Expert: Philip Stahl - 9/23/2008

Question
help me out here...should i call up and warm my local congressman of the dangers?

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my reasoning:

i saw this show on the history channel that discussed the top 10 ways to destroy earth...apparently global warming was the number 1 way...
anyway i think supernovae was like number 9 and black holes were number 7 i believe..meaning that both are super unlikely i wish the history channel would stick to history instead of disaster, and religious shows...

--->  Anyway the thing that that struck me about their explanation on supernovae is that we would have no warning and everything on the planet would be vaporized basically...

but im wondering how likely this is, because i think their explanation was based off a supernovae going off maybe 10 light years away....
yes we've gone over this many times already.. so i suppose you and i are experts at this stuff by now...

I'm just wondering what is the closest supernovae candidate to our planet? and should i stop worrying about it now so i can focus on global warming instead?

or should i call up my local united states congressman and sound the alarms off about supernovae???  

Answer
My answer? You should stop worrying about remote, distant and improbable catastrophes like supernovae (which you can't do a thing about anyway) and focus on global warming - which is a condition you *can* address.

Let's face it - IF and when a big cosmic blow up occurs in our lives (a mighty big IF, btw) that will be it anyway - as the HC program noted. So why worry? When 'ya gotta go, ya gotta go' and all that. Accept it as the fate of a vulnerable cosmic species, which perhaps possesses far more egocentrism and hubris than it ought to.

Meanwhile, lessening one's carbon footprint in the here and now is a discrete and definite step any person can take in order to reduce the worst effects (runaway greenhouse) of global warming. It is also a good thing to do and think about since unlike your supernova (which will take us out so fast we won't know it, hence feel no pain) a runaway greenhouse will slowly cook us like a pot of boiling frogs. We will have to get hotter and hotter each day, and watch helplessly as power grids go down like tenpins as everyone tries to sty cool. Then the water will run out, the sewers back up, and well....why bore you with the gory details?

Let's just say we have much more motivation to minimize it than to worry and fret over distant exploding stars.

In any case, don't waste your congressman's time calling about supernovae. He has bigger fish to fry with the financial bailout and meltdown right now, and besides, he might not think you have all your cylinders firing if you bring it up.

Bye