End of the world? Yeah, right.

[puglover]

you're a great comic

You're such a great sarcastic

 

[Sidhe]

I watched a documentary about the Yellowstone volcano. Well if it does erupt wich will be likely a super volcano, it will be a real disaster.

It happened before our time, a super volcano erupted 73k years ago and almost signed the end for our ancestors. They said around 3k individuals survived.

Although, none of the scientist said they could tell when it will erupt, but it will thats the only thing we know for certain. Could be this year, this century or the next.

Yeah also the volcanoes on the Canary Islands could cause a significant part of the Island to fall into the sea, the wave produced has been estimated to be 60M or around 200ft high when it reaches the coast of North America. I'm not sure but I'm thinking that would do more damage than the super volcano in Yelowstone, because of the large amount of people on the coastal areas of the Atlantic. Luckily England will be Shielded by the bulk of Europe but will still be hit severely, I hope you don't frequent the South coast of France Yeek

http://www.rense.com/general56/tsu.htm

Around this time of the year many Britons look towards the Canary Islands for a sunshine break. What most don't know, however, is that on one of the Canary Islands lies a major global catastrophe in the making, a natural disaster so big that it could flatten the Atlantic coastlines of Britain, Europe, North Africa and the United States of America and cause enormous damage to London and other UK cities. Scattered across the world,s oceans are a handful of rare geological time-bombs which, once unleashed, create an extraordinary phenomenon, a gigantic tidal wave, called a Mega Tsunami. These are able to cross oceans and ravage countries on the other side of the world. The word Tsunami derives from the Japanese for harbour wave. They are normally generated by offshore earthquakes, sub-marine landslides and undersea volcanic activity, and range from barely perceptible waves to walls of water up to 300 feet high.

Recently, scientists have realised that the next Mega Tsunami is likely to begin on one of the Canary Islands, off the coast of North Africa, where a wall of water will one day race across the entire Atlantic Ocean at the speed of a jet airliner to devastate the east coast of the United States, the Caribbean and Brazil.

Dr Simon Day, who works at the Benfield Greig Hazards Research Centre, University College London*, says that one flank of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma, in the Canaries, is unstable and could plunge into the ocean during the volcano's next eruption.

Dr. Day says: "If the volcano collapsed in one block of almost 20 cubic kilometres of rock, weighing 500 billion tonnes - twice the size of the Isle of Wight - it would fall into water almost 4 miles deep and create an undersea wave 2000 feet tall. Within five minutes of the landslide, a dome of water about a mile high would form and then collapse, before the Mega Tsunami fanned out in every direction, travelling at speeds of up to 500 mph. A 330ft wave would strike the western Sahara in less than an hour."

Europe would be protected from the fiercest force by the position of the other Canary Islands, but the tsunami would still bring 33ft waves to Lisbon and La Coruña within three hours.

After six hours it would reach Britain, where waves up to 40 ft high would hit southwest England at 500 miles per hour, travel a mile inland and obliterate almost everything in its path. Even Britain's more sheltered shores, in the North Sea and Irish Sea, will be struck by smaller but still significant swells, causing widespread flooding in major coastal cities.

"We need better models to see what the precise effects on Britain will be." Dr. Day said. However, it is likely that London could suffer sever inundation as the Thames Barrier's ability to cope with such a dramatic rise in water levels exceeds its design specifications.

"The Thames estuary is already subject to major tidal surges," says Dr. Day, "and the Mega Tsunami could raise water levels by as much as 20 feet, with the surge travelling up the river at some 200 miles per hour." Devastation along both banks of the Thames would be huge, with many parts of the City and areas along both the north and south banks of the river as far as Putney Bridge and beyond experiencing severe damage. The effects on the London underground are hard to imagine, but the entire network would become flooded and the consequent loss of life would be immense."

Indeed, parts of London would be uninhabitable for perhaps months and the cost of repairing and rebuilding the damage would be astronomical. Imagine, if you will, what effects such a massive inundation would have on some of our major public buildings near the Thames; The Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Canary Wharf, Buckingham Palace, The Tower of London, and the South Bank are only a few of the many London landmarks that would be severely damaged, as indeed would the entire City of London.

