June 13, 2006
The Grass is Always Greener...
Yesterday, during a lecture in Hong Kong, scientist extraodinaire Stevie Hawking (seen pictured above, inexplicably floating through some kind of deep space nebula) basically said that if humans want to surivive in the long run, we're going to have to start relocating into space. He wants permanent bases on the Moon and Mars, and he wants them now goddammit. Eventually, he wants to go find an Earth-like planet somewhere out in the abyss.
Why? Because every day that goes by, and nothing catastrophic happens, is a day closer to our doom. Of all the species that ever inhabited Earth, over 99% of them are now extinct. To stop us from becoming part of that majority, The Hawk says...
"It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species. Life on Earth is at the ever- increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of."
Personally, I think the thing that will eventually do us in is this:
I'm not talking about early 90s Tom Hanks movies (although I do think that watching stuff like Turner & Hooch took a few years off my life), I'm talking about volcanoes. Well, supervolcanoes really, which are volcanoes that can dramatcally alter the landscape and change the entire planet's climate for years. The biggest one on Earth is sitting under Yellowstone Park. It blew its lid 2.2 million years ago and then again 640,000 years ago. There are two other supervolcanoes in the US, one in Colorado and another in Idaho. When was the last supervolcanic eruption? It was the Toba caldera in Indonesia, which went boom about 75,000 years ago. The result? A 1,000 year Ice Age that wiped out 60% of the global population. So, you know, no biggie.
To give you a better visual picture of the what the horrific terror of a supervolcanic eruption is like, I drew the following detailed diagram using an advanced computer 3-D modeling program known as "Paint":
Think volcanoes aren't really active these days? Think again. Check out the weekly volcanic activity report from the Smithsonian. There's rumblin' and grumblin' going on underground all the time.
So what am I saying here? Well, I have no idea. I just think that volcanoes are really cool. And when I die, I've left instructions for my ashes to be dropped into the crater of an active volcano. Not because I want to be part of one last burst of death and destruction. But because volcanoes are totally badass.
There will be no shooting my ashes into space for me (which you can seriously do now), and I refuse to go live in some cramped Moon colony eating nothing but freeze-dried peas until I puke, and then have to watch my puke float around the room like some kind of ghost/blob combo.
The Earth, as ultimately doomed as it may be, is my ship. And if it goes down, I'm going down with it.
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interesting that two of the three ways s.hawking said we could be wiped out were due to our own stupidity.
also interesting that he seems to be of one mind w/ orson.s.card / ender's game... the species has a greater chance of survival if we spread and multiply. you sci-fi writers always seem to be ahead of the game...
next thing you know we'll be foopin through time.
Posted by: nola at June 19, 2006 11:45 PMI thought that was interesting too about The Hawk leaning towards mankind wiping itself out via stupidity instead of natural disaster.
But after watching the Krakatoa special on Discovery last week, these days I've got natural disasters on my mind more than stupidity. The power of 13,000 atomic bombs bursting out of a mountain, turning the sky pitch black for days, spewing out a hot ash cloud of death, creating a monster tsunami which one crazy bastard of a ship's captain rode OVER. The guy sent everybody below deck, dropped anchor, TIED HIMSELF to the wheel, and then steered the ship up and over a tsunami.
Now that guy...had some seriously big brass balls.
Posted by: chris genoa at June 20, 2006 10:50 AMsure you can be scared of natural disasters cause there is nothing to be done about them. they come whether or not you piss off the south koreans or find a cure for aids.
but honestly, in the history of mankind, we have been way more devistating to one another than nature has been. the chances of some massive volcano in colorado errupting versus some power hungry maniac getting her hands on the smallpox virus that was modified to float on the wind like anthrax and wiping almost everyone out...
with stuff like that, it don't matter whether you got balls like brass or jello.
besides, even if there were a massive volcano that wiped almost everyone out, I'm sure we'd find a way to survive... perhaps we'd end up like golum or kevin costner in water world, but hey, we'd still be around to kill each other some more.
no, no, humans would be much more efficient at wiping us out to extinction.
Posted by: nola at June 20, 2006 11:24 AMIt’s not that I’m scared of natural disasters…just a bit obsessed with them. I tend to jump around from one obsession to the next. Before volcanoes it was primordial dwarfs. Next it’ll be something like, oh I don’t know, Teflon.
While we may have been more devastating to each other than Nature has been to us (at least in recorded history), if you look at the entire history of the planet it’s clear that Nature has been much more of a badass than we have. 99% of every species that’s lived on Earth is now extinct, primarily because of changes in Nature (some violent and dramatic, others gradual). Sure, we’ve wiped out quite a few species of our own, but we haven’t come close (yet) to matching Mama Nature. But give us time and I’m sure we’ll get there.
Supervolcaneos, asteroids the size of Texas, climate change…these are all par for the course when you stretch the timeline out over tens of thousands of years, instead of the few hundreds of years we tend to look to for a guide.
I think whether you’re talking about humans or Nature, the one constant is indifference. Bad shit is going to happen, it’s going to suck, and no amount of kicking and screaming will stop it.
The smart thing to do is to stop thinking about this stuff, knock back a few beers, eat some pasta, cuddle up with someone warm, have wild reckless sex, sleep in, and if tomorrow I wake up and there’s a massive cloud of black ash blotting out the sun…so be it. At least I didn’t waste the time Nature and Humankind (that kooky pair of indifferent bastards) allotted me worrying about what might happen.
I write that, and while I do I have Amazon open in another tab with about five friggin’ books on volcanoes in my shopping cart. Will I click “Buy?” Of course. Why? Because I’m an idiot.
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Foop! sketches by Chris Daily
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