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divad
Trad climber
wmass
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Topic Author's Original Post - Sep 13, 2017 - 02:27pm PT
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1. Trump
2. Kim Jong-Un
3. Asteroids
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Ksolem
Trad climber
Monrovia, California
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Sep 13, 2017 - 02:53pm PT
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I don't think a Korean War would end all life on earth, even if it involved nukes (not that I want to see it happen.) I just looked up the stats for our South Pacific nuke tests. I am stunned to see that between 1948 and 1962 we set off 102 nuke tests. If that didn't do it, one more in Seattle and a couple of ours in NK won't make much difference.
This lists three sets of tests, from wiki:
Operation Redwing (1956)[edit]
Main article: Operation Redwing
Seventeen nuclear weapons were detonated on the Bikini and Enewetak Atolls as part of Operation Redwing in 1956. Many of them were designed to prove the feasibility of numerous thermonuclear weapon designs, with yields ranging from around 2 to 5 Mt.
Operation Hardtack I (1958)[edit]
Main article: Operation Hardtack I
Thirty-five weapons were detonated at the Bikini Atoll, Enewetak Atoll, and Johnston Island as part of Operation Hardtack I in 1958.
Operation Dominic (1962)[edit]
Main article: Operation Dominic I and II
Thirty-six weapons were detonated at sites in the Pacific Ocean in the vicinity of Christmas Island and Johnston Atoll as part of Operation Dominic I. Though these tests were not conducted in the Marshall Islands, they are officially considered part of the Pacific Proving Grounds.[13] The portion of the Dominic series of tests that were high altitude nuclear explosions were known as Operation Fishbowl, though not all were successful (one detonated on launchpad and resulted in a substantial plutonium contamination).[14] Two of the tests were of operational weapons systems—the ASROC anti-submarine rocket and the Polaris SLBM (the latter test, Frigate Bird, was the only operational submarine-launched ballistic missile test with a live warhead ever undertaken by the USA).
Now that asteroid thing is another story. Didn't I read that a big one passed between us and the moons' orbit recently?
edit: This looks pretty epic too:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/massive-sunspots-solar-flares-sun-111955127.html
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divad
Trad climber
wmass
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 13, 2017 - 03:05pm PT
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Seems improbable that a nuclear war involving North Korea would be limited to just the US and N Korea.
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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Sep 13, 2017 - 03:11pm PT
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If we nuke N. Korea 99% chance that china and Russia get in on the game...
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micronut
Trad climber
Fresno/Clovis, ca
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Sep 13, 2017 - 03:13pm PT
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The Supertopo server going down for more than 72 hours.......
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divad
Trad climber
wmass
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 13, 2017 - 03:17pm PT
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^^^ that would end life for only a select few here...
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Rock!...oopsie.
Trad climber
the pitch above you
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Sep 13, 2017 - 03:53pm PT
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To paraphrase Trump, ...sorta:
When the supertopo server goes down, we're not losing our best and our brightest. We're losing washed up has beens, we're losing desk bound lunatic morons, and I assume that we'll be losing some good people.
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tuolumne_tradster
Trad climber
Leading Edge of North American Plate
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Sep 13, 2017 - 03:59pm PT
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Speaking of asteroids...
The asteroid that impacted the Yucatan peninsula around the Cretaceous - Tertiary boundary (~ 60 million years ago) and produced a worldwide Iridium anomaly didn't end life on the planet. In fact, it altered the planet's atmosphere and global climate sufficiently to allow Primates to evolve and eventually flourish. Depending on your perspective, this could be considered a disastrous development that now threatens all life on the planet.
Speaking of nukes...you really should add Tsar Bomba to that list...
