God I Love the Discovery Channel

[Agent Fisher]

I think so.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Yeah, watching it. Posting this during the break. Also taping it for watching later. I hope they put this out on DVD so I can add it to my disaster movie collection.

One question, that scene in the airliner. What was all that blue crackly looking stuff? I guess it was some sort of electrical discharge, but what was causing it, static electricity from the ash?

Yep. That's exactly what it is. It's sortof like St. Elmo's fire that appears on the masts and superstructure of ships on the ocean during some storms.

[Mr. Coffee]

That last bit in the shelter brought up an interesting question. If faced with waiting and possibly dying of starvation or taking your chances with suffocating from the ash fall, which would you go with? I'm more inclined towards the taking a walk. Beats sitting around doing nothing, gives me a chance, and if I died during the hike, well at least it won't be from starvation.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I'm watching it now, and I really hope the reporter dies. She's a sensationalist twit and deserves what she gets.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Yeah, watching it. Posting this during the break. Also taping it for watching later. I hope they put this out on DVD so I can add it to my disaster movie collection.

One question, that scene in the airliner. What was all that blue crackly looking stuff? I guess it was some sort of electrical discharge, but what was causing it, static electricity from the ash?

As I said, you can at least import the BBC DVD if it isn't released by someone in the States, which seems doubtful, but could happen. The DVD has extras on it such as an hour long documentary on the real supervolcano situation.

[LadyTevar]

I thought the movie was very well done, especially the 'did he die' that haunted us until the very end of the movie.

FEMA forcing Liberman to declare "it's only a small eruption" to the press was something I see our government doing... hell all the downplay FEMA and HomeLand Security did was on target, if you ask me.

The volcano shots were amazing, and so was the final shot of the caldera as taken from space. Actually.. that shot was more frightning than amazing to me, because it looked as big as Texas.

[Steven Snyder]

FEMA forcing Liberman to declare "it's only a small eruption" to the press was something I see our government doing... hell all the downplay FEMA and HomeLand Security did was on target, if you ask me.

Yeah I see that too, but I wonder if it really made any difference because it was only a few hours later that all hell broke loose anyway. The roads were already jammed up...

I really like it, I thought I was going to hate Dr. Lieberman but when I really thought about it I realized there wasn't much he could have done differently. The fricken thing was going to blow and cause a global catastrophe. You just can't prepare for an event that size.

[aerius]

I'm watching it now, and I really hope the reporter dies. She's a sensationalist twit and deserves what she gets.

Yeah, but she sure is hot and if I were single I'd be bending her over good.

[Jason von Evil]

Does no one here actually get Discovery Science? I think it's actually just called the Science Channel but it doesn't have ANY of the crap that the regular Discovery channel plays. It's like non-stop science documentaries. On my cable it's on channel 272 so a lot of people don't even know it exists. Had a hell of a time finding it on my friends satellite service as well but we did find it eventually. It's abbreviated SCICH in my channel guide. Anyone with the most basic cable will likely not get it but if you have digital cable or satellite check it out. I watch all the time.

I do. One of the benefits of having a box. I just wish the Military Channel would stop showing some many programs about planes.

[Shinova]

So assuming Yellowstone does blow (I watched that too. Pretty well-done for a "scientifically accurate mockumentary") what would happen to the USA's status in the world?

It's city centers are a mess, it's businesses are probably at a standstill, so many of its people are dead or homeless, would the USA drop from superpower status? Who would most likely take up the responsibility?

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Such an event would paralyze the United States' economic infrastructure long enough, ruin enough cropland, and overload its emergency management agencies enough to cripple it as a superpower. Of course, the global cooling spawned by such an event could well trigger an ice age that would rapidly send the rest of the industrialized world into the shitter along with the United States.

Fortunately, the odds of Yellowstone ever erupting in a super-eruption like that again are generally described as "insignificant."

[RedImperator]

So assuming Yellowstone does blow (I watched that too. Pretty well-done for a "scientifically accurate mockumentary") what would happen to the USA's status in the world?

It's city centers are a mess, it's businesses are probably at a standstill, so many of its people are dead or homeless, would the USA drop from superpower status? Who would most likely take up the responsibility?

Russia will get pounded by the climate shift worse than anyone. China and India have almost no surplus food production, and will be facing mass famine, especially India (the monsoon failed). I'm not sure if Europe is self-sufficient in food production. If not, they'll starve too.

Africa is so precarious it's fucked no matter what happens. Australia and New Zealand have small enough populations they could ride out the long winter (even if they have to eat a lot of mutton for a while), but those small populations mean they can't capitalize on the situation, either.

Canada's major food production centers are out of the ashfall zone but far enough south they won't get permanantly snowed under. And losing the grain belt hurts the US, but the south and northeast can grow a lot of food (most of southern California's water is piped in from the Colorado, and that's choked with volcanic runnoff). The worst problem the United States will face that nobody else will is the damaged infrastructure under the ashfall east of the caldera.

Overall, the US will fall a long way, but so will everyone else.

[LadyTevar]

So assuming Yellowstone does blow (I watched that too. Pretty well-done for a "scientifically accurate mockumentary") what would happen to the USA's status in the world?

It's city centers are a mess, it's businesses are probably at a standstill, so many of its people are dead or homeless, would the USA drop from superpower status? Who would most likely take up the responsibility?

I believe there was a brief mention in the movie itself that the New York Stock exchange was in a frenzy as the dollar was sinking like a stone, just from the idea that it *could* erupt. After it does... wow. Dollar's probably not even worth a peso. However, there were also scenes of Liberman's wife in England trying to get groceries and the stores selling out. The rest of the world was panicking too, it seems.