Assessing Probability and Future Risks

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash Progressive makes it easy Just drop in some details about yourself to see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies The process only takes minutes and could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive. com after this episode to see if you could save Progressive casualty insurance compomany and affiliates. Potential savings will vary not available in all states I started Orna not in twenty thirteen and we make bike apparel. The best part of Shopify for me is our ability to run the business as essentially non technical people. We're able to admin everything on the back end, front end, and sell things online easily. If Shopify were a bike accessory, I think it would actually be the bicycle It's the thing that you do the thing on. We run the business on Shopify. Start your free trial on shhopify. com Hello, Hello and welcome to shorthand Doom edition. We do quite a lot of doom on shhorthand. We do, but the people like it. Do know what was thinking about on my bike this morning?. We recently had a sales meeting where we were told Rather disappointingly, that true crime Even though we've been doing this for nearly ten years It' still quite a hard to sell And they were talking about something other top secret non aral credit And they're like, you know, and that that's not true crime. So it's an easier sell because it's, you know popular hosts talking about not true crime. and what I should have said is yeah, like shorthand 'cause that's what this show show what this show is So hopefully you know, keep listening and prove Hannah and us, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah You guys like to listen to us talk about things that aren't true crime We already areed maybe. I' so annoyed I didn't connect those dots in them anyway, never mind. Never mind Humanity like true crime sales are doomed. Absolutely. Forever and ever and always, between the endless grinding warfare, increasing political polarisation and environmental decline pushing the doomsday clock ever closer to midnight It is absolutely no wonder that we feel So I blessed But it's okay. good news is No it matters because Any moment now, we might experience an explosion that emits the power of over one thousand atomic bombs every second. Oh thank God. My Russian friend texts me this morning after Centralia went out She was like, Do you know about that time Russia put out a massive fire with a nuclear bomb? was like No They kept that one quiet. No Gassia, I don't know about that. Overall bad, but it works which if just a man appears in her room to silence her What are am I we talking about? I'm talking about an explosion. so fier that it would reduce the world's most powerful country to an ash covered wasteland which spiritually it already is An explosion that would cover our entire planet in a thick black cloud, sending temperatures plummeting and all but eliminating the food supply of the entire Northern heemisphere This explosion If It was feeling particularly Gnarly could lead to the extinction of the entire human race In a matter of months, I always think that in zombie films, I'm like, I don't think I'd try to survive Give it a good for a while Yeah, know, I'd be like, Oh thank God. It's over. doneone. I don't have to do this anymore I think I did tell you this, but during COVID, my friends and I were like, Hanging out socially distancing in the park, one day on one of our government allowed walks. You were smoking weed,' what you were doing. And we were And your mum walked past like If you could have one drug when the world ends, what would it be? And then we're like what would be more fun is if you had a bag full of all different types of drugs and everyone lucky dips. Whatever you get, you get, you gotta take it and we're still hanging out together. How's that going go mightight make them more fun Hoine straight heroin, obviously obviously. But you don't get to pick 'cause they're lucky d. Oh right, it's the only correct answer I better get something awful, like fucking What be the worst one? Methadrone. Dh Hideous Oh, that's really sensiv is down my spine Anyway If all of that happened, There's absolutely nothing we can do about it And that might not make a lot of people feel better feel much better It's like when you have a big argument And then you look at a mountain you're like, Oh Does't matter? Does't matter, does it? Does't matter really does it Now the particular ticking time bomb that Hannah is talking about is sitting in the northeast corner of Wyoming. withithin the Yellowstone National Park. You love Yellowstone. I fucking love Yellowstone. I haven't been to the actual place Yellowstone. I would love to go. It looks fucking amazing But I am obsessed with the TV show Wer So today, Yellowstone, other than My favorite TV show for a short part of this year is one of the U.S.'s most visited national parks famous for the very beautiful yellowstone caldera Plus, its's famously reliable geeiza, oldld Faithful The park covers nine thousand square kilometers. mostly from the northwestern part of Wyoming, plus a bit of Idaho and Montana And it contains the largest above sea level volcano. suuper volcano at that And below this supervolcano is a vast magma chamber with the potential to blow And there are those that say the volcano could