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Old 05-28-2016, 03:09 PM   #1
ericthered
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Default [ATE/IW] Ecological Collapse

I'm wondering exactly what eco-disasters I can use in Infinite worlds Hell Parrelells and After the end. I'm particularly looking for harder science scenarios that can happen in the 1950's to 1990's under human impetus. (yes, I'm asking for the hardest portion of eco-disasters to imagine. That's why I'm asking for it)

This question was inspired by the Lenin-2 timeline. IW provides enough details that I think I'm satisfied on that one (which has a really advanced date for IW), but I'm interested in the time frame shown above.

I'm also interested in what such a breakdown looks like. What actually kills the people? Which crops hang on? Which go quickly? how does that kind of collapse actually kill wheat?

Thanks in advance.
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Old 05-28-2016, 06:01 PM   #2
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Default Re: [ATE/IW] Ecological Collapse

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Thanks in advance.
http://www.mindfully.org/Heritage/20...e-EndJun03.htm

"The United States is also at the peak of its power, and it is also suffering from many environmental problems. Most of us have become aware of more crowding and stress. Most of us living in large American cities are encountering in creased commuting delays, because the number of people and hence of cars is increasing faster than the number of freeway lanes. I know plenty of people who in the abstract doubt that the world has a population problem, but almost all of those same people complain to me about crowding, space issues, and traffic experienced in their personal lives.

Many parts of the United States face locally severe problems of water restriction (especially southern California, Arizona, the Everglades, and, increasingly, the Northeast); forest fires resulting from logging and forest-management practices throughout the intermontane West; and losses of farmlands to salinization, drought, and climate change in the northern Great Plains. Many of us frequently experience problems of air quality, and some of us also experience problems of water quality and taste. We are losing economically valuable natural resources. We have already lost American chestnut trees, the Grand Banks cod fishery, and the Monterey sardine fishery; we are in the process of losing swordfish and tuna and Chesapeake Bay oysters and elm trees; and we are losing topsoil.

The list goes on: All of us are experiencing personal consequences of our national dependence on imported energy, which affects us not only through higher gas prices but also through the current contraction of the national economy, itself the partial result of political problems associated with our oil dependence. We are saddled with expensive toxic cleanups at many locations, most notoriously near Montana mines, on the Hudson River, and in the Chesapeake Bay. We also face expensive eradication problems resulting from hundreds of introduced pest species—including zebra mussels, Mediterranean fruit flies, Asian longhorn beetles, water hyacinth, and spotted knapweed—that now affect our agriculture, forests, waterways, and pastures.

These particular environmental problems, and many others, are enormously expensive in terms of resources lost, cleanup and restoration costs, and the cost of finding substitutes for lost resources: a billion dollars here, 10 billion there, in dozens and dozens of cases. Some of the problems, especially those of air quality and toxic substances, also exact health costs that are large, whether measured in dollars or in lost years or in quality of life. The cost of our homegrown environmental problems adds up to a large fraction of our gross national product, even without mentioning the costs that we incur from environmental problems over-seas, such as the military operations that they inspire. Even the mildest of bad scenarios for our future include a gradual economic decline, as happened to the Roman and British empires. Actually, in case you didn't notice it, our economic decline is already well under way. Just check the numbers for our national debt, yearly government budget deficit, unemployment statistics, and the value of your in vestment and pension funds.

The environmental problems of the United States are still modest compared with those of the rest of the world."
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Old 05-28-2016, 07:38 PM   #3
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Default Re: [ATE/IW] Ecological Collapse

One idea, a deliberate attempt to create a megatsunami from an engineered landslide at the Canary islands results in a moderate wave (by tsunami standards) hitting the east coast of the U.S. This wave while generating widespread damage to the coastline has one other unforeseen effect. The sediment and debris stirred up by the wave alters the albedo of that area of the Atlantic, this results in an increase of the temperature of the gulf stream. The end result of this is a sudden reduction in polar ice, so on and so forth.

As I write this up it seems less plausible than I first thought, I can continue if it passes the plausibility standards for your particular scenario.


