Supervolcano Disaster Movie

[clouty]

More of a movie than a drama documentary. In the programme afterwards, "the facts", they stated once that it could happen tomorrow or not for 100,000 years. But only the once did they state this. And only the once, these figures on previous eruptions - vis 2.1 million years ago, 1.4 million years ago, 635 (or so) million years ago. And now it is shown as if it is about to happen now... but it will be worse, according to the programme makers, than it ever was before.

Is the threat of natural disasters the new enemy without?

I hate the was the beeb has dumbed down and sensationalised their 'reality' output.
BC (before children) I used to help make such programmes. We were a lot more careful to present a balanced outlook.
What do others feel about the concluding part of Supervolcano last night?

/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

 

[jimi]

I thought it was fascinating BUT I did have to reassure my daughter that it was very unlikely to happen in her or her descendant's lifetimes!

 

[Das_Boot]

I watched the first half of the documentry a load of crap. I however would not waste another minute of my life on it. As you say I have seen some of the best programming in the world on the BBC and I suppose what pisses me off is the downward spiral, one does not expect the BBC to produce such crap.
I thought the BBC was the last bastion of the well considered documentary etc. maybe I am just getting old.

 

[jimi]

Can't understand why you consider it to be crap. As far as I could see the basis was sound enough scientifically? And if its sensationalised a bit to grab attention, then so what .. at least it got my daughters watching and asking questions. They now have more scientific knowledge than prior to the programme, so that's good is it not?

 

[DJE]

I don't really see what they were trying to achieve with this apart from ratings of course. The science was covered much better in a Horizon programme a year or two back. But lets face it Hollywood has done much worse when it comes to bending the science to fit the story. Did anyone see "The Day