be nearing an eruption for the first time in over six hundred forty thousand years Kind of sounds like it's Jew one, doesn't it And judging on its previous performance, things could get pretty dicey So join us, if you will for a little look at exactly how royally fucked we would be as a species if the Yellowstone volcano blew its top How likely is it? When could it happen And is there anything We can do about it This is the shorthand For centuries, people quite understandably thought that volcanoes were supernatural in some way, like in Mowana. We can't even imagine what the olden daysers would have made of a vast exploding mountain that at any moment could start spewing red hot molten lava, fire and acid rain Some civilizations started to describe volcanoes as the expression of some earthly fury, some sense of divine justice Ppending doom. And others, like the Greeks and the Romans, believed them to be the fires and forges of the gods. But eventually We started to do science and we wised up a bit Which brings us to the inevitable question of is a volcano. I don't know I just had a realization that I don't know But it's okay It's like one of those dreams. you'll sat in your geography GCSC exam and you're like I didn't think I even did Geography Jesus here. I was like, I'm out this bit. No. I wantna learn about the Nazis from the Nazis only Anyway, it doesn't matter that I don't know Because Sus brought a revision guide. I loved, I loved a revision guide. I did too. CGP in particular T. I found a What of my old school report And because I didn't know I had ADHD in school. And in my defense, the medical community didn't know that girls had ADHD when I was at school And I definitely remember feeling like, I'm not I know I'm not stupid. I just can't function in the way I'm being asked to function, which now obviously makes sense In my school report it was like because I never have thought myself of being a particularly naughty person Hanah is very disruptive Hanah does not sit still Hannah interrupts everybody. Hannah shows absolutely no interest in trying. Volanoes literally that h was that Like so many different teachers are like Hannah is gonna have to revise a lot Be I just didn't listen. Oh wow to the room. And now we know why Now we know That's the main thing. Executive dysfunction, my friends Okay, I'm gonna try really hard. I might have to make some flashcards. Okay So the boring definition Is it a volcano any place on any planet. where material from the inside of said planet makes its way through to the outside Now, the middle of our planet is really, really, really, really hot because A It's still hot from when it was formed be from the decay of radioactive elements And see it's really hot because gravity and pressure keep pulling dense material to the center The core stays hot because it's covered in so much stuff that it's really hard for heat to escape So it stays at around a steady six thousand degrees Celsius. That's ten thousand Fahrenheit for all you, Americans Now between that core and the outer crust is the mantle Bgest layer. It's still hot. but still mostly stays solid because the pressure on it is so great that it can't melt But when it does melt It makes its way through the next bit to crust And the movements of the outer crust are ruled by Pleck Tectonics Tectonics of school you did. I know Just it's nice to say like precipice Yeah. Tectonic. It's a nice word to say betweenet the mantle and outer crust Of is a hard layer of something called The lithosphere It's made up This is divided into seven huge plates and a few smaller ones And these plates slip and slide over the mantle, lubricated by a soft layer of And Nhosphere And there are reasons for that That's not my problem Not today. Not today. It will be when we do a shorthand on that Yeah No probleomises Anyway, the point is the boundaries between these two spheres is where Magma happens. plates are moving away from each other The molten mantle comes up to fill the gap between the plates and quickly cools to form a new crust And that's a form of valcanism, but a very slow and boring kind that doesn't have anything to do with world ruining explosions Blates are moving towards each other And they collide When the cool shit happens veryer slowly One plate usually wins and pushes the other plate underneath it in a process called subduction as loser plate is pushed down into the hot, dense, pressurized molten mantle It heats up. And that whole process causes the mantle rock to melt into magma, which is less dense than the rest of the mantle This is a paid advertisement for better Hel. 