However, the destruction in the United Kingdom will be as nothing compared to the devastation reeked on the eastern seaboard of the United States. Dr. Day claims that the Mega Tsunami will generate a wave that will be inconceivably catastrophic. He says: "It will surge across the Atlantic at 500 miles per hour in less than seven hours, engulfing the whole US east coast with a wave almost two hundred feet high " higher than Nelson,s Column " sweeping away everything in its path up to 20 miles inland. Boston would be hit first, followed by New York, then all the way down the coast to Miami, the Caribbean and Brazil." Millions would be killed, and as Dr. Day explains: "It's not a question of "if" Cumbre Vieja collapses, it's simply a question of "when".

 

[Yeeek]

I didn't know about this one. Good thing i live in the Alps. Or wait a second, is there any chances of earthquakes or volcano eruptions in the Alps?

 

[Bluemofia]

End of world... Go see Exit Mundi. They've got lots of end of world scenarios there. Most of them are stupid and crazy (hey! All the planets and the sun lining up! The tectonic plates will be shoved crazy by their gravity!)

Bah, the Earth itself will last for another 4.6 billion years, unless if we pass too close to another star for gravity to screw us over.

 

[Mureke]

The state of the Earth has grown worse and worse throughout history. We haven't succeeded in destroying the whole system yet, but there are some examples of peoples who seem to have destroyed their civilizations themselves.

They would be the ancient people who inhabited Greenland, but supposedly destroyed their environment and made the place uninhabitable. A similar example are the people of Easter Island. They are thought to have ruined their environment, which was the cause for the collapse of the civilization.

I don't think there's any doubt that we are capable of destroying ourselves. At the current rate, that's exactly what's going to happen. However, I'm confident that there will be action taken once it becomes absolutely necessary. This means that "nature" as we know it will be gone forever, but human kind will probably exist for millenniums to come.

Even though you can be optimistic about the intelligence of the human race, nothing will change the fact that anything may follow our actions. We won't be able to stop global warming for a long time, and no one exactly knows what will ensue the change of the climate.

 

[The Tollan]

I do not think it is good if humans come to an end. Finding ways to ensure survival of humanity is critical. Humans have erred and damaged the earth, yes, however their eradication would not be the way to solve the problems.

Since the earth is the home planet of humans it should be preserved from its end as far into the future as can be possibly achieved. The current continent configuration is quite nice too. If it changes perhaps it or something similar could be restored.....

 

[Bluemofia]

They would be the ancient people who inhabited Greenland, but supposedly destroyed their environment and made the place uninhabitable.

Never heard of this. Closest thing to it is that Vikings settled there, and never fully developed. Did you make it up as an example or something?

 

[angeleyes]

I do not think it is good if humans come to an end. [.....]

good for who?

 

[Mureke]

Never heard of this. Closest thing to it is that Vikings settled there, and never fully developed. Did you make it up as an example or something?

I'm talking about the Norse settlers in Greenland. Granted they weren't that developed, they still ruined their environment and livelihood. I googled an article about this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2005/01/16/bodia216.xml&sSheet=/arts/2005/01/16/bomain.html

I think the extermination of human kind would be a splendid solution. Clearly we cannot live in harmony with our surroundings. I don't consider that solution realistic, though. Right now I don't see any other incentive for our existence than to develop what we have. Technology has got us nowhere yet, but I guess that's the only way to go.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

I think the extermination of human kind would be a splendid solution.

Holy crap. I doubt you really mean that.

Clearly we cannot live in harmony with our surroundings.

How do we live in harmony, what is harmony, and why do we have to?

Technology has got us nowhere yet, but I guess that's the only way to go.

Technology has gotten us a lot of good things.

 

[angeleyes]

I[.....] Technology has got us nowhere yet, [.....]

Tech. has it's + and -, the question is how bad are the - 's, are we able to recognise and overcome the - 's?

 

[The Tollan]

good for who?

What I meant could perhaps be worded as, "I find the continued existence of human civilization preferable to its end." I do not see any reasons in favor of the end of humanity and its civilization that I would accept. I think that the development and reach of humanity should be promoted (the pre-human conditions of the planet and other planets should be preserved to a substantial extent in the process). Efforts to preserve it over the long term should be made as well.

