continent to be destroyed

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every so often we hear that a big asteroid has a "chance" of slamming into the planet on which we have no choice but to live. for instance, the BBC reports that a 2-km wide asteroid could hit earth in the year 2019, destroying whatever continent it touches down at.

my question is, were the scientists and authorities to determine that this was in fact going to happen, would we generally have what it takes - governmentally, organizationally, etc - to put together the massive effort required for an entire continent of people to pack up and move somewhere else? what sacrifices would we have to make?

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

new "I didn't really like the way this continent was shaped anyway" answers

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I would rather be crushed by the giant space rock that relocated to *shudder* Canada.

(only joking, Canucks!!!)

― C J, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i know it FEELS like a diff continent CJ but if they said "North America" then it's off to Brasil for us - or one of the new camps set up in Siberia or other almost-uninhabited places. wd so many people would have to be moved that they'd need to make Antarctica habitable? (and hope the resultant tsunamis wouldn't wash it away)? hahaha what if this enormous effort actually HAPPENED - i.e. the human race REALLY got its shit together and then with like 1 year to go our scientist overlords take another peer thru the scope and are like "oh hang on - it's actually going to hit the continent everyone just moved to"

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Where's Bruce Willis?

I thought he'd sorted this out.

― C J, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Could it be deflected? (I love the idea and sound of term: Solar Sail.)

There was a similar scare awhile ago over asteroid 1999 AN10. Subsequent studies found it harmles s.

― bnw, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

we wd put the continents in BIG BROTHER HOUSE and cd therefore choose BY SCIENCE which is best

― mark s, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Or we could alert the EU to the giant space rock's impending arrival. We could sit and wait blindly as they "negotiated" with the "downtrodden" and "oppressed" rock. We could send massive amounts of government aid to the rock, which, of course, the rock would use to get bigger and faster. We could then blame our own "intolerance" and "hegemony" for the destruction caused by the rock.

If that didn't work, we could entangle the rock in a massive governmental beaurocracy, as we strip it of its sovereignty.

Or we could just alert the French.

― C J, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i can't believe we're even having this discussion. am i the only one who saw Armageddon?!?? Bruce Willis!!!!

― Dave M., Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

we haf nothing to ph334r!!

― Dave M., Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If a continent was destroyed wouldn't everyone else die from tidal waves or something?

― Maria, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

content to be destroyed

― Kris, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If a continent was destroyed wouldn't everyone else die from tidal waves or something?

The economic and environmental fallout from something on that scale would seriously screw up the other continents.

― j.lu, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, if it's proven we all gonna die, then at least we have seventeen years to make the most of it. ;-) The scientists say the data's not in yet, so I'm content to wait. But I was also thinking about how this is the case of us getting worried about something precisely because we now have the technological ability to notice this and get the Fear. Had this potentially been the case two hundred years earlier, say, nobody would have dreamed of it because nobody could have noticed it.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 24 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

if the asteroid is on a collision course with earth the place it will hit won't be known until just hours beforehand LUSENET. anyway we've already got a continent where people are being destroyed at an enormous rate (ie, sub-saharan africa) and i don't see everyone helping them all re-locate.

― angela, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

d'oh. will this fix the hyperlink mess.

― angela, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"d'oh" indeed: Homer Simpson has been proven right before when he said that Comet Bart would turn into a tiny cinder on hitting the atmosphere, and not destroy Springfield. QED.

― Martin Skidmore, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The K-T mass extinction (what killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago) seems to have been caused, at least in part, by an asteroid hitting the earth. There is some theory that the earth is particularly susceptible to these sort of impacts every 26 million years, but I don't remember the basis of this theory.

― Kris, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"asteroid hitting earth" = we have no f'n idea

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"The K-T mass extinction"???

― I'm really Glad My Name's not Katie, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

if the asteroid is on a collision course with earth the place it will hit won't be known until just hours beforehand

Um, Angela, the story you linked to says the EXACT OPPOSSITE

― jamesmichaelward, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

(haha I guess I should get my ass to the spelling thread)

― jamesmichaelward, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

How many other planets have sustained intelligent life for several thousand years, built up sophisticated personal transportation and communication systems, made their first tentative steps into the vacuum of space, fought wars, loved one another fiercely, stared at the keys on the table while trying to figure out what to say, constructed a celebrity culture incubated by performances and interviews, only to have a big rock smash into their planet before anyone knew they existed? (I do not expect an answer to this qu)

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

then i will surprise you tracer: ans = 13845619

― mark s, Thursday, 25 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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