Re: [FH] St^3 Jon on target again

G'day Glenn,

 >Wow, great tech-speak, Beth.	<grin>

In my own fields I can tech-speak with the best of them Glenn, its just
all 
acronyms military that mystify me ;)

 >If trends keep going and
 >there is no significant social,
 >technological or moral break through
 >[none of which is assured or even likely]
 >The world might suffer a major wide spread collapse.

Yep.

 >Stock market crash?  (Oops did that in 1929)

Not dire enough.

 >World War? (Hmm did that starting
 >in the mid 1930's through the mid 1940's)

If of the scale of that one, probably still not dire enough.

 >Famine?  (did that)

Repeatedly, but have even less chance these days of surviving a really 
major one due to a catastrophic ecological event. I don't know if any of

the other Aussies or the UK bods on the list have seen the documentary 
series based around a volcanic eruption that helped spark the start of
the 
Dark Ages, but in geological terms and time it was a small hiccup and
we're 
due for some rather major ones (within the next 1000 to 10000 years or
so, 
no real need to sell off all your worldly possessions in a hurry or
anything).

 >Plague? (Depending on AIDS and what level
 >of death and what size an area you define
 >seems to be pretty constantly
 >happening)

We're thinking something more on the scale of the REALLY big plagues and

famines of the past (i.e. not restricted to localised effects but will 
impact upon very large % of the human population). Our recent history 
(particularly the last 100 years) have actually been incredibly mild
with 
regard to serious epidemics, famines, weather events (I know they say 
"hottest day on record" etc, but the records aren't that long!),
geological 
events etc etc. So it can be a bit hard to accept that the wars and
stuff 
we have seen in the past 100 years are child's play to the kind of major

upheaval we can see - or at least the kind we can create in models ;)

Just to brighten your day

Beth

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Elizabeth Fulton
c/o CSIRO Division of Marine Research
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