Re: population controls and the Paul Holdren controversy

[chris () blask org]

--- On Thu, 7/23/09, der Mouse <mouse () rodents-montreal org> wrote:

> I don't think so.  We couldn't destroy the planet if we tried.  We might be able to sterilize the ecosystem on the 
> surface, but even that would be hard.  (We could, fairly easily, kill off major fractions of the large creatures on 
> the surface; this is a long way from sterilizing it and a long _long_ way from destroying it.  See 
> http://qntm.org/?destroy for more.)

Gosh, you folks are cheery! :~)

Just to throw a monkey wrench into the dark dreamings, I caught part of an interesting documentary on this topic just 
recently.  To actually sterilize the planet requires doing much more than simply boiling the oceans, you have to raise 
the temperature of the crust from surface to mantle high enough to eliminate every remaining bacterium, and this would 
require impact by a planetesimal-sized rock.  No mere comet or asteroid is at all likely to do the job.  

Nor, imo, would the average comet or asteroid even fully eliminate mankind.  Set us back a few centuries or maybe even 
millennium, but that's about it.

-chris


      

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