Edit
- A Kuwait style Oil fire located in the antarctic might be globally catastrophic too
- Biological would be the most likely, fungi strains that develop resistance to chemicals could knock around cereal production.
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Last edited by (E); 05-28-2016 at 07:41 PM.
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Old 06-02-2016, 02:09 PM   #4
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Default Re: [ATE/IW] Ecological Collapse

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Originally Posted by (E) View Post

(SNIP)

- Biological would be the most likely, fungi strains that develop resistance to chemicals could knock around cereal production.
This, all by itself, would likely be enough. Create a fungal blight that affects grasses, that thrives in an environment with elevated levels of CO2, and watch civilization die.

This was the scenario at the beginning of Interstellar.
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Old 06-02-2016, 06:04 PM   #5
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Default Re: [ATE/IW] Ecological Collapse

Another possible action that might have global consequences, digging a tunnel/trench from the ocean to a salt flat that is lower than sea level. This could result in desalination of the ocean (Eventually) and the effects of that are (possibly) global cooling. This could also be used as save the (AtE) world mcguffin.

Lots of reasons to create an inland sea too, 1960s farm the desert mentality leaps to mind. As does the plot to the superman 1(?) movie. I.e. getting coastal real estate.
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Old 06-02-2016, 07:44 PM   #6
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Default Re: [ATE/IW] Ecological Collapse

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Originally Posted by (E) View Post
Another possible action that might have global consequences, digging a tunnel/trench from the ocean to a salt flat that is lower than sea level. This could result in desalination of the ocean (Eventually) and the effects of that are (possibly) global cooling. This could also be used as save the (AtE) world mcguffin.

Lots of reasons to create an inland sea too, 1960s farm the desert mentality leaps to mind. As does the plot to the superman 1(?) movie. I.e. getting coastal real estate.
Wow. I didn't realize there were so many such places. Based on what I'm seeing, here, flooding them might actually result in some pretty significant climate changes, at least locally -- and maybe even for the better, in a lot of cases.
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Old 06-04-2016, 12:17 AM   #7
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Default Re: [ATE/IW] Ecological Collapse

Quote:
Originally Posted by tshiggins View Post
This, all by itself, would likely be enough. Create a fungal blight that affects grasses, that thrives in an environment with elevated levels of CO2, and watch civilization die.

This was the scenario at the beginning of Interstellar.
Shroom-1, the fungus planet. I can see it now.

On a more serious note, funguses actually breathe in oxygen, it's just that they can survive without it if they're capable of anaerobic respiration.

That's all I know, though.
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Old 06-04-2016, 01:03 AM   #8
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Default Re: [ATE/IW] Ecological Collapse

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Originally Posted by Tallor View Post
Shroom-1, the fungus planet. I can see it now.

On a more serious note, funguses actually breathe in oxygen, it's just that they can survive without it if they're capable of anaerobic respiration.

That's all I know, though.
Bah. You can wipe out all land life and you'll still have an oxygen atmosphere courtesy of the oceans.
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Old 06-04-2016, 01:26 AM   #9
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Default Re: [ATE/IW] Ecological Collapse

About Yellowstone, if it happen right now it wouldn't be quite so bad, worldwide stocks if grain are at an all time high. The primarily agrarian US states are ruined in the very short term, but the industrialized one might come out intact, distance from Yellowstone causing variation.

Southern Africa (A drought means the entire area is short of grain) and anywhere without a good distribution network (3rd and 2nd world) are probably looking starvation, food riots and political instability.

Some other points of note:
  1. No flight for at least a year, probably two in the US
  2. Energy, solar and biofuels are looking at a big problem
  3. So is oil, many of the big producers are looking at political instability

And there would be political changes due to all the refugees and the partial collapse of the free market in supply of food
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Old 06-02-2016, 08:22 PM   #10
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Default Re: [ATE/IW] Ecological Collapse

There's a book by Jared Diamond, Collapse, that discusses the topic at some length. You might give it a look and see if it helps.
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