Buy lead and a bullet mold.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:14PM
If you're going to go that route, better stock up on sulfur and saltpeter. Especially sulfur. And note that guns designed for modern ammunition will foul almost immediately with black powder, not to mention the problem of primers. So it's back to the flintlock. It should be possible to make a blunderbuss fairly easily. Rifled firearms are a lot more difficult, and require better metal.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by broggyr on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:04PM (1 child)
I thought the super-volcano in Yellowstone last erupted about 630,000 years ago, not 60,000 years...
Taking things out of context since 1972.
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:20PM
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:24PM (2 children)
I recall reading, and the Wikipedia entry also says, that the most recent supervolcanic eruption from Yellowstone was about 630,000 years ago, not 60,000 years ago. There have been a number of smaller eruptions since then, and some may have been around 60,000 years ago. The article is blurring the facts and reasoning, sort of suggesting that the volcano might be on a 60,000 year cycle, and is therefore due, and that the next eruption could be super.
The most recent supervolcano eruptions are thought to be Toba, about 75,000 years ago, and the Oruanui Eruption about 26,500 years ago. Toba is speculated to have pushed humanity to the brink of extinction.
Anyway, yes, now that we know of such problems, and have the numbers and power to do many things, it would be folly not to take some action. I favor going all in with geothermal energy extraction. Pull enough heat out of Yellowstone, and it won't be able to erupt. I can only guess how much energy we're taking about. Enough to meet the energy needs of North America for a century?
(Score: 2) by Lester on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:19PM (1 child)
You are right, the cycle is 650,000±50,000 years.
Nevertheless, during the modern history (I mean 2000 years) there have been eruptions that caused volcanic winters that resulted in bad crops and famine. The minor Yelowstone eruption 60,000 ago was worse than any modern eruption, so you can expect several years of bad crops. Not the end of civilization but very tough years. In developed countries we are used to consider food for granted, but our world may change a lot if suddenly food prices skyrock and food is 80% of family budget.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:10PM
You're being optimistic - soaring prices still assumes the resources exist to be bought at any price. As I recall global food reserves are sufficient to last about six weeks, far smaller than they were in the past. (And the U.S. no longer has *any* strategic reserves) After those are consumed, then there won't be any more food available until the next crop is harvested. If we have just one year of global winter (winter, not just a lack of summer, which means *no* new crops), and ration existing reserves optimally (i.e., kill most people up front, rather than letting them eat through the reserves before they starve), then we're looking at around an 89% global death rate. If it lasts three years, then we're talking 96%.
And that's assuming optimal food allocation for maximum survival, whereas the reality, especially in the face of the fact that most food reserves are now in individual's pantries, is that we'll eat through almost all the reserves in the first few weeks, and then people will start dying in earnest. Even assuming 20% of reserves survive the first few months we're talking a 99% death rate. Cannibalism may help a little, but is not particularly effective in the long term - it takes too many bodies to feed one person for a year, and is especially problematic when almost everyone dies early on.
There will no doubt be survivors - the few lucky individuals, and those who have vast private reserves secreted away, or the resources to build, defend, and operate vast artificially lit greenhouses. But civilization as we know it will not survive.
(Score: 2) by Lester on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:24PM
The super-eruptions are each 600,000 years, not 60,000. In fact 700,000 - 600,000.
650,000±50,000 years. The error is more than what human agriculture has existed. But from a geological point of view it is going to explode today.
There have been a minor eruption 60,000 ago, that would be a big problem (particularly for USA) but I don't think it would be the end of civilization. The disaster is the super-eruption:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Large_eruptions.jpg [wikimedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @05:37PM (5 children)
>then a “volcanic winter” would ensue
if global warming continues then this saves us, no?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:02PM (4 children)
Not unless climate change somehow disburses the darkness causing the volcanic winter.
OTOH, the volcanic ash does not stop the artificially increased CO2 from trapping the sun's heat in our atmosphere.
So it could get both too dark and too warm.
Q. How much did Santa's sled cost?
A. Nothing. It was on the house.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:17PM (3 children)
But then you wouldn't call it "winter".
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:46PM (1 child)
It might be like winter on Venus.
