2012 Blog » Possibilities

Wired & The Science of Doomsday

Robert Bast — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:06:51 +0000

After all the poorly written 2012 news items of recent weeks, Wired has come out with an excellent article on the scientific possibilities of doomsday. I’ve summarized their list and added my comments:

SuperVolcano

Wired: Yellowstone’s giant volcanic crater has risen about 10 inches in the last decade, suggesting molten rock may be building up underneath. During its lifetime, the megavolcano has probably experienced more than a dozen giant eruptions, Lay says. Lately, it’s been blowing off steam through little vents, but it’s unclear whether it’s gearing up for another Earth-shattering blast.

Rob: The scenarios that scientists should be wary of dismissing are those that have not been witnessed in the modern era. Supervolcanoes might have unique symptoms of an impending eruption. And there’s always the chance that they give us no warning. While they are a major long-term risk, the odds of one erupting in 2012 is low.

Asteroid Accident

Wired: NASA expects that roughly every 100 years, an asteroid larger than 55 yards wide will strike. The impact could cause local catastrophes like massive floods, destruction of entire cities and agricultural collapse. Around once every few 100,000 years, chunks of rock more than three-fifths of a mile wide — the equivalent of about 12 New York City blocks — could come tumbling through the atmosphere causing much more serious problems, on a global scale.

Rob: It is generally accepted that an asteroid needs to be at least 50 meters wide to avoid breaking up in the Earth’s atmosphere. Below that it is unlikely to harm anything that is not directly in its path. If Tunguska was an asteroid, it was perhaps 50 meters wide, causing widespread devastation in a sparsely populated area. If a large asteroid strikes the ocean, then a tsunami would be expected. The sort of asteroid that could threaten human civilization is not expected any time soon – NASA has done a great job of cataloging and tracking them all, and none are headed our way this century.

Comet Collision

Wired: Comets zoom through space at almost 100,000 mph and pick up speed due to Earth’s gravitational pull, he said. The faster an object moves, the bigger the force it exerts on whatever it happens to hit and the more energy it deposits. For Earth, that means more damage. For humans, it may spell out R.I.P.

To add insult to potential injury, finding comets in the outer solar system is very difficult because these dirty snowballs are extremely dark.

But when comet gets within about 390 million miles from Earth, the sun heats comets’ dark surface and starts to warm its icy interior, making it spew out the dust and gas that form its distinctively bright tails.

Rob: So I did the math and that means we don’t see a comet’s tail until it is just 162 days away from impact. The return of a long term comet could have been predicted by the ancients for 2012. And given that such predictions are extremely difficult to make, they could have got the date wrong by a decade or two. Or to put it another way, they were unlikely to get it right to the very day (Dec 21 2012). Either way, we won’t have much warning from the scientists.

Algal Apocalypse

Rob: Interesting idea but would take millions of years, if it was to happen.

Killer Contagion

Wired: “For a virus to kill all humans on Earth, it would have to kill rapidly, like a week or less,” Huang said. If it took any longer, the immune system would have time to attack it.

Rob: From a survivalist point of view, a virus that only kills 10% or 20% of the population is incentive enough to have a strategy in place, where you hide out for 6 months. And virus that nasty is well overdue according to all the experts.

Suicidal Supernova

Wired: Luckily, most will happen at a safe distance of 5 to 10 parsecs, or 16.5 to 33 light-years — too far away to do any real damage.

Rob: We are still learning about supernovae. Just because we haven’t observed one that could do harm from further away, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Orbital Obliteration

Wired: Jupiter is the most massive planet in the sun’s posse. As such, it tugs at the orbits of the other planets. Over millions of years, the gaseous giant could bully tiny Mercury’s elliptical orbit so much that the farthest distance it travels away from the sun increases, and the closest point gets closer.

…in the worst-case scenario, Mercury and Earth could collide. The impact would destroy Earth even though our planet has about 20 times the mass of Mercury.

Thinking about “orbits going unstable adds a little spice of danger” to planetary science, Laughlin said. But there’s only about a 1 percent chance any of these situations will pan out in the next 5 billion years.

Rob: Orbits are much more unstable and unpredictable than commonly thought. Try finding tables or software that can tell you where a planet will be 1000 years from now! This article doesn’t mention what could happen if an interloper turns up – say a phantom planet passing through or even a Planet X / Nibiru that is an integral part of our solar system, or even Walter Cruttenden’s Lost Star. There are many objects that in theory could disturb the balance, although we would see them by now if they were going to cause a 2012 event.

Solar Slaughter

Rob: Same old story that won’t be newsworthy until billions of years from now. Yes, our Sun has a use-by date.

