The Top Ten Outlandish Mega Disasters
October 7, 2007
Last week, according to reports in the press, a strange fireball streaked through the sky high above the Peruvian Andes. The fiery orange streak raced toward the sparsely populated earth below, impacting with a tremendous explosion in a field near Lake Titicaca. The impact left behind a deep, muddy hole and residents nearby complained of a spreading, sickening odor that left many sick, wondering if they’d been poisoned. “The odour is strong and it's affecting nearby communities. There are 500 families close by and they have had symptoms of nausea, vomiting, digestive problems and general sickness,” local health department official Jorge López told a Peruvian radio station.
The unusual event appears to have been caused by relatively small meteor that crashed into the earth’s atmosphere, then into the ground below. As these things go, this one was relatively insignificant. No one died, thankfully, and the destruction, if it can be called that, was limited to nothing more than a big, muddy pothole.
But it could have been worse. Scientists have warned since the mid-1990s that the big one might be lurking out there somewhere, silently orbiting the Sun on a path that will eventually intersect earth’s orbit around the sun. When it hits, they say, it will cause planet-wide destruction.
And that’s not the only scary thing out there that might wipe out life as we know it. The History Channel, for one, has been running a popular series on so-called mega-disasters that threaten to do serious damage to life on earth. From super volcanoes to super asteroids, to exotic space phenomena and more mundane, down-to-earth threats, we count down the top ten mega disasters and tell you which ones to worry about.
Number 10: Global Warming
No phenomenon in recent memory has been more over-hyped than global warming. From Al Gore to The Day After Tomorrow (despite the impressive special effects, a serious contender for worst sci-fi flick ever), popular culture, government, academe and even Arnold “the Governator” Schwarzenegger ooze with outrageous claims that global warming will lead to unprecedented catastrophe.
Despite the hype, many very serious scientists disagree. One of the most prominent is Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric science at MIT. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 2006, Lindzen called global warming alarmism “junk science.”
Many other scientists agree, as The New American noted in an online special report not too long ago. Despite the hype, the lack of real science supporting the notion of worldwide catastrophe at the hands of global warming relegates this “disaster” to number 10 on the list. In fact, were it not for it’s power as a political weapon in the hands of demagogues, we would consign visions of global warming disasters to the memory hole as nothing more than a myth.
Unfortunately, scientists and others who are skeptics of the disaster scenarios have endured scathing attacks in the pro-global warming press, with some going so far as to invoke the Holocaust in referring to climate change skeptics as deniers. Moreover, the issue has been used as leverage in an ongoing campaign to give the United Nations authority over carbon emissions.
Ultimately, if that were to happen, it would give the UN de facto planning and regulatory control over private industrial businesses the world over, essentially transferring control over the “means of production” to the world body. That would be an economic and political disaster of nearly unprecedented proportion – and it’s enough to ensure that global warming makes number ten on this list.
Number 9: Pole Shift
Pole shift is so far “out there” as a credible disaster scenario that it just barely straddles the line between science fiction and science. The fact that we put it at number 9 on this list speaks volumes about our feelings regarding global warming! Nevertheless, coupled with its exotic qualities, there is just enough science behind the idea of a pole shift to make it qualify for inclusion.
What is a “pole shift” you ask? For all the fans of NASCAR out there, sadly, it has nothing to do with whether Matt Kenseth or Dale Earnhardt, Jr. have to switch pole positions at Daytona. Instead, pole shift is the idea that the earth’s poles might move radically from their present positions. Broadly speaking, there are two variations on this possible disaster scenario: crustal displacement and magnetic pole reversal.
In the first, least likely, scenario, the earth’s crust physically slips in a catastrophic movement that would be akin to an orange peel slipping over the contents of an orange. This, naturally, would result in tremendous carnage. Journalist and author Graham Hancock has publicized this idea in his popular though highly speculative book Fingerprints of the Gods. Writing on his Website, Hancock says he believes, in an idea that originated with the late historian Charles Hapgood, “that some cataclysmic agency must have been at work [at the end of the last ice age] and I continue to believe that the mechanism advocated by … Dr Charles Hapgood, namely a massive one-piece displacement of the earth's crust, is a very plausible explanation of the worldwide cataclysm that did indeed occur.”
