Picturesque Yellowstone National Park, one of the most beautiful natural tourist destinations in the world, sits atop one of the largest super volcanoes on the planet. If it erupted, the consequences for the entire planet would be catastrophic. What are the chances it will erupt soon? Geologists say it has an eruption cycle of about 600,000 years and last erupted about 640,000 years ago… meaning, it’s well overdue. And it’s been estimated that Yellowstone’s next eruption could be 2,500 times greater than the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980. According to The Discovery Channel, which broadcast a documentary about the Yellowstone volcano, “a full-scale eruption of the Yellowstone hot spot would result in a disaster of global proportions." Ash would cover the entire Western half of the United States; the park would be completely wiped out, along with any nearby towns; the plume of ash would reach 20 miles into the atmosphere, lowering global temperatures and plunging us all into a volcanic winter.
Global Warming – Ice Age
Despite the Bush administration’s denial of the facts, most climatologists agree that the Earth is warming. 2005 was the warmest year on record. So what? We’d all like to be a bit warmer, right? It might not work that way. Global warming, ironically, could result in another Ice Age. That seems contradictory, but Art Bell and Whitley Strieber predict in their book The Coming Global Superstorm (on which the movie The Day After Tomorrow was based), that global warming could alter important ocean currents, which to a great degree regulate the Earth’s temperature. These changes in atmosphere and ocean currents will result in devastating storms, hurricanes, tornadoes and more – some of which we are beginning to see in today’s ever more violent weather. It could all lead to a new Ice Age.
Now that I’ve cheered you up, how can we face these catastrophes? The first three are out of our control, if they are going to happen at all in our lifetimes, so there’s not much to be done, unless you want to become an obsessive survivalist. There may be a chance of stopping or slowing global warming, but that will require changes in government and corporate policies. Yet we can all do our part.
Other than that, we can all enjoy every blessed day.
