The Physics of Doomsday...

Image Source: Business Insider

Topics: Geophysics, Politics, Research, Science

I thought about delaying this one until Friday, but who wants to start the weekend with an image of the Grim Reaper (albeit an SNL skit)? It gets better through the week...

As of this posting, the current administration has yet to encounter a real world, geopolitical crisis (except the ones it creates on its own - I'll amend if that changes). "Wars and rumors of wars" is not simply biblical poetry and cliché, but a continuous existential threat that furrows brows and grays the manes of most normal, sane men or imaginative filmmakers. We can usually resolve our imagination-fueled angst in a few hours. Reality is not that forgiving. The Marshal Plan in Europe wasn't a microwave oven recipe we hit "start" on and walked away. The current world order - being openly defied by our current government - took seven decades to establish.

Wikipedia: Doomsday

Mother Nature is another matter. A government so dysfunctional that we're presently stressing over foreign election hacking here and abroad, that the crises involving what we cannot control - earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis and our used-to-be usual, example-setting HUMANITARIAN response to them, typically the model of the world...before summing in all up in 140 characters of a "killer tweet."

Natural hazards threaten lives and livelihoods across the globe and can result in huge financial costs. Despite significant progress in understanding hazards, we are still feeling powerless and inadequate in the aftermath of destructive events, which can strike with little warning and often affect vulnerable communities. One of the core missions of the US Geological Survey (USGS) is to conduct research into a range of natural hazards so that the public and policymakers can be better prepared for these events.

The underlying physics of natural hazards, Physics World Multimedia