Figures they'd blame it on an AMERICAN volcano.
Posted on 12/07/2004 10:19:49 AM PST by Phsstpok
BBC to Unleash Supervolcano Disaster Film
By Anita Singh, PA Showbusiness Editor
The BBC has made a disaster movie which predicts one billion people will be wiped off the earth by a “supervolcano”.
The £3 million drama claims America’s Yellowstone National Park is due an eruption of cataclysmic proportions.
If – or when – it does erupt, 100,000 Americans will be killed in minutes by a giant cloud of burning ash.
But the volcano will have such a profound effect on the global climate that up to one billion people will die as a result, the programme will claim.
The doom-mongering drama is based on real life data, according to the BBC.
The Yellowstone volcano erupts every 600,000 years – and 640,000 years have passed since the last one.
Filmmakers worked with the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, which handled the September 11 tragedy, the Pentagon and the US Geological Survey to make the drama.
Supervolcano is the highlight of the BBC1’s winter programme schedule.
And US viewers will also get the chance to learn of their fate when it shows there on the US Discovery Channel in January.
Other programmes on BBC1 next season include the new series of Dr Who, starring Christopher Ecclestone and Billie Piper.
In another long-awaited return, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett reunite in The Two Ronnies’ Sketchbook.
They will revisit old sketches and link them together with new material – ending each of the six shows with their famous catchphrase: “It’s goodnight from me and goodnight from him.”
The reason I'm posting this, besides just a geek’s heads up to other like minded folks, is to ask a question:
What should we do if a disaster like this were to hit?
Assume that we have a "nuclear winter" like disaster, beyond the direct damage from the ash (the last eruption 640,000 years ago buried areas from Yellowstone to beyond the Mississippi and down nearly to the Gulf of Mexico in ash). Farming in North America, including Canada, will be mostly wiped out. This will likely be the case for the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. There will be millions of refugees in our own country, fortunately fewer than might be because of the location, but even Chicago might be threatened. Coal from the Wyoming plateau, which drives the majority of US power plants, would be gone, literally. What should we do?
Number one, I'd seize the oil fields in the Middle East and kill anyone who gets within 10 kilometers of them or the pipelines as a potential saboteur. Two, I'd start a crash construction program on lots of nuclear reactors with zero environmental or other bureaucratic review. Third I’d seize the arable land in Africa and South America and treat it like the oil fields. Anyone not working for us is excluded from the area as a potential saboteur. We’d begin rapid planting with an eye to saving as many people in the world from starvation as possible (yes, starting with Americans). Anyone who challenges us on any of this gets 3 nukes in their major cities as their first warning. No second warning.
Pax Americana as a reluctant necessity.
Figures they'd blame it on an AMERICAN volcano.
What do we do? We run south across the border to mexico.
You know something, though? After the ash had settled in, the entire North American continent would be the richest, most abundant farmland on the planet. Vulcanism has its unintended consequences.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Oh boy! And just as the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, the Canary Islands blow and the massive tsunami takes out the east coast!
Now that's a socialist's dream.
"The Yellowstone volcano erupts every 600,000 years – and 640,000 years have passed since the last one. "
Isn't this self-contradictory? If it hasn't erupted in 640,000 years then it obviously does not erupt every 600,000 years. If I remember correctly the data source for the claim that it erupts every 600,000 years comes from an average of time between 3 eruptions. Not exactly old faithful.
"What should we do if a disaster like this were to hit?"
Stock-up on creamed corn and toilet paper... NOW!
Women and minorities hardest hit.
Looks like you've given this a lot of thought....
I'm not sure I'd advocate nuking anybody, or taking over other people's countries...
I actually considered writing a novel about this subject. In my conjecture, the population of the world drops by 80 percent each year as the population cannibalizes to survive. Small colonies congreate around power sources that can still be maintained (such as hydropower - the story was meant to be based around Conowingo Dam in Maryland). In 20 years, the population of the world was below 5 million.
The geologic record is full of massive catastropies. There is an estimate that the last supervolcano eruption dropped the hominid population down to 75,000.
As a brother geek, I'll open the debate.
First off, let's examine the downrange effects of a "superblast" scenario. We'll use your data as a baseline. Most of the arable land of the Heartland will be gone. Evacuation would be problematic at best, so we'd have to assume an immediate casualty count, plus the die-offs in the aftermath - mud and ash slides, food riots, etc.
Good observation about the Wyoming fossil-fuels going. However, I'd say that the coal deposits wouldn't go away, but they WOULD be inaccessible for a time.
Food supplies is another thing. The US feeds the planet - we're even paying farmers not to grow, and destroy more than we consume - so what we'd lose first, would be the surplus. Plus, coastal areas would still have seafood as a subsistence. ANd other livestock would be available. Think of all the lamb that Australia exports. The American food markets would simply shift under supply-demand laws, and LONG-TERM, the food issue woudl solve itself. But I agree: short-term food supplies would be pushed beyond the limits.
Die. Probably from choking on hot airborne rock. Imagine 10,000 Pompeiis.
LOL.
The day America takes over the world.
LVM
Dollars to doughnuts this movie will feature the same cliche they use in every disaster flick, thousands of people die, but the family dog will always be saved.
Atlease Santa Fe would get it first.
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