Re: What would you do with the facts?
Posted by Dale on Mar 20, 2002 at 09:03
(204.212.212.52)Re: What would you do with the facts? (Mike Kremer)
You never watched all those "end-of-the-world" sci-fi movies as a kid, did you? By telling people about all you can do is make their last few months a living hell. Personally I would rather my last words be "Look out for that truck!"
The amount of damage on the other side is going to be almost the same as on the hit side. The rock itself is rather small compared to the size of the earth. The impact and concussion zones are trivial. Most likely it hits water. It knocks a hole in the mantle. It splatters hot rock into suborbital trajectories. Fires break out all over the earth. See Dresden Germany 1945 for the consequences. Water rushes in producing steam and clouds. Between the soot and water vapor clouds, no sunlight for a long time. Water continues to fill hole and evaporate for years.
People see what is happening and decide they would like to stay alive. Soon there is only one loaf of bread on the store shelf but luckily one of the survivors has brought a gun. Others decide that the stigma against cannibalism is vastly overrated. A few in just the right zones (between the freezing north under the clouds and the “let’s-get-back-to-nature” equator) will survive but their cell phones won’t work any more.
But look on the bright side – a 1 degree global warming threat will just be a thing of the past.