The Tsar Bomba is the single most physically powerful device ever deployed by mankind.[27] For comparison, the largest weapon ever produced by the U.S., the now-decommissioned B41, had a predicted maximum yield of 25 megatons of TNT (100 PJ). The largest nuclear device ever tested by the U.S. (Castle Bravo) yielded 15 megatons of TNT (63 PJ) because of an unexpectedly high involvement of lithium-7 in the fusion reaction; the preliminary prediction for the yield was from 4 to 6 megatons of TNT (17 to 25 PJ). The largest weapons deployed by the Soviet Union were also around 25 megatons of TNT (100 PJ) (e.g., the SS-18 Mod. 3 warhead).[citation needed]
The weight and size of the Tsar Bomba limited the range and speed of the specially modified bomber carrying it and ruled out its delivery by an intercontinental ballistic missile. Much of its high-yield destructiveness was inefficiently radiated upwards into space. It has been estimated that detonating the original 100 Mt design would have released fallout amounting to about 26% of all fallout emitted since the invention of nuclear weapons.[28] It was decided that a full 100 Mt detonation would create too great a risk of nuclear fallout, as well as a near certainty that the release plane (and crew) would be destroyed before it could escape the blast radius.[29]
The Tsar Bomba was the culmination of a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapons designed by the Soviet Union and the United States during the 1950s (e.g., the Mark 17[30] and B41 nuclear bombs).
Speaking of Trump
'nuff said ;-)
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WBraun
climber
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Sep 13, 2017 - 04:03pm PT
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The single most dangerous threat to life is your own selves.
Because you people are insane .....
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Reeotch
climber
4 Corners Area
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Sep 13, 2017 - 05:06pm PT
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I just looked up the stats for our South Pacific nuke tests. I am stunned to see that between 1948 and 1962 we set off 102 nuke tests. If that didn't do it, one more in Seattle and a couple of ours in NK won't make much difference.
What the hell is wrong with us.
My Dad (RIP) was a regular at the Nevada Test Site. WTF?????!!!!!
Insanity . . .
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Sep 13, 2017 - 05:38pm PT
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The Werner paradox: The more stoopid, insane and greedy homosapiens act, the sooner our planet will become depleted and toxic for human life, the more urgency there is to infest other planets which will result in the proliferation of interstellar stoopid Americans, all their client species and the random parasites and germs that may accompany.
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10b4me
Mountain climber
Retired
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Sep 13, 2017 - 05:50pm PT
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When the supertopo server goes down, we're not losing our best and our brightest. We're losing washed up has beens, we're losing desk bound lunatic morons, and I assume that we'll be losing some good people.
:-)
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Ain't no flatlander
climber
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Sep 13, 2017 - 05:55pm PT
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Limited nuclear war on the Korean peninsula is quite possible, maybe even desirable. It won't escalate because neither China nor Russia care enough about NK to threaten their own regimes.
So we lose 20-30 million in a small conflict; at least it's over pretty quick. Still better than the 100-200 million that will die of starvation in the US if NK detonates just one EMP about 200 miles above Kansas, plus the worldwide economic meltdown--no need to take out cities.
On the bright side, a limited nuclear war can put just enough material in the atmosphere to stop global warming without causing a 100-year winter. Multiple problems solved!
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Yury
Mountain climber
T.O.
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Sep 13, 2017 - 06:03pm PT
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tradmanclimbs:
If we nuke N. Korea 99% chance that China and Russia get in on the game... tradmanclimbs, you need to limit your consumption of US States Department propaganda (as disseminated by MSM).
Russia has no stake in this conflict and would not intervene.
China would not intervene as well in case US limit their "peacekeeping operation" to air strikes (including nuclear) without deployment of their ground troops.
China would respond only in case of ground attack by US or South Korean troops (to prevent deployment of US troops in North Korea).
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Sep 13, 2017 - 06:11pm PT
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Caucasians feeling of entitlement.
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c wilmot
climber
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Sep 13, 2017 - 06:20pm PT
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China and Russia would most certainly object to a US military presence across the Yalu and tumen rivers...
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Fossil climber
Trad climber
Atlin, B. C.
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Sep 13, 2017 - 07:45pm PT
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Three things?
1. People.
2. People.
3. People.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Sep 13, 2017 - 07:58pm PT
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This was the topic, in an off-handed way, of a grad school seminar in the seventies.
Brief summary . Even a big nuclear war does not necessarily imply the end of (human) life on Earth
Fictionalized accountby Streiber & Kunetka Warday
YMMV
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Sep 13, 2017 - 08:16pm PT
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Trying to draw to an inside straight, so to speak.
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