Wired & The Science of Doomsday is a post from: 2012 Blog

Doom ‘n’ Gloom Daily

Robert Bast — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 12:28:11 +0000

I subscribe to just about every blog and news service that could, maybe, possibly, have a story meaningful to the 2012 meme. One of the very best is The Extinction Protocol. There’s not much commentary, but they relentlessly bombard me with every earthquake and volcanic eruption, as well as every cluster of tremors, or clusters near volcanoes, which might mean something might happen. Plus disease outbreaks, forest fires, social unrest, tsunamis and all the rest. Nothing escapes their attention, and in their eyes it is all evidence that the end is nigh. I you want to lose sleep and continually worry, it is a good site to frequent. They are the key reason I keep buying more gold!

Here are some recent examples of their stories…

One of the biggest stories in recent weeks concerns the Canary Islands, where offshore volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are causing concern:

Villagers are mentioning “bubbles” coming up in the spotted area in the sea.
The number of earthquakes recorded since July 17 , 2011 on El Hierros has now reached 10,000, figures from the IGN confirm.

Earthquakes:

Several earthquakes have struck near south Sumatra of the 5.0 and 5.1 magnitude range today- making a tense situation on the volcanically-dotted archipelago potentially even more volatile. The Anak Krakatau volcano is showing signs of increased seismic activity. Authorities fear the volcano is building towards an eruption that could dwarf the one which occurred in 2007.

An earthquake swarm of more than 41 earthquakes have shaken the region of Gujarat, India on October 21, 2011 following the 5.0 magnitude earthquake which struck the area the day prior at a depth of 15.5 km (9.6 miles). Since that time, the tremors in the region has increased at a frenzied pace- indicating the earthquake may be more than just a random seismic tremor.

Natural Disasters

A recent report by the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.) notes that by the end of September, the U.S. had already broken the record number of federal disaster declarations issued in a single year. The 86 federal disaster declarations through the first nine months of 2011 tops the previous annual record of 81, which was set just last year. In addition, the estimated price tag of nearly $25 billion through September places 2011 among the five or six costliest years on record in terms of insurance claims.

Doom ‘n’ Gloom Daily is a post from: 2012 Blog

GPS Disasters – More Than Just Navigation

Robert Bast — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 06:41:20 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

As our world becomes more and more reliant on technology, so serious system collapses become more likely. I’ve been reading all about GPS jammers at New Scientist (the article is online at Gizmodo), and I learned that they affect more than just your Garmin or TomTom. Actually 90% of GPS receivers use the data for timing not location. If GPS signals are lost, these are some of the services that will be affected:

Cell phone towers
Air traffic control
Emergency pagers
ATM machines
Electric grids
Stock exchanges
…and navigation (obviously), but not just your car – think freight in a just-in-time environment, emergency services, shipping and train routing

The first four of the above services were affected in San Diego for 2 hours in January 2007. The culprit was later discovered to be a naval exercise nearby, where they blocked radio signals. However you don’t need to be the Navy to have the same effect. Truck drivers using $30 GPS jamming devices from China (to hide from their bosses) have already caused such problems. Imagine if a bunch of Anonymous hackers bought some and ventured out into the real world…

Aside from the potential deliberate harm caused by activists and terrorists, and the accidental harm from truck drivers, the satellites themselves are also at risk:

The GPS satellites are old and need replacing – the Guardian reported in May 2009, “a lack of investment means that some of the crucial GPS satellites could begin to fail as early as next year.” Only two of the twelve replacements have been launched since.
Satellites can get hit by meteorites, etc.
More likely is getting hit by man-made space debris. Two items colliding could cause the Kessler Syndrome to kick in, where a cascade of collisions quickly wipes out everything in orbit. This is a serious threat.
And of course, as I keep saying, the Sun is a threat t

GPS Disasters – More Than Just Navigation is a post from: 2012 Blog

Peak Novelty – Some Indicators

Robert Bast — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 15:37:43 +0000

The novelty theory of the late Terrence McKenna is a mainstay of 2012 discussions. McKenna allegedly arrived at a Nov 2012 date prior to learning of the Long Count calendar. He proposed a singularity of infinite complexity in 2012, at which point anything and everything imaginable will occur simultaneously. The methodology is interesting, but not scientific given that previous peaks of novelty were determined using his own personal and cultural biases.

However, if McKenna was correct, we can expect to see a lot of movement in certain areas leading up to late 2012. These areas would involve the building blocks where man and machine and can rapidly innovate. Here’s some news from today that is food for thought:

Artificial Animals - Researchers say they have created the first ever animal with artificial information in its genetic code. The technique, they say, could give biologists “atom-by-atom control” over the molecules in living organisms. It won’t be long before scientists are building living animals, of their own design, in petri dishes.
Anti-Virus Drug – Not a drug that kills a particular virus, but one that kills them all. It is being tested on animals.
Gene Therapy Cures Cancer – Two of three patients dying of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) appear cured and a third is in partial remission after infusions of genetically engineered T cells.

