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Work Out Your Own Multiplication

The Independent reports on “The end of the world as we know it”, opening the article with “Forget man-made threats”.

Wrong.

Using the articles own figures “Every century or so, a 10-meter meteor slams into the Earth with the force of a small nuclear device” and “Roughly every 100,000 years, a projectile hundreds of meters across unleashes power equal to the world's nuclear arsenals” and the clincher “About every 100 million years, a rock the size of a small asteroid slams into the Earth, causing global earthquakes, kilometre-high tidal waves, and immediately killing all large land animals”.

Know “the impact of a small nuclear device” and “a small nuclear device” are two different things. In the first case we are talking about a force roughly equivalent to between 13 and 18 kilotons of TNT . In the second case we are talking about radioactive damage capable of killing 90,000–166,000 people .

Think about this: Pick a place roughly 200 miles upwind from you. Would you rather have someone explode 15 kilotons of TNT there, or have them let off a small nuclear bomb? See the difference?

A nuclear bomb sends radioactivity into the atmosphere, which (radioactivity) sours the earth for thousands of years to come. TNT sends dust into the atmosphere which (dust) settles to earth to become part of the soil.

The impact on weather (not climate!) can be treated as equivalent in both cases, wiping out any comparison.

So, The Independent would have us tremble at the odds for destruction.

By comparison 1980 The Mt St Helens eruption has been described as “ 24 megatons thermal energy ”.

So what.

Population doubling occurs every 35 to 70 years, with one reference indicating a “ predicted doubling time of just over 54 years ”.

We will suffer catastrophic effects as fresh water runs out, as will space and hence food.

“Forget man-made threats” is wrong.

Focus on population growth to anticipate true human misery, and the end of the world as we know it.

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Toronto and Mississauga, Monday, June 14, 2010 4:27 AM

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