Date published: 2005/03/09
The BBC says:
Geologists have called for a taskforce to be set up to consider emergency management in the event of a massive volcanic eruption, or super-eruption.
The recommendation comes in a report timed to coincide with a BBC TV drama that depicts a fictional super-eruption at Yellowstone Park in Wyoming, US.
Experts say such an event would have a colossal impact on a global scale.
A super-eruption is also five to 10 times more likely to happen than an asteroid impact, the report claims.
The authors want to highlight the issue, which they feel is being ignored by governments. They emphasise that while catastrophic eruptions of this kind are rare in terms of a human lifetime, they are surprisingly common on a geological scale.
The effects, say the authors, "could be sufficiently severe to threaten the fabric of civilisation" - putting events such as the Asian tsunami into the shade.
The fallout from a super-eruption could cause a "volcanic winter", devastating global agriculture and causing mass starvation.
More hype from scientists pleading for more money for their own research. Hardly anything "factual" gets on TV any more unless it proclaims the end of the world is near. The bit about "common on a geological scale" is a good laugh. We don't need to plan on a geological time scale. Spending billions or millions of euros worrying about an extremely low probability event, which will cause massive destruction no matter what we do, is a waste of money. But it makes for great television, which is why the BBC is giving this story air time.
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