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Potential savings will vary notot available in all states The best summer pieces are the ones you end up wearing on repeat Comfortable, versatile, and somehow right for almost every occasion That's why I love Qintinces They make elevated essentials using premium materials like European linen, organic cotton, and washable silk all without the eyroll inducing retail markup we've come to expect Everything at Quintince is priced fifty percent to eighty percent less than similar brands They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middleman So you're paying for quality rather than a fancy brand name Lately, I've been reaching for Quince's gorgeous fourteen cararat gold jewelry pieces, as the finishing touch to elevate all of my outfits Because honestly, a simple gold hoop transforms me into a chic girl who's got her life together Make your summer wardrobe feel easier. Go to quince dot com slash red handed for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too That's Qu INcE d. com slash red handed for free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns Quintince d. com slash red handed Have you been sitting on an amazing business idea, but you're just not sure how to get started, Shopify can help you with everything you need to make it happen Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide From household names like Matel and Gyms Shark to small businesses just getting started The multifunctional platform includes tools like Shopify Checkout, which helps convert your customers' baskets into real sales, with cool features like saving checkout details for easy repeat sales. Shopify makes it a total breeze. When we first started selling merch for red handed, it was such a relief to actually see people buying it and coming back for more And because Shopify handles the setup and checkout process, it gives you more time to focus on actually growing your business. With Shopify notothings stand between your idea and a real business So go make it one Start your free trial at shhopify d. com slash red handanded. That's shhopify d. com slash red handanded Imagine I'm holding a football underwater. o The air in the ball is less dense than the water. So, it shoots up and out to the water. Yes, delighting everyone and hopefully starting some sort of spontaneous game ofolleyball C' confirm that's what happened The less dense molten magma to move up with a lot of force Itsucking hot and it melts more rock as it goes Building more and more MacMac collecting in huge magma chambers below the Earth's surface And if the pressure gets high enough and or a crack opens up. It explodes out of the ground just like your little model one when you add a baking soda. As well as magma, the real ones can spit out fiery clouds which race down mountainsides, destroying almost everything in their paths Ash is also blown high into the air and falls back on earth like powdery poison snow blankets of ash cover everything in the surrounding area can suffocate all living things nearby When hot volcanic materials mixed with water from streams or melted snow and ice, and form mud flows which can also bury entire communities. Before we get to Big Daddy Yellowstone We're going to start with a few famous modern eruptions to give you some context Volcanic power is measured on the Volcanic Explosivity Index eat I And that is measured on how much stuff volcanoes spew out and how frequently they do it So it's important to keep in mind this is a logarithmic scale. Which means increases Tenfold Fty five years ago in Washington State The Mount Stain. Helens eruption of nineteen eighty was the most disastrous volcanic eruption in US history with the thermal energy equivalent twenty six megatons of TNT The eruption shocked eighty thousand feet into the air, covering a twenty two thousand square mile radius with five hundred forty million tons of ash. Mudslides reached as far as fifty miles away. fififty seven people were killed thousandousands of animals Hundreds of square miles were reduced to wasteland And it costs the U.S government over a billion dollar redooues in damage which is just under four billionars in today's money Since it's about the same size, we'll lump Mount St. Helens in with probably the most famous blass in history. and namesake of many is it the Vesvian eruption wiped out Pompeay That one released one hundred thousand times the thermal energy released by the Hiroshima Nagasaki bombings and buried a whole town twenty feet of ash and pumice. And I've been there. Have you been? I haven't been. Haven't you? No It's worth it. Hercalaneum also worth it which is next door, but no one talks about it because it wasn't preserved as well because it was like battered with like actual rock rather than pummets Anyway, all in, both Vesuvius and Mount Stain. Helens spewed out zer point two five cubic kilometers of material, giving them both a VEI score of Then, in eighteen eighty three Volcanic island of Krakatoa in what's now Indonesia, but back then belonged to the Dutch The volcano experienced repeated months long eruptions worst one so violent Island collapsed. forming what's known as a caldera Isn't that Mexican restaurant we sometimes go to called Caldera? Yes. Interesting What does it mean in Spanish ron. So something like that Yeah Okay, yeah in Latin American Spanish cauron Okay, cool Quick explanation of caldera and we're not talking about the cauldron, and we will need this later, so listen out. When a volcanic eruption is powerful enough, it expels so much material that when the vast magma chamber below it empties The ground above sinks into it Oh my Godd, that's horrifying. That's like ing a z it And then there was so much pus. underneath it, that part of your face collapses into the hole that' under posit Everyone visualizing that It basically forms an enormous bowl shaped land for around where the summit used to be The Krakatoma explosion was so violent, it was heard almost five thousand miles away That's like from here to Pakistan And it didn't just spew out unbelievable levels of fiery volcanic stuff. It also caused A series of epic tsunamis which