Q. How much did Santa's sled cost?
A. Nothing. It was on the house.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:18PM
Venus has a high heat capacity atmosphere so the climate is pretty much the same year round everywhere. That is even though a day is nearly a year long too.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @08:36PM
Depends - when you say "winter", are you talking about temperature, or sunlight? Doesn't matter how warm it gets if there's not enough sunlight for plants to grow.
In practice though, a serious volcanic winter would completely overwhelm global warming until it dissipated. Global warming involves single and (in the worst-likely-case) low-double digit increase in thermal retention, whereas a major volcanic event can block the majority of sunlight from ever reaching the surface for years. The upper atmosphere might heat up, but that's of no help to people living at ground level.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:12PM (7 children)
Fortunately these eruptions, like asteroid strikes, have a probability distribution. Large events are less likely and less frequent than small events. So it is very likely that we will have a "warning" with a small eruption or asteroid strike that kills perhaps 1% of humanity which is still a hundred million people. That will be our warning to get serious about planetary defense.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Lester on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:51PM (6 children)
Asteroids have a probability, but eruptions are cyclic. So don't ask "IF" ask "WHEN".
We are not talking about a local disaster, we are talking about a vulcanic winter, that would affect the whole world.
So, with such disaster 1% of casualties is too optimistic. be the first impact, but our civilization depends on a complex chain. If several links are broken, critical infrastructures get destroyed, everything goes to hell. In 1950 there were 2.5 billions of people, if we return suddenly to 1950's food production and distribution, we must get rid of 5 billions of people.
Small and almost self-sufficient towns would be less affected, but big cities would become a nightmare. Do you know what happened with the last blackouts that lasted just a few days or hours? There was a truck drivers strike a few years ago, it is incredible how quickly supermarket shelves were empty and gas stations dry.
Nevertheless, the "when" is a range of thousands of years. So the odds we get hit are scarce.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:21PM (5 children)
Its seems highly unlikely that an eruptions that kills 90 % of people is not preceded by one that kills 1 % or 0.1 % of people. Eruptions that might kill 100 people happen every few years. In 1816 there was the year without summer. Increasingly large eruptions occurred increasingly long ago. The same holds for the future, where the largest eruptions are probably the furthest away.
Although not impossible, it is highly unlikely that such a global doomsday event occurs without a regional disaster before it.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @08:43PM (4 children)
> The same holds for the future, where the largest eruptions are probably the furthest away.
Technically so perhaps - but for cyclical events it's worth considering where you are in the cycle. If something cyclical happens roughly once every 50,000 years and the last event was 63,000 years ago (as is the case with moderate-size supervolcano eruptions), then we're overdue and the next event could happen at any moment. And we really don't understand vulcanism nearly well enough to say for sure that we'd get a lot of warning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @10:02PM (3 children)
But we are likely to get 1816-type events first with widespread crop failures that stress our resilience but don't wipe out a large fraction of humanity. Such events will trigger serious funding of geophysics research. Put humanity's top minds on a problem, and you will start getting answers.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @11:16PM (2 children)
And your evidence to support this claim?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 11 2019, @04:34AM (1 child)
An event that last occurred 60000 or 600000 years ago is less likely than one that occurred 200 years ago. You can use Jeffreys prior to evaluate the rate. The 200 year event is most likely recur about once every 200 years.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday April 11 2019, @01:26PM
My apologies - I thought you were saying we could expect less serious precursor events.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday April 09 2019, @06:39PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @11:25PM
So forget the swamp, Drain the Caldera!
(Score: 2) by hellcat on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:07PM (2 children)
As long as NASA is willing to turn their eyes towards Earth,
why not look at threats based on probabilities?
Seems we're far more likely to screw ourselves over within a few hundred years with:
Climate change, Reproductive decline, and Loss of antibiotics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:17PM
... anti-vaxxers, Ebola, Muslims.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:16PM
Reproductive decline is unlikely to be an existential problem. People stopped having kids because kids stopped being valuable assets, while remaining expensive investments. Let the population decline enough that per-capita resources are plentiful, and kids stop being an expensive investment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 09 2019, @07:43PM (2 children)
I stopped reading TFA right there. How many millions of $ went to this? My uncle Joe's cousins brother in law in South Carolina's finest trailer park/Kmart parking lot said the same thing after eating at the Taco Bell.
