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Weapons of Mass Protection
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10949 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1993 |
2,388 Words |
| Author
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Thomas J. Ahrens
Thomas J. Ahrens is professor of geophysics at the California
Institute of Technology. |
In early January 1992 I was among a group of scientists who met on the second floor of the library of the Los Alamos National Laboratory to consider what measures might be employed to prevent the destruction of civilization by the impact of an asteroid or comet. What had always seemed to me as a very remote, almost fanciful, science-fiction possibility had turned to a grim reality. Growing evidence that such an impact had indeed had a devastating effect on the Age of Dinosaurs 65 million years ago had slowly forced people to think that such an event could happen again. It seemed ironic that this meeting was held at the one place where nuclear weapons were first conceptualized, designed, and built.
We were dealing with what appeared to be the most grave issue facing the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the possibility of mutual nuclear destruction that disappeared two years earlier. As we discussed this problem, the nuclear option seemed the most visible means of protecting the Earth. It was not surprising that the architects of the recent U.S. program to develop a defense against nuclear missiles, star-warriors Lowell Wood and Edward Teller, representing the other U.S. nuclear weapons research center, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, participated in this meeting. Why, all of a sudden, were we discussing averting such a potentially devastating event?
A history of hazards
Throughout most of mankind's history, the harsh effects of the environment and the epidemic effects of microbes and viruses have presented challenges to the continuation of human existence. The environmental hazards of gradual variation in climate and sudden extremes of temperature, rainfall, and wind still cause great loss of human life, just as they did among our earliest ancestors. Competition for food, water, and earth resources results in many fatalities. Large earthquakes and the often related tsunamis (tidal waves) cause regional disasters involving thousand of fatalities each year.
Less frequent are the large volcanic eruptions, such as Mt. Tambora (Indonesia) in 1815 and Laki (Iceland) In 1783, which gave rise to large temperature decreases of about 10 degree C (18 degree F) for at least a year at moderate latitudes. Such eruptions inject millions of tons of aerosols into the upper atmosphere, reducing the incidence of sunlight upon the Earth's surface and causing a decrease in global surface temperatures. Thus 1784 and 1816 were years "without summers." The results were global food shortages and mass human mortality.
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