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> Not a bad contribution to science starting from a sci-fi premise! 1. Ancient civilization enters industrial and post-industrial era. 2. Carbon levels rise,
by wklauss 9y ago
> Not a bad contribution to science starting from a sci-fi premise!
1. Ancient civilization enters industrial and post-industrial era.
2. Carbon levels rise, so do global temperatures.
3. In a desperate attempt to save themselves they try geo-engineering by slamming a massive asteroid in the too hot and thus unpopulated area of Yucatan.
4. Goes wrong.
I can see it working as sci-fi novel
- elorant 9y agoIf you write it, I'll buy it.
- vivekseth 9y agoThis reminds me of the movie Snowpiercer
- sudhirj 9y agoAs far as geo-engineering goes, I think what they'd be wanting to do is cause a super-volcano or three. You really don't want to be pulling asteroids down - just a couple of finely place nukes will do. Get a volcano going, put a few tons of sulphur in the air and you have a nice cooling effect. Just be careful of the unintended tsunami. Should probably just evacuate Iceland and keep popping the volcanoes until it's cool again.
- chiefalchemist 9y agoIs there any theory that suposes this might happened, on a small scale, and the temps (and crust) warm? Could that loosen things up, so to speak, and trigger more volcanic activity?
- justinclift 9y agoPerhaps the asteroid was just an asteroid mining operation gone horribly wrong, or some form of planet killing warfare?
- snowwrestler 9y agoMaybe the Earth-based technological civilization attracted the attention of a space-faring civilization, who dropped an asteroid to wipe out the Earth civilization (successfully, as it turns out). Which means maybe we should be a bit more careful about bleating our existence out into the universe these days...
- rekado 9y agoPeople who had this thought have also liked "The Dark Forest" and "Death's End" by Liu Cixin :) (These are part 2 and 3 in the "Three Body Problem" series.)
- abecedarius 9y agoAnd in the 1970s by Gregory Benford, In the Ocean of Night.
- greedo 9y agoAnd Footfall by Niven and Pournelle. And the Galacti Milieu series by Julian May.
- KineticLensman 9y agoAlso 'The Forge of God' [0] by Greg Bear [1987]: "We've been sitting in our tree chirping like foolish birds for over a century now, wondering why no other birds answered. The galactic skies are full of hawks, that's why. Planetisms that don't know enough to keep quiet, get eaten". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forge_of_God https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forge_of_God
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- darepublic 9y agoYes, it makes you realize this pop song from the seventies is not only incredibly cheesy but could be catastrophically dangerous https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BrSVOOK610 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BrSVOOK610
- lazyjones 9y agoHow about: - bacteria with engineered enzymes for recycling (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16856246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16856246) mutate/go wild and wipe out most/all traces of civilization - what we can find today is just slightly elevated levels of whatever these bacteria mostly ignored.