Before writing off this theory as hogwash, Adam Maloof, an assistant professor of geosciences at Princeton University, has found interesting evidence that the earth under certain conditions might sometimes tilt over in a phenomenon known as polar wander.
A less catastrophic, but more likely, possibility is that the earth’s magnetic poles will reverse. Astonishingly, there is scientific evidence that this might be in the offing. According to New Scientist, “Every 300,000 years on average, the north and south poles of the Earth's magnetic field swap places.” That only happens when the Earth’s magnetic field weakens and eventually drops to zero.
According to New Scientist, the earth’s magnetic field is beginning to weaken, particularly in a region known as the South Atlantic Anomaly. “If the field does flip 2000 years from now,” says New Scientist writer Patrick Barry, “the Northern Lights will be visible all over the planet during the transition, and solar radiation at ground level will be much more intense, with no field to deflect it.”
Number 8: Atlantic Super Tsunami (Tie)
The island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, off the Atlantic coast of Africa, features a lush rainforest, unspoiled beaches, beautiful scenery and a sparse population. It also features a large and dangerous volcano crossed by jagged fault lines. If it erupts, the theory goes, a massive landslide will tumble from the island into the Atlantic Ocean setting off the largest tsunami in recorded history.
This is a contentious theory, with some scientists making a good case that there is nothing to worry about. But other scientists aren’t so sure. And the worst-case scenario that these scientists describe is truly catastrophic.
According to the UK’s Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, an eruption of the volcano on La Palma would start a colossal landslide, “with total energies comparable to those released by the impact of moderate-sized asteroids, 200 to 500 metres in diameter.” This would set off terrifyingly huge tsunami waves that would dwarf the waves of the disastrous Indonesian tsunami of 2004. Right off the start, it is thought that these waves would tower to more than several hundred meters before tapering off. But don’t get too comfortable. By the time these waves race across the Atlantic and get to Florida and the rest of the east coast of the USA, the “doomsday scenario” predicts they would still be around 50 meters in height. For the metrically challenged, that’s just over 164 feet.
How likely is this event? According to Dr. Simon Day of the Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre, “the work so far suggests that the phenomena may form a third member of a group of rare but very large geophysical events, the other two of which are giant explosive volcanic eruptions, and asteroid and comet impacts, and may be more frequent than either.” Still, we’re only likely to experience such a tsunami once in the next 5,000 years – so chances are it won’t happen tomorrow. But if it does, it will cause devastation on the coastlines of Africa, Spain, the UK, Canada, the U.S., Mexico, and much of Latin and South America. Those who survive will likely face economic disruption and significant political chaos caused by destabilized governments and a flood of homeless refugees.
Number 8: Volcano (Tie)
On August 27, 1883, the entire planet shook as the island of Krakatoa exploded with a fury seldom equaled. Located in Indonesia, the demonic roar of the volcano was clearly heard some 3,000 miles away across the Indian Ocean on the Island of Rodriguez where a coastguard officer took note of the noise and the time of its occurrence. It has since been estimated that the Krakatoa explosion was the loudest sound ever heard on earth. But it wasn’t the largest volcanic explosion. That dubious honor falls to Tambora, another Indonesian volcano that violently exploded in October of 1815 killing an estimated 71,000 to 92,000 people.
Volcanic eruptions of this size can have lasting global effects. Tambora injected massive amounts of fine ash into the atmosphere that blocked sunlight for the next year, leading to the so-called “year without summer” during which, according to New Scientist, “New England had blizzards in July and crops failed.” |
Could it happen again? Could it be even worse next time? The answer, of course, is yes. Krakatoa, for instance, remains very active. According to the PBS program Wild Indonesia, Krakatoa “is not a volcano to take lightly. Over the last 70 years, it has deposited something like a meter of volcanic ashes on Panjang and Sertung islands, and has repeatedly cut-back the development of its own ecosystems. When in full eruption, it is an awesome sight, with huge volcanic bombs thrown hundreds of meters from the eruption center….”
