I was reading a National Geo. magazine from a few months ago when I came across an article about how scientists have made this gigantic bunker under the ice in antartica, that can withstand a blast from a nuke, and filled the bunker with over three million seeds from various plants like wheat, carrot, barley, peas, etc.. This is to be used in case of a nuclear war. There are two main things about this article that stuck out in my mind: 1. This seems sort of pointless in my mind for many small reasons. The soil after a nuclear war would be ladden with mass ratiation and therefore unsuable for growing crops. If a nuclear war were to happen, we would nuke ourselves bake into the stone age and therefore be unable to have access to this bunker, let alone antartica itself. 2. Is the threat of nuclear war this iminant that we have to make this bunker. Comments or opinions?
First off, the top layer of soil would be contaminated by radioactive dust (fallout), but after removing the top layers, the soil would still be usable. Runoff water from conntaminated land would take a bit longer to be safe, but even that would recover after months, possibly a small number of years. The devastation to society would of course be profound, but there would be surviving technology and people, particularly considering other military bunkers and such. The knowledge would exist unless the population were reduced below minimum sustainable levels (thousands to hundreds of thousands, depending on distribution and post war mutation rates - enough for a viable genetic pool). What about abnormal solar activity, asteroid or comet encounters, raging pandemics, even widespread botanical blights? Having a backup cache of vital crop seeds seems a good plan for many different unpleasant contingencies.
I guess it is a good idea if a comet or something hit, but I mean in case of nuclear holacost, it would be silly as we would all die. I mean how would we survive that? It isn't like we have got the adequate facilities to survive that really. I guess they would just select a certain amount of IMPORTANT people and let them live to repopulate the planet if it could be done. But then who gets to decide who lives and who dies? And what gives them the right to decide?
Destruction even from a nuclear war is unlikely to be total. Even radioactive fallout will vary across the inhabited surface of the planet. If our sun went nova, that would quite possible wipe out the species - all species. Fortunately, our sun is not one likely to go nova anytime soon. But mankind in not yet so powerful to reliably wipe out his entire species in a nuclear tantrum.
You never know Cogito. In the wrong hands nuclear weapons could very well destroy the world. Lets just hope that you are correct though, because althuogh there are a lot of things wrong with this planet, I'd rather live another 40 years or so lol.
Only 40? I plan to live forever! And even then will not have time to discover all I wish to learn. The planet has suffered impacts from space debris, totalling more energy than the entire human nuclear arsenal. Species have been wioed out, but others have survived multiple such mass extinction events. The planet is not quite as fragile as it may appear.
Yeah only till I am 63, by then I will have lived a pretty fulfilling life I think. I mean I am 23 and already experienced a lot of things that many havn't experienced until they are in their 30's. So I think by the time I am 63 I will be pretty happy with my life's experiences. lol And you are right, the planet isn't as fragile, but a massive nuclear war would be pretty harsh on the human race don't you think?
It would, but the human race is also pretty resilient. As much damage as we could do, I don't think evena deliberate effort could make the entire land surface uninhabitable, much less the remaining 3/4 of the Earth's surface. And careful ther! I'm 54, and nowhere near ready to hang it all up in 9 more years! I'm just beginning to have fun!
lol well I want to go young to be honest. Don't want to end up old and relying on others. And I do hope you are right Cogito. It would be pretty sucky to have the earth go uninhabitable.
Having a backup is a good idea. If a devastating nuclear war occurred, North America, Europe, the Middle East, and much of Asia would be hit. Africa, most of Australia, South America and a small chunk of Asia, probably would be fine. Except for fallout which would be limited in the southern hemisphere. And even in the places that are hit, they're vast areas. Nuclear weapons probably wouldn't be wasted on trying to devastate every square inch of land. They'd focus on cities, bases, research areas, and vital croplands (although they'd be more likely to spread anthrax and other biological weapons on the crops). So towns, villages, and even minor unimportant cities stand a good chance of surviving. Life would be hard and certainly hellish in areas, but even after accounting for famine, continued warfare, nuclear cooling (temperatures would decrease, but it wouldn't bring about a new ice age), and disease, probably 2 billion people would survive anything but an absolute worse case scenario. And even in a worst case scenario hundreds of millions of people would survive even if its only as isolated survivors. Now other things we have to worry about are meteors, comets, and possible agricultural plagues as Cogito mentioned. And there is always the risk of a solar flare. A solar flare could be big enough to hit the Earth, which would sear whichever side of the Earth it hits. Which would make a nuclear war look puny in comparison. But again we'd survive, and having something to fall back on would be nice.
God, I wish. The zombie thing...it's psychologically appealing, I think. It's the objectification of all the problems in the world, so that we can destroy them physically. I mean, think about it. Wouldn't everything be simpler if zombies were our biggest problem? Creatures who are purely evil and mindless and who feel no pain...in a zombie war, there is no sympathizing with the other side. And all of mankind would be united in destroying the zombies before they destroy us. Zombies, the hypothetical solution to the world's problems? And we wonder why zombie movies are so popular. Sorry. Off topic, I know. Don't mind me.
Thats a good point you make though, Fresh. Interesting view. As for nuclear war, where I am, I dare say Im in the clear.
i'd check out the validity and accuracy of that report, if i were you, before saying it's a good or bad idea... all we read isn't necessarily true... or all true...
I think that a zombie take over would be quite a fun experience. Imagine the inspiration we would all get for writing lol
Except it'd all be the same, plus Id be worried about the zombies walking about outside my window as opposed to the originallity and flow of my next poem...
ha ha ha well if you ever meet a Zombie read him some of your poetry and let us know how that goes lol