To anyone who has played the Starcraft computer game expansion: Although I reject most of the aspects of the United Earth Directorate's policies; its concern with stopping threats to humanity is an admirable characteristic. Its excessive dislike and willingness to attack the Protoss is negative though.

If there are extraterrestrial civilizations perhaps they would wish to have other civilizations to either observe or contact.

 

[Mureke]

Holy crap. I doubt you really mean that.

I don't think we're that good a species. We're excessively aggressive, self-centered, and I don't think we're all that intelligent, either.

How do we live in harmony, what is harmony, and why do we have to?

Why do we have the right to subjugate all other forms of life? What good is it? We're just taking out both them and ourselves. Harmony would be a state of sustainable development in which we wouldn't enslave and kill off every other living thing.

Technology has gotten us a lot of good things.

Technology has got us only closer to the end. We are only doing more harm to the planet as we go. So I don't think it has given us anything useful yet. But our only hope to survive lies in technology, anyway.

 

[GenMarshall]

I don't see the extinction of humans. I foresee that that we will still expand and colonize space and the galaxy.

 

[Narz]

End of the world?

No, it's round.

 

[jimbob27]

No, it's round.

Lies I tell thee! Dirty stinking lies! My great grand father was a sailor, and he sailed to the edge, and looked down into the abyss and saw the dragons with his very own eyes, It's somewhere near wales I think.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

I think people say the end of the world is near to attract attention. It must be emmbarasing when it doesn't though. It will in a few billion years.

 

[Bast]

If you subscribe to the idea that life was transported to Earth cosmically then life on Earth will continue on. Even when humans are gone, even when all life forms as we know it are gone, there will be some organisms that may survive that will be transported to other habitable places and where an explosion of life can take place yet again.

 

[Lotus49]

Throughout human history, we have an incredibly annoying skill to be absolutely sure the world will collapse in [insert year here]. In the past it was for religious purposes. Now, it's in fear of meteors, supervolcanoes and global-warming. If we were right about all times we would be doomed, the Earth would be a medicinical wonder. Seriously, do you when it comes to it believe that the world will collapse in 20-50 years?

Catastrophic events (man-made, or natural) will eventually occur, at varying levels of severity. Worrying about it, is pointless. All you can do, is A) be aware of as much as you can, and B) try to take as much reasonable preventative action as you can, to break the chain of events that could lead to destruction.

For example, if we discover that we are actually ruining this planet (to be determined) to the point where life as we know it, would not be sustainable in XYZ years, then we should take responsible action. Or, if we are aware of XYZ comet that is on a near collision course with Earth, then we should collectively devise some plan to attempt to deal with it.

But, the tectonic plates and continental shelves are unpredictable. No one knows when a continent-killing tsumai could strike, or when a continental shelf could collapse, causing a massive wave that could kill tens of millions. -Or, when a super volcano is going to erupt, for that matter.

Anyone could go at any time... a meteorite could pierce your skull at several thousand MPH as soon as you get done reading this sentence, and, ALL of us could go at any time... obviously merely requiring something larger and more powerful.

But, to fret about it... eh. Death is the only sure thing you/we can count on (at any time no less). Might as well come to terms with it.

 

[Xenocrates]

The World actually ended at 3 AM today, so you're all a bit too slow.

There's a great parody of George Bush here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1940006,00.html

Question: Should we be doing something about global warming?

Bush: No. Because we're not the problem. Studies by my scientists have shown that there is a growing threat to our well-being from the sun. It is therefore up to the sun to back down from its reckless posturing. We will make every effort to put pressure on it to do so, using military force if necessary. The sun doesn't scare me. I fully intend to go about my business at noon every day, without a hat.

Question: Should we rethink air travel?

Bush: Of course. And my scientists are making progress on a new science that can do this. As you know, at the time of Judgment, at the End of All Things, the righteous and born-again will be lifted up bodily into Heaven in a religious phenomenon known as the Rapture. We're working on ways of harnessing this immense source of lifting-up power to see if it can be used to lift up planes without the use of fuel. Clearly, there's a long way to go before Rapture Flights are fully operational, but I've a good feeling we'll get there.

At least I think it's a parody.