In the U.S., Mt. Rainier has been called “potentially one of the most lethal volcanoes in the world” by Seattle Weekly which also notes that “The U.S. Geological Survey calls Rainier this country's most dangerous volcano.” Geologists estimate that during one eruption 5,600 years ago, the 14,000-foot volcano unleashed mudflows of up to 600 feet in height that created 200 miles of new land in a matter of hours in an area that was once an arm of Puget sound.
A large enough eruption could block enough sunlight for a period of one or two years that crops would fail all over the planet leading to mass starvation. On this list, this is the first event of truly global scope that could lead to the extinction of one or more species of plant or animal. And, as with any catastrophe of this magnitude, the political and economic repercussions would be frightful, compounding the devastation wrought by Mother Nature. With volcanoes of this type and size found all over the globe, it’s only a matter of time before one of them blows its top in a really big way.
Number 6: Yellowstone Supervolcano
If a regular volcano is bad, a supervolcano is the volcanic equivalent of the apocalypse. Science writer Peter Tyson, editor-in-chief of the Website for the science program NOVA, notes, chillingly, that a regular volcanic eruption, say Mt. St. Helens or even Krakatoa, “resembles a supereruption like the detonation of a firecracker resembles a nuclear explosion.”
As luck would have it, the U.S. is home to what some consider the world’s most dangerous supervolcano, and it is in the heart of one of the nation’s most beloved tourist destinations: Yellowstone National Park.
Supervolcanoes are so large as to stretch the imagination. The Yellowstone caldera, Tyson notes, "is over 50 miles long and nearly 30 miles wide. You could fit four Manhattans placed end to end inside. The amount of magma, or molten rock, thrown out by its most recent supereruption 640,000 years ago was a staggering 240 cubic miles, with an ash volume two to three times that.”
An eruption of a supervolcano like Yellowstone would have devastating consequences for the whole world. According to Tyson, “A big enough supereruption—the biggest yet identified unloaded 1,200 cubic miles of volcanic debris—could even have a global impact, threatening everyone on Earth.
Aerosols shot into the atmosphere could create a worldwide haze that blocks sunlight sufficiently to change the climate for several years, with potentially disastrous effects on global agricultural yields. Refugees pouring into surrounding areas, disrupted satellite communications, reeling world financial markets—the fallout could be ‘sufficiently severe,’ notes [a] Geological Society of London report, ‘to threaten the fabric of civilization.’”
Fortunately, these events don’t happen very often, though Yellowstone is considered by some to be somewhat past due for an eruption. Still, as Jake Lowenstern, the scientist in charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory notes, “no eruption [of Yellowstone] seems imminent on the timescale that most people truly care about — their lifetime or perhaps even the next few hundred or thousands of years.” Nevertheless, the impressive potential such volcanoes have for unleashing world-ending devastation is enough to boost the Yellowstone supervolcano to number 6 on this list.
Number 5: Mystery Pandemic (Tie)
On September 28, WorldNetDaily, an online newspaper, reported that “Dozens of people in a Mexican city are gravely ill with what is being treated as a possible outbreak of avian flu.” That kind of news is sure to strike fear into the hearts of healthcare providers everywhere who have lived in fear of the next great pandemic, since avian flu has been identified as the virus most likely to reach such frightful proportions. The fear is that one day, such a pandemic could result in devastation not seen since the black plague killed one-third of Europe’s population in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Is a pandemic on that scale likely? Signs point to yes. There are plenty of diseases that might fit the bill. One of the scariest is smallpox. The virus that causes the disease has been eradicated in nature, but samples of it remain in the U.S. and Russia, though there is a quiet campaign calling for the eradication of remaining samples. Because vaccination for the virus that causes smallpox no longer routinely occurs, generations have been raised with no resistance to the deadly pathogen. If the virus somehow got loose – or was used in a biological attack – thousands, maybe millions, could die. Of course, there are other diseases that might be just as devastating. Avian flu gets its reputation, for instance, not from what it has done thus far, but from the fear that a mutated version might take on characteristics similar to the 1918 influenza outbreak that killed between 20 and 40 million people worldwide.