Other areas which are showing rapid increases in innovation are:

Alternative / Renewable Energy – I predict we will have virtually free solar energy within 20 years
Robotics – Advances are being made in every direction, and when someone merges all the innovations, we’ll have a walking, talking, thinking robot
Self-repair systems – Where a structure or machine has the ability to fix itself
Nanotechnology
Remote and Automated Warfare – No humans in battle
Semantic Web – soon software will crawl the web and make decisions…

While none of these things on their own will create singularity, we are on the cusp of a number of advances that collectively could.

This week’s roller-coaster share market ride could be a symptom of change becoming the norm.

Peak Novelty – Some Indicators is a post from: 2012 Blog

Clif High on 2012

Scientific American – “The End” Issue (updated)

Robert Bast — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 10:40:24 +0000

There’s just no letting up – the End of The World meme keeps snowballing, and while we expected Fox News to milk it (and they’ve only just begun, IMHO), it is a little bit surprising to see Scientific American to get it on the act. Numerous articles covering the topic are in this month’s issue, such as:

Could modern civilization really come to an end? Experts take stock of eight doomsday scenarios (subscription required…)
Why We’re Suckers for Stories of Our Own Demise

The latter begins with:

Once again, the world is about to end. The latest source of doomsday dread comes courtesy of the ancient Mayans, whose calendar runs out in 2012, as interpreted by a cadre of opportunistic authors and blockbuster movie directors.

UPDATE: Here are the odds they give on a few scenarios, in order of destructiveness, with the worst last:

Solar SuperStorm – 5% in the next 15 years
Runaway Global Warming – 5% in the next 200 years
Killer Pandemic – 50% in the next 30 years
SuperVolcano – 1% in the next 1000 years
Nuclear War – 3% in the next 10 years
Nearby Gamma-Ray Burst – 7% in the next 100 million years
Giant Asteroid Impact – 0.0001% in the next 100 years
Bubble Nucleation – 0.0000001% in the next trillion years

I’ve bolded the three that you should really heed as warnings from scientists, things you can prepare for. Looks like in the next 30 years, there’s a 70% chance that one will happen. That’s a 70% chance of you and your family needing a safe spot and plenty of supplies.

Scientific American – “The End” Issue (updated) is a post from: 2012 Blog

Open Question: What Could the Mayans Predict?

Robert Bast — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 05:03:37 +0000

[I mean scientific predictions, not prophecy]

Most of the Mayan books were burned by the Spanish conquistadors, and there are bound to be plenty of Mayan monuments that are yet to be discovered. Or the knowledge may have only been transmitted orally. Therefore it is quite possible that the ancient Mayans did indeed specify a disaster for 2012, and we are just unaware of it.

It is also possible (and to my mind most likely) that they inherited the Long Count calendar from an earlier or visiting civilization. Regardless, the question is the same – what type of event could have been predicted in ancient times, for Dec 2012?

I’m not looking for evidence that similar predictions were ever accurately made, just the possibility, because with the Long Count calendar we really are grasping at straws.

My personal preference is the return of an asteroid or comet, or meteor shower, and the accompanying potential for catastrophe. As I have explained, if Halley could predict the return of a comet using basic arithmetic, so could the Mayans. And if a civilization is around for long enough, they can notice long period comets, perhaps one that only returns every 1000 years, something present civilizations are unlikely to have noticed or recorded.

I figure the Sun could also have cycles, if you watched it for long enough. What else could be possible?

Volcanoes and Earthquakes? Unlikely given that we currently do not have that ability.
War and Disease? Not easy or even possible from over 1000 years ago.
Magnetic Pole Shift or Crustal Pole Shift? I doubt ancient cultures knew of these..

If anyone can come up with something, other than the Sun or Asteroids/Comets/Meteors, that was predictable by the ancients for 2012, please let me know!

Open Question: What Could the Mayans Predict? is a post from: 2012 Blog

22 Doomsday Scenarios for 2012

Robert Bast — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:01:00 +0000

This week I updated my list of possible doom’n'gloom scenarios that we might face in 2012, ie the end of the world in 2012. I’ve ranked them according to probability & predictability. Here’s the top 5:

1. Asteroid/Meteor/Comet (watch out for my article on this, that names the culprit!)
2. Coronal Mass Ejection
3. Magnetic Pole Shift
4. Cosmic Superwave
5. Religious Apocalypse (yep, this list lacks any personal bias…)

Read the full article for descriptions and links.

22 Doomsday Scenarios for 2012 is a post from: 2012 Blog