With all the clamor on the web lately about ominous heavenly bodies burning across the sky to obliterate citys and civilizations it is easy to forget
that the potential for large cataclysm is much higher and just as dangerous from terrestial sources as it is from extraterrestial ones.
www.abc.net.au
Tidal waves which could swamp the eastern seaboard of the Americas are a more pressing concern than the chance of an asteroid causing mass
destruction, according to scientists studying natural disasters.
Scientist Bill McGuire has told a news conference tens of millions of people along the eastern seaboard of the United States and Canada may drown if
the slow slippage of a volcano off north Africa becomes a cataclysmic collapse.
Please visit the link provided for the complete story.
I think that we need to focus at least as much energy on developing volcanic and earthquake detection and prediction systems as we do on detecting
Asteroids and Comets. It could easily be argued that during the history of the human race natural earth based disasters far outweigh in death tolls
and destruction anything that has come from the stars. We have little understanding of what contributes to and causes such things as volcanic
eruptions and earthquakes yet the study of such things is relegated to a small line item at the end of the national budget.
While Asteroids and comets strike the imagination with an other worldly facination, a run of the mills earthquake barely makes for a day's sidebar in
the newspaper. If we don't set a proper emphasis on the terran threats of this planet we may find ourselves suddenly overtaken by disaster while we
look fancifully toward the sky for a Hollywood finish to our great civilization.
[edit on 9-8-2004 by Johannmon]
[edit on 10-8-2004 by John bull 1]