Besides the millions of deaths that such a pandemic might cause, there is reason to be concerned about the political repercussions that stem from even the possibility of a future pandemic. Even though Avian flu, for instance, has not yet mutated into the deadly form many fear, the prospect of that eventual outcome has already played a part in altering the political situation in North America. One of the justifications given for the proposed further integration of Mexico and Canada with the United States under the Security and Prosperity Partnership, for instance, is the threat of an Avian flu outbreak. That, and the political damage that might result from an all-out pandemic is enough to ensure that the prospect of a future, mystery pandemic makes it into the top 5 most threatening catastrophes.
Number 5: "The Big One" California Earthquake (Tie)
Cal State Fullerton geophysicist Dave Bowman says southern California is in an earthquake lull. “What we're beginning to see,” Bowman recently told the Orange County Register, “is that faults tend to go through ‘hot streaks’ and ‘cold streaks’ just like a baseball player. There may be periods of time when a fault, or group of faults, has lots of big earthquakes. Seismologists call this clustering. These periods are punctuated by relatively quiet times which have gotten the unfortunate name ‘lull.’”
But even though southern California may be in a lull, the San Andreas Fault is still dangerous. Sooner or later, everyone knows that the region is likely to be devastated by an earthquake of unprecedented proportions. According to Bowman, with the San Andreas Fault, “even in a slump, you're still going to get the occasional home run.”
And the San Andreas Fault can knock one far, far out of the park. In Bowman’s terms, the 1994 Northridge quake -- magnitude 6.7 causing $44 billion in damage -- was a ground rule double, not a home run. In fact, the southern San Andreas may be getting ready to unleash “The Big One.” In 2006, geophysicist Yuri Fialko published the results of a study in the journal Nature (pdf download) that strongly suggested that the fault might have stored an immense amount of stress that could be on the verge of violent release. “The southern section of the fault is fully loaded for the next big event,” Fialko, summarizing the import of his findings, told Discovery News.
While such a big earthquake won’t lead to any species extinctions, its occurrence in heavily populated southern California, where it could destroy untold billions in property and cause many, many deaths means it has a high probability of also causing serious political and economic aftershocks. That, and the (relatively) high probability that the event might occur sometime in the near future, say within 200 or 300 years, makes “The Big One” a serious candidate worthy of fifth place on this list.
Number 3: Gamma Ray Burst
The gamma ray burst (GRB) takes the award for strangest phenomenon on this list. It also takes the award for most deadly phenomenon on this list. If one happens in our galactic neighborhood, most, if not all, life on planet earth will disappear. And, yes, that applies even to the legendarily hardy cockroach.
GRBs are still somewhat mysterious. It is thought that they occur when a super massive star collapses prior to becoming a black hole. In the process these stars, called collapsars, explode with more force than any other explosion in the known universe.
NASA happened to be looking in just the right spot on March 29, 2003 to record one of the closest GRB’s on record. At “only” 2 billion light years away, GRB 030329 “poured out a thousand trillion, trillion times the gamma rays seen in a solar flare,” according to NASA.
Unfortunately, they could occur even closer than that. In some cases, it is thought that so-called binary pulsars might collapse upon themselves causing GRBs. Some of these pulsars, including one known as PSR B1534+12 are close enough to earth that, should they explode in a GRB, the effects would be devastating. Princeton physicist S.E. Thorsett, in a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal in 1995, noted that a GRB as close to earth as PSR B1534+12 “would bathe Earth with [energy] equivalent to a total of 104 megatons of TNT, or roughly the total worldwide nuclear arsenal.... An event of this magnitude could essentially destroy the ozone layer for years....”