fucked up a lot of surrounding coastlines thirty six thousand four hundred and seventeen people died For about a year after the eruption huge floating sections of pumice. We're floating up as far away as Africa. sometometimes carrying poles of human skeletons How don' I know about that? I know Krakatawa blew out twenty five cubic kilometers of stuff ten times as much as Pompeii. Giving it a solid and very respectable six on the VEI Th then, in the same kind of era about fifty years earlier, was the eighteen fifteen Tambora eruption in Indonesia again, fock. Yeah Ring a fire, baby And that was the most powerful eruption in recorded human history Here's what happened. Lava flows killed basically all plant and animal life on the island, and out of twenty six thousand residents, just twelve survived Clouds of dust brought the entire area into total darkness Geologist Charles Yell said The darkness occasioned in the daytime by the ashes in Java was so profound that nothing equal to it was ever witnessed in the darkest night. I didn't know geologists were allowed to be poets. Do you have a duel honors, do you, Charles The Tambora volcano spewed one hundred and fifty cubic kilometers of ash, pumice and other rock into the air and that is a VEI of seven So that's over six hundred times as big as Pompeii who's zero point two five square kilometers startings look Pretty easasly now With Tambora, it didn't just affect the island It wasn't even limited to Southeast Asia It literally rocked the world eighteen sixteen became known as the Year Without a Summer cloud spread across the globe bringing with them massive amounts of sulfur dioxide and other aerosols and These aerosoles and all of this gas that was being released by these clouds reflected sunlight back away from the Earth and caused global temperatures to plummet. North America and Europe sow temperatures. Beyond belief, the Thames froze over in the middle of summer And New England had snow in July. Across the Northern hemisphere, crops failed, sparking famines across the world and where they weren't full on famines There were huge food shortages and massive price spikes A fun fact about Tambora It's why we have Frankenstein Wh none of that was bubbling away eighteen year old Mary Shellley travelled to Geneva, Switzerland with her sister and her famous poet lover Cercy Shelly He was still married So he and young Mary were skipping town for a few years whilst the heat died down. And in Geneva, they met the poet and arch fuck boy Lord Byron And outside of their stupid little lives The entire world was going Apocalypt And while all of them were holed up in a little villa in Geneva Mary wrote The thunderstorms that visit us are grander and more terrific than I have ever seen before And one night in the height of summer gale force winds and beating rain trapped them in that villa for days So they challenge each other to write a ghost story And the story is that Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein in one night Didn't I wish because it's a lovely story She started it You finished that in that house we wanted to buy Exactly Yeah H on I saw on I don't remember. It was in a daily mail. Yeah. and it was just like The house that Mary Shelley had lived in and came up for sale and we were like Shall we just buy it and say it's our office and live there forever? It was beautiful. It was beautiful The best summer pieces are the ones you end up wearing on repeat comomfortable, versatile, and somehow right for almost every occasion That's why I love Qintinces They make elevated essentials using premium materials like European linen, organic cotton, and washable silk all without the yroll inducing retail markup we've come to expect Everything at Quintince is priced fiftycent to eighty percent less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middleman. So you're paying for quality rather than a fancy brand name Lately, I've been reaching for Quince's gorgeous fourteen cararat gold jewelry pieces, as the finishing touch to elevate all of my outfits Because honestly, a simple gold hoop transforms me into a chic girl who's got her life together. Make your summer wardrobe feel easier. Go to quince dot com slash red handed for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too That's Qu INcE d. com slash red handed for free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns Quintince d. com slash red handed Have you been sitting on an amazing business idea, or you're just not sure how to get started? Shopify can help you with everything you need to make it happen. Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide, from household names like Matel and GymsShark to small businesses just getting started The multifunctional platform includes tools like Shopify Checkout, which helps convert your customers' baskets into real sales. withith cool features like saving checkout details for easy repeat sales. Shopify makes it a total breeze. When we first started selling merch for red handed, it was such a relief to actually see people buying it and coming back for more And because Shopify handles the setup and checkout process, it gives you more time to focus on actually growing your business. With Shopify nothing stands between your idea and a real business So go make it one Start your free trial at shhopify. com slash red handanded That's shhopify d. com slash red handanded