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Would the world be in a massive economic crisis - with the travel and leisure industries being at a standstill, and non-essential businesses and institutions being closed left, right and centre - if, instead of the current coronavirus pandemic, there would have been a Krakatoa or Tambora type of volcanic eruption just recently? How would it be similar to, and different from, what we're experiencing now with the Covid-19 outbreak the world over?
Alternatively, in the aftermath of a "big one" earthquake that would have recently destroyed a populous and economically important area like California or Japan, would the impacts on the world have been similar to what we're going through now with Covid-19?
I bet that a volcano is as bad as a pandemic, and worse than an earthquake, in terms of global impact at least?
For both of these, it depends on the magnitude of these, where they start, and how the response happens.
Can a volcanic eruption or earthquake set off something worse than the COVID-19 pandemic? Sure. Yea, it certainly can. There are eruptions and earthquakes all the time and most of them aren't so deadly. There are also some real haymakers throughout history and having this alongside something like an unstable geopolitical conflict especially involving nuclear powers can set something off that is far worse than this pandemic.
On the other hand, this pandemic hasn't played itself out and may still be in the fairly early stages. There is at least some chance, with a bungled enough response and an unfortunate mutation or two, that this gets much worse than it has been so far or that this pandemic itself also sets off an unstable geopolitical conflict involving nuclear powers.
I bet that a volcano is as bad as a pandemic, and worse than an earthquake, in terms of global impact at least?
Mega-volcano yes, but aren't they sort of mythological? I mean since the dawn of human civilization we don't have a single case in history, maybe only during the times of the dinosaurs:
Mega-volcano yes, but aren't they sort of mythological? I mean since the dawn of human civilization we don't have a single case in history, maybe only during the times of the dinosaurs:
I was referring not necessarily to supervolcanoes like at Yellowstone several hundred years ago (with volcanic explosivity index, or VEI, of 8), and I was certainly not referring to those like Mount St. Helens in 1980 with a VEI of 5 or less nor even to Pinatubo in 1991 with a VEI in the lower 6 range. (VEI is a logorithmic index, just like the Richter scale.)
I was referring more to something like Krakatoa in 1883 (VEI in the upper 6 range) or Tambora in 1815 (VEI of 7). Those eruptions released lots of ash at least regionally and modified the climate for quite some time (including 1816's Year Without a Summer), leading to crop failures and so on, but it didn't spell the end of human civilization like a supervolcano with a VEI of 8 would have. If such eruptions were to occur in this much much more interconnected and globalized age, there would be massive disruptions to society just about on the scale of what we're seeing now with coronavirus, or perhaps even more. The question is (and this is how I started this thread), what would the similarities and differences be with the Covid-19 situation?
^ Well it's not an easy question to answer, it's a classic "apples vs oranges" kind of thing. Also let me add another kind of natural disaster to this which is as "studied" as the effect of massive volcanoes:
I've been thinking for many years that we haven't had a massive earthquake or solar storm in quite some time both of which will have devastating effects. A volcano seems like lesser evil at least if you look up natural disasters by death toll where the top places are almost always earthquakes.
^ Well it's not an easy question to answer, it's a classic "apples vs oranges" kind of thing. Also let me add another kind of natural disaster to this which is as "studied" as the effect of massive volcanoes:
I've been thinking for many years that we haven't had a massive earthquake or solar storm in quite some time both of which will have devastating effects. A volcano seems like lesser evil at least if you look up natural disasters by death toll where the top places are almost always earthquakes.
Death tolls aren't unimportant (after all, even one death is one death too many), but here, the more important thing is to compare the disruptions to the modern world caused by each type of disaster.
The worst thing that could happen is if a gamma-ray burst were to hit the Earth. That would change the composition of our atmosphere, leading to human extinction. You need a supernova in order to create those and there aren’t any in close proximity to us.
The worst thing that could happen is if a gamma-ray burst were to hit the Earth. That would change the composition of our atmosphere, leading to human extinction. You need a supernova in order to create those and there aren’t any in close proximity to us.
True but that's classic gamma radiation so it's like having many atomic bombs or Chernobyls. However as to my knowledge the likelihood of this happening isn't probable at all as of now...from wiki:
"Estimating the exact rate at which GRBs occur is difficult; for a galaxy of approximately the same size as the Milky Way, estimates of the expected rate (for long-duration GRBs) can range from one burst every 10,000 years, to one burst every 1,000,000 years.[118] Only a small percentage of these would be beamed towards Earth. Estimates of rate of occurrence of short-duration GRBs are even more uncertain because of the unknown degree of collimation, but are probably comparable.[119]"
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