(Score: 3, Touché) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:15PM (1 child)
Wow! And of course he wrote a twenty page paper on the subject with 136 scholarly references and five potential solutions to the problem ranging from things doable to things future technology may provide solutions for? Impressive - he should eat at Taco Bell more often. Or someone should read TFA and references before letting the upper hole spew things which belong in the lower hole, not sure.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @12:44AM
OK... What benefit for mankind did the study provide other than to BOAKYAG?
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Tuesday April 09 2019, @09:27PM (8 children)
Wouldn't it be nice if we had a self-sufficient backup copy of humanity stashed somewhere off world?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @04:22AM (3 children)
To end humanity, the doomsday event has to first kill 99.999999% or so of people. Not even a supervolcano will do that. People are here to stay.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Wednesday April 10 2019, @07:24AM (2 children)
I will suggest that "end of humanity" and being "stuck on this rock" are the same thing. If we get hit before we are stable on Mars or the moon, it is unlikely we will get to that point again without the material for an industrial revolution.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday April 10 2019, @03:10PM
We'll have no shortage of material - every resource ever mined is now neatly deposited in comparatively ultra-pure form in our cities, scrap yards, and landfills. Every resource except for one: energy.
There's plenty of coal left, but it mostly requires a technological civilization to find and extract. If civilization completely collapses, it's unlikely it will be able to rise again - at least not in anything like its current pace and form. Though, now that I think about it, plastic might serve the same purpose.
On the other hand, one form of modern technology *is* likely to leave many enduring gifts that survive the collapse of civilization: biotechnology. At the very least, crops with vastly improved yields and tolerance to flooding and drought, and quite possibly the ability to fix their own nitrogen from the air, allowing them to thrive in much poorer soils (those all being things we've already made great progress on). Which should free a vastly larger percentage of the population from farming and allow science, industry, and the arts to thrive far more readily than last time. And there's no telling what other incredibly useful organisms we may develop before the fall. Especially if it hits us slowly enough that we have some time to prepare.
Of course, a self-sustaining off-world colony isolated from whatever caused the collapse on Earth would help immensely in preserving knowledge and jump-starting a technological civilization again on Earth once things have settled down. No denying that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @06:00PM
It is likely to take 10000 years or more before a big asteroid strikes or a super-volcano erupts. Given the pace of technology, humans will know how to deal with it by then. Asteroid detection has already been tackled and geophysics is steadily improving. The only natural thing that we know can end humanity is the sun, which has a few billion more years left on its clock.
But humans have shown that they are their own biggest threat, with wars, genocide, economic mismanagement, and nuclear weapons having already killed tens of millions. For the future, we can expect the rise of robots and maybe bio-engineered weapons. Having an outpost on Mars doesn't offer much protection against those killers.
(Score: 1) by Scottingham on Wednesday April 10 2019, @02:41PM (3 children)
Creating a self sustaining colony in a sealed off cave on Earth would be 100000x easier than Mars.
Lets do that first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 10 2019, @06:58PM (1 child)
Biosphere 2 cost $200 Million and failed. If Mars is 100000x more difficult, the cost is $20 Trillion. I think $20 Trillion would be enough to pay for a failed colonization attempt on Mars.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday April 10 2019, @08:11PM
Biosphere 2 had lots of issues, and we learned a great deal from it. One of the biggest things we learned is that building a fully closed system is astoundingly hard. Biosphere 2's biggest mistake was choosing to ignore oxygen and food shortages instead of breaking the seal, fixing the issue, and continuing with the experiment under new conditions. With even moderately competent technology on Mars we won't have the seal. We'll have CO2, Nitrogen, Water, and mineral inputs. That's an open system and scales much more easily.
I hope we won't repeat the interpersonal dynamics mistakes we made there too.
I'm not implying that colonizing Mars will be easy or cheap. A bunch of people will die in the attempt. I'm willing to risk my life to be one of the people that try.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Wednesday April 10 2019, @08:00PM
It would be easier, but it could still be wiped out by a bunker buster bomb, a big enough space rock, or earthquakes/tectonic activity subsequent to volcanic eruption.