| Cacique Caribe | 01 Nov 2006 2:53 a.m. PST |
If (big IF here) this were to happen in a hundred years or so (for whatever reason), do you think humanity would be able to survive something so drastic? link
link
link CC |
| Pictors Studio | 01 Nov 2006 4:41 a.m. PST |
It would depend on how quickly it happened. Probably our population would be reduced, but we're pretty resourcful. I bet we'd come up with something. Heck maybe they'd make us drive bigger, more gas guzzling cars. |
 Dances With Words   | 01 Nov 2006 5:05 a.m. PST |
Hmmmm….you need to watch the following movies… ICE
Quintet-with Paul Newman
The Day After Tomorrow-special edition |
| jizbrand | 01 Nov 2006 6:15 a.m. PST |
-40ºC! Wow! That's cold. But which is colder? -40ºC? Or -40ºF? |
| Col Durnford | 01 Nov 2006 7:03 a.m. PST |
Warning do not watch Quintet if you have a firearm in the house (you may well use it on yourself to ease the pain). It stinks on ice. Back on topic. Ice world would be very bad, however, some pockets would survive. Didn't Europe have a few mini ice ages? |
| aka Mikefoster | 01 Nov 2006 7:44 a.m. PST |
I thought that this was an interesting article on the subject: link |
 T Callahan | 01 Nov 2006 7:48 a.m. PST |
I read a short SciFi story many years ago. In it small group of people were moving south ahead of the glaciers hunting etc. Humanity had regressed to a hunter gatherer society. As they went further south they hoped to cross a range of mouthians to escape the glaciers. When they reached the mountain pass they looked southward and saw in the distance the glint of white which were northward advancing glaciers. The group carried with them several artifacts from an earlier time that they did not undersatnd. A capsule that sent out a radio beacon, powered by a radioactivity, a circular metalic can and several less notable objects. Eventually the glaciers met at the mountain range and humanity died out. Before the end they took the artifacts up into the mountain pass and buired them in a carin. Thousands of years later a Venusian space ship lands and drawn by the radio beacon discover the artifacts. They return home and open the circular can and find a movie which they eventually are able to play. Watching it they are fascinated by a species so different from themselves. They did not understand the story but were facinated by the charecters depicted and the improbable events that occured to the beings in the movie. The movie ends with a the main charecter in a fade out replaced with the words "The End" Then a sceeen with the words "Produced by Walt Disney" Terry |
| blackscribe | 01 Nov 2006 8:21 a.m. PST |
And thus ended the second world giving way to the third. Scientists should read some world history sometime (Navajo would do). |
| jpattern | 01 Nov 2006 9:17 a.m. PST |
Terry, that story is "History Lesson", by Arthur C. Clarke, published in 1949. It's a classic. I first read it as a kid in the 60s in a Scholastic collection. It *really* freaked me out. Still does, come to think of it.
link
"Its secret would be safe as long as the universe endured, for no one now would ever read the lost language of Earth. Millions of times in the ages to come those last few words would flash across the screen, and none could ever guess their meaning: A Walt Disney Production." |
| Farstar | 01 Nov 2006 10:25 a.m. PST |
Clarke loves zingers like that, or used to (not sure how much "zing" he has left). Read "The Star" for another classic. |
| wminsing | 01 Nov 2006 10:49 a.m. PST |
My answer is yes- all the challenges of new serious ice age could be met with present day technology (of this depends on how fast things started to freeze). We certaintly wouldn't be happy or prosperous though. -Will |
| T Callahan | 01 Nov 2006 12:58 p.m. PST |
Yes Arthur C Clarke. i read it the first time when I was in jr high. A very ironic ending. How something we take as common today may one day be be how a whole race and civilization would be perceived. Great short story. Terry |
| Asia Invincible | 01 Nov 2006 1:54 p.m. PST |
The snowball earth theory is not the same as an ice age. If we had another snowball earth humans would be done. Cockroaches would finally take over. |
| Streitax | 01 Nov 2006 1:59 p.m. PST |
Great minds think alike Terry, I remember that one as well. As for surviving a snowball earth, will our futuristic DEW line (Defense Early Warning Line for those of you born after the Cold War had reached the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) stage) be a line of solar reflectors melting the glaciers along what little land exists near the equator? Buy land in the Sahara now, before the rush. |
| Farstar | 01 Nov 2006 3:59 p.m. PST |
"Snowball Earth: Would Humanity Survive?" Only if we get off this rock by then, or somehow transform our civilization to live ON the ice. It's going to be cold and barren. Unless we figure out how to take a viable biosphere with us onto the ice or beyond, a snowball Earth would be our doom. |
| Cacique Caribe | 02 Nov 2006 8:43 p.m. PST |
I would be surprised if nuking volcanoes into erruption was not suggested as a last resort. CC |
| smokingwreckage | 03 Nov 2006 11:13 p.m. PST |
Well, Earth, even frozen solid, is still a better candidate for terraforming than pretty much any other planet, since it's the right size, distance from the sun, elemental make-up, and so on. If we have "terraforming" technology by then, we'd just use it on Earth, right? And if we don't then no other world is going to be much use to us… |
| Cacique Caribe | 04 Nov 2006 12:06 a.m. PST |
Good point, smokingwreckage! CC |
| DS6151 | 20 Nov 2006 9:40 p.m. PST |
Unfortunately, yes, we would survive.
Humanity is too prolific and adaptable to go out that easy. |
| qar qarth | 16 May 2007 1:29 p.m. PST |
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| Cacique Caribe | 14 Jun 2007 9:25 p.m. PST |
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