All these eruptions we've mentioned so far are among the worst in recorded history The se Recorded history Ready A very long time Geologically speaking at least And boy boy, door ouptions get a lot worse than that Especially if we circle back to our old friend Yellowstone biggest explosion produced two thousand square kilometers of matter Bning it A solid eight on the VEI. plplacing it among the most powerful volcanoes in history. Yes, Yellowstone is part of a very exclusive club known as the Supervolcanoes And you get your supervolcano badge if you have an eruption with a VEI It's a pretty elite group there for you. Only twenty volcanoes have ever made the grade Gister has done it twice. Oh no. Yeah. And these supervolcano eruptions happen about once every hundred thousand years And there's only been two since Homo sapiens have been kicking around. The most recent one in New Zealand erupted twenty six thousand years ago During the last ice age Tapo. That was where u Oh Machioed man Cricket upire got edge chuckped into the river was his name? You wrote it Peter Plumy Walk botom. Sir Yellowstone's largest eruption was two point one million years ago And that reached a very tasty two thousand four hundred and fifty cubic kilometers of expelled matter another eruption came one point three million years ago And that was two hundred and thirty kilometers of expelled stuff which is still less But still doubled Tambora And then it came back with a bang More recently, just over. Thousand kilometers spewed out sixix hundred thirty thousand years ago onene left a fifty five kilometer depression in the earth, forming the caldera that we see today. which is why it's more craggy crater than nice neat mountain shappe And back then, Homo sapiens still hadn't evolved We were still sort of at the mononkeyman ancestor stage of our development maybe Graham Hancock is right which she is. That's what wiped him out Pelver Okay, so the big question in the words O greatest per of all time T' company, but three's a party What would happen If Yellowstone erupted twice a Nothing good if Yellowstone released another super eruption First would be the earthquakes As magma started to surge upwards would be broken up and pressure would build Devastating earthquakes for weeks or even months Then one day The volcano itself would start to blow with an energy output equivalent to a thousand Hiroshima bombs every second Even just the shock waves from this could kill ninety thousand people straight off the bat Thousands of square kilometers of rock, ash and gas would be shot up to thirty miles into the air clloud would spread out in all directions darkening skies over pretty much the entire continent of North America and raining down volcanic ash over the entire mainland US. Everything in a hundred mile radius would be covered in molten lava pyroclastic flows which is a fast moving avalanche of gas and rock debris that moves at four hundred miles an hour and reaches around a thousand degrees Celsius Hot, dense clouds of ash would spread further at about fifty miles per hour, scoallding, suffocating, and knocking down anyone it catches up to It just feels so bonkers That it's like. I feel like it's funny as I'm reading it Yeah, That's why I was laughing. Pyroclastic. It's the pyroclastic flow. out. But it moves at four hundred miles an hour. God Whatever. Pass me the bag of heroin I wouldn't even have time You'd be explaining the rules of the lucky dip and everyone be like, It's not your turn. Oh fuck If you, listener, live in Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado, Montana, or Uah You are especially out of luck Those states in their entirety would be totally buried with a thick layer of hot volcanic ash, a metre and half deep If you live in Denver, Oalt Lake City, or Boise which is an Idahoe, You're to get fully pa Imagine some later race, Pompeiing Salt Lake City and being like, this is how they all lived. Practice of multiple wives was very common These two young boys seem to be tethered together. We're not entirely sure why some sort of sexual kink, perhaps They all truly believed that Gard N Eden was in Jackson County Missou stop. That's the only thing from our entire culture that's preserved Wow so we should write that book Anyway Then ten meters of hot ash and debris would cover Washington, Oregon, South Dakota, the whole of Utah and Nevada killing plants and animals, eliminating entire ecosystems. crushing buildings and destroying infrastructure. And so on and so forth. With the exception of the very southern tips of Florida and Texas, the entire continental US would be covered in a layer of ash. Everyone outside of the immediate death zone would experience serious respiratory problems. pllus contaminated water and a destroyed power grid The farmland in all of the country's most important agricultural centers would be poisoned for decades afterwards. Food production would plummet and the US would have to rely on food imports. and their tariffs to survive So yes, the US would be absolutely comprehensively actually But it wouldn't be prettyty for the rest of us either The volcano would keep pumping out volcanic ash, gas, magma, and debris into the air for weeks or even months the world would be plunged into a volcanic winter. Remember that year without a summer back in eighteen sixteen that we told you about when it snowed in July Well,