If this was a missile attack by a country, just why would they target London?
If it is a terrorist attack, why would that lead to WWIII? The rest of the world would get together and bounce the rubble of any country thought to be responsible for it.
First of all, regardless of the hype that has been bantered about, the polar ice cap is no about to disappear.
See
here and
here for two posts I made on that topic.
It turns out that the
minimum ice pack size for 2008 was 9% larger than 2007.
Also, I think you put too much faith into the so called "science" behind
"The Day After Tomorrow".
The Gulf Stream is not the critical issue that moderates the climate of Western Europe, it is the fact that there is an ocean in the direction from which the prevailing winds blow.
Don't believe me?
What is the climate like in coastal British Columbia, Oregon and Washington? They are about as far north as the UK and France, and both are north of New England.
Their climate is far more moderate than ours.
What Pacific Ocean current sits off their coast?
The California Current.
So how is it that those regions have such a moderate climate with all that cold water off shore?
For the simple reason that water has much more specific heat capacity than air and so there is a huge amount of heat, even in cold water.
Should the current system in the North Atlantic shut down, it will change the climate but there is no reason to think it will create an "instant ice age".
The
USGS site for Yellowstone puts it at "green" status.
Geologically speaking Yellowstone is "due" to erupt "soon", but that means anytime over a few thousand year period.
It is a question if when not if, but there is no reason to suggest that it is imminent from a humans perspective.
Always a possibility, but a disease has to be both virulent and easily communicable (i.e., airborne) to pose such a risk.
It is quite possible that such a pathogen exists in some other species someplace and is just waiting for an opportunity to jump species and spread across the planet. Considering how small the planet has become and the fact that people have gone just about everywhere on the planet, it is unlikely that such an encounter has not already happened, if it were to.
Likewise is is quite possible that some pathogen could mutate and develop those characteristics. However, there is no reason that the odds of such a mutation occurring are any better for today, for tomorrow or for 10,000 years from now.
If it happens, it happens, but there is no reason to think it is any more or less likely in 2012.
Presumably you're referring to Apophis when you mention 2036.
That isn't the only thing out there, that they know of.
You should look at
NASA's page on the topic or their
Potentially Hazardous Object (PHA) portion at the Near Earth Object page.
Those are only the objects that have been detected and an orbital track established.
If you read through the rest of the NEO page, you'll see that they have a very limited search program going on and there are still thought to be plenty of objects that have not been detected. These searches all look for stable asteroids whose orbits cross that of the Earth and thus could potentially impact in the future.
That doesn't even count other potential hazards. These would include asteroids dislodged from an outer orbit that moved inwards as well as comets.
So as with the Yellowstone option it is a question of when not if, but there is no reason to think that such an event is more or less likely at any given time.
ROFL