According to some scientists, that would be very bad – and it’s happened before. “Dr. Bruce Lieberman, a paleontologist at the University of Kansas, originated the idea that a gamma-ray burst specifically could have caused the great Ordovician extinction, 200 million years before the dinosaurs,” wrote Christopher Wanjek of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in 2005. “An ice age is thought to have caused this extinction. But a gamma-ray burst could have caused a fast die-out early on and also could have triggered the significant drop in surface temperature on Earth.”
But that’s still conjecture, scientific conjecture though it may be. So, while GRBs are probably not much of a threat, they make number three on this list simply by virtue of the fact that they are the most explosive, energetic events in the known universe.
Number 2: Killer Asteroid
The prevailing theory (but one that is by no means unchallenged) is that the dinosaurs were killed off by a killer asteroid. It could happen again. The biggest risk, among known near earth objects (NEOs) is posed by an asteroid known as 99942 Apophis. When it was first discovered in 2004, it was thought that Apophis had a 2.7 percent chance that it would hit earth in 2029. Recalculations showed that this risk was overestimated, but on its 2029 flyby, if the asteroid passed through the right “keyhole” in space, its orbit will be changed enough to give it a 1 in 45,000 chance of hitting earth.
So Apophis is not really a threat. But who knows what other asteroid is out there just lurking around waiting to smash into the planet when we least expect it. The possibility is still alarming. Even a small object can do tremendous damage. In 1908, for instance, a small asteroid thought to have been about 20 to 100 meters across exploded in the atmosphere above Tunguska in Siberia. The Tunguska blast leveled vast sections of forest in an explosion estimated to have been 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. If that were to occur today above a populated area, the carnage would be unspeakable.
The magnitude of a possible impact is enough to boost the killer earth asteroid to number two on this list. But what cements the ranking is the potential political and economic damage such an asteroid might do, even before it hits the planet. If, for instance, it is found that a significant asteroid is on track to impact earth, and if that impact is estimated to be only a few years or decades off as in the case of Apophis, what might the consequences be? Riots? Political repression? Panic? Even in the absence of such worst-case scenarios, the prospect that NEOs might pose a threat has already resulted in former astronauts and others calling for the United Nations to be empowered to conduct planetary defense. The Association of Space Explorers, headed by former NASA astronaut Rusty Schwieckart, already is working to develop a protocol under which the UN can act in response to potentially earthbound NEOs. The power to incite political change of this sort, even in the absence of an actual threat, solidifies the number two ranking of the killer asteroid.
Number 1: World War
The war drums have been beating for months now over Iran and its nuclear program. It is widely believed that the Bush administration will attack Iran in order to stop the Iranian nuclear program. In France, president Sarkozy has warned that a nuclear Iran “would lead to war.” In Germany, the government of Prime Minster Angela Merkel announced that it would not support further sanctions against Iran. The announcement, according to Fox News, “gave the distinct impression that they [Germany] would privately welcome, while publicly protesting, an American bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities.” That decision, says Fox News, “has pushed a broad spectrum of officials in Washington to develop potential scenarios for a military attack on the Islamic regime.”
What if that attack occurs and it sets off more than a regional conflict? Russia has resisted U.S. efforts to isolate and punish Iran with sanctions and is supplying enriched uranium to Tehran. China, a major growing power in the Far East, has increasingly close ties with Tehran. In fact, China is Iran’s biggest trading partner, with oil accounting for two-thirds of Iranian exports to China.
The question, then, is if, in the event of a U.S. attack on Iran, would China stay aloof and risk losing access to Iranian oil? Would Russia side with West, or would the resurgent superpower seek its own independent advantage by opposing a U.S. action. Worst case, would the world teeter on the brink of nuclear war?
There are too many questions, too many uncertainties, related to a possible U.S. attack on Iran. The consequences, if such an attack occurs, will likely be severe both politically and economically, even if Russia and China remain neutral. Among all the possible mega-catastrophes, the prospect of war with Iran is a clear and present danger. |
