What Global Risks?

[bigpaul]

it would be if the imports of all that lovely cheap food stopped, could be crop failures(disease, pests(locusts?)floods, drought) or financial, economic or political, no one will supply this country with food if we cant pay for it, that the problem with putting globilisation before self ssufficency.

[Devonian]

(18 June 2014, 10:02)bigpaul Wrote: I get this all the time on every forum I have ever been on, just cos people cannot envisage a life changing event(think NON total extinction event) they then poo-poo anyone who does and I get the accusations of paranoia, anything is possible and I rule nothing out, they way the country and the world is going I am expecting some LC(life changing) event sooner rather than later, my plans are all encompassing not just for this or that event.

I don't think anyone is poo-pooing what you are saying at all and without discussing it how do we know we have even considered everything.

After all your idea of a chain of events is actually far more feasible than a single event having a global impact.

For example, who's to say that what is happening in Iraq today doesn't escalate far beyond its borders, starting with Gas and Oil supplies and then, given the situation in the likes of Libya; Egypt; Israel; Syria going into a fully flung Mediterranean War as predicted by Nostradamus, that would then involve the whole of Europe in one way or another and with radicalised individuals and groups present throughout many countries, it could soon spread even further... this then causes economic and societal collapse etc etc.... Just a thought......

[bigpaul]

no, the "poo-pooing" I was referring to was on another particular forum of which you and I are both members!! I have never thought just one event would be the catalyst(unless its all out global nuclear war-in which case the whole human race is doomed) but more of a cascade effect of several events running on from each other.

[Jace]

An epidemic comes to mind.
Upwards of 50 million people died in the 1918-1919 flu, which spread to all corners of the globe, and in the days before planes could mean a flu carrier was in one country in the morning and on the other side of the world in the evening.

[Mortblanc]

Prep for an end of the world event that will probably never happen just because there is a one in a million chance it might happen???

I don't think so.

On about 15 occasions in my life I have packed up everything I own in a big truck and taken them to a different house. That is an event that has actually happened.

But I still feel no compulsion to buy a moving van.

[bigpaul]

I don't know about a "once in a million" chance, the way the world is going I think its already a lot closer than that, in any case I don't want to be caught out, I want to be ready because I think its a case of sooner rather than later, and I don't want to be in the same boat with all the sheeple.

[iaaems]

I read something recently that indicated that the Earths magnetic structure was slowly changing and that this seemingly would affect the Western World sooner than elsewhere. As we all live in a sea of magnetic energy and our 'modern' lives simply depend upon it I would see this as a Global Risk albeit one that develops slowly giving 'us' time to plan ahead if at all possible.
I will try to find the source of this info and post a link if I can.

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With regard to my previous utterance - I read this item on the European Space Agency website, it comes under the heading Swarm which refers to some research being done through a trio of satellites specifically to measure the earths magnetic field. There are some educational videos there as well if I remember correctly.

[CharlesHarris]

Whenever geomagnetic reversals happened in the past, it did not devastate life on Earth. So don’t worry about it. It is unlikely to happen in our lifetime, probably not for hundreds of thousands of years. And even if the Earth’s poles flip, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. You might need to take a sharpie to your compass though.

Read more:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/feature...ersal.html
http://www.universetoday.com/110475/what...z35CL9aO2N

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I am more worried about nuclear war than polar shift, as it is much closer to our current reality:

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/five...ppen-10665

Tom Nichols is a professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and an adjunct professor in the Harvard Extension School. He also taught at Dartmouth College, Georgetown University (where he also received his PhD), and other schools and lecture programs.

http://tomnichols.net/blog/about-tom/

[Rubismardi]

A very interesting and far reaching question.

Nuclear Terrorism, Bio Terrorism, E.M.P or maybe just a good old fashioned outbreak of H1N1.

But, fear kills more. Fear causes non-action, it causes once sympathetic and caring countries to turn to isolation as they try to protect themselves.
The Black Death may have reduced the World’s Population by 20% - between 75 & 100 million. So what country wants to send in medical help to battle that disease with all the fear the name conjures up.
H1N1 took care of between 3% and 5% of the world’s population between 1918 and 1920, between 50 and 100 million.

What about a terrorist organization operation in this country? It would have a devastating effect on the country by deliberately infecting livestock with Foot and Mouth disease.
Easily manufactured I’m told.
In the 2001 outbreak in this country over 10 million sheep and cattle were destroyed.
And it still spread abroad, with the Netherlands eventually slaughtering at least 250 million cattle.

Now one event might be unlikely to bring a EOTWAWKI situation, but what about a disease and an EMP?

Travel restricted, comms, power transport and all 20th century technology down in this country. And a disease.

Who we gonna call then?