The Aerie

Apocalypse How?

I was bored... okay, I wasn't REALLY bored, I was actually procrastinating over a paper... and I decided to make up a list of all the ways that the World As We Know It could come to an end. Here's what I've come up with so far...

1) Secession/breakup of U.S. I remain convinced a lot of America's aristocracy look with envy upon the collapse of the Soviet Union. Sarah Palin and Rick Perry would prefer, I think, to be the hegemons of their own countries than to be small fish in a big empire. And corporations, which are replacing nation-states as the main bodies of governance, are going to be happier when there are no federal regulations to which they even must nominally adhere. As with the Soviets, when it happens it will happen fast. The media will paint it as a good thing, particularly by pointing out how many states take more federal money than they contribute, which will seduce moneyed liberals in the blue states that have long subsidized knuckledragging red states.

2) The Big One. The clock is ticking along fault lines in California, and the U.S. may not survive it.

3) The Nuke. Ditto. A suitcase bomb detonated in a major U.S. city could end the country.

4) The Methane Bubble. This one sounds science-fictiony, but bear with me. Climate change releases a big bubble of oceanic methane gas, which then blows ashore and suffocates an enormous part of the coastline. Even better? An earthquake could trigger such a thing in unstable seabed, so maybe combine with #2? On the other hand the ocean is enormous, and this could happen along ANY coastline, so odds are half a million foreigners will be the first victims.

5) Coup de Grace. What says the U.S. military will sit still for all this? If we get a president who looks at the military budget and decides for some odd reason that it constitutes a huge drain on the nation, will they sit by and let their budget be slashed? Or maybe they'll look at the mess inside the Beltway and decide that one way to kick out the lobbyists and the foreign corporate interests is to seize control, temporarily of course.

6) Mombai Nuclear Winter. We've long focused on a nuclear winter caused by some old Cold-War alignment, but nothing says that Pakistan and India couldn't kick one off. Or Iran and Israel. Or all four. Who knows, it might balance out Global Warming.

7) Plague. For all that Dr. Mike Osterholm is a tiresome Chicken Little, the sky actually COULD fall, just as he has been warning for his entire career. One fast-moving influenza, and everything could be different.

8) Greenland Melts. Al Gore described this one. But just imagine the effect on the planet and the economy if Europe became a Siberia? To say nothing of the coastal flooding... Imagine much of Florida under four feet of icy-cold water.

9) Nothing. That's right. Despite all our dire concerns, possibly the world will somehow just keep muddling along the way it has been. In some ways, that's one of the most terrifying predictions so far...

10) Space Aliens. Okay, fine, not really likely. But wouldn't it be cool? We could sell them Antarctica for some of their beads and a few trinkets... what could possibly go wrong?

Posted by Albatross at February 23, 2010 2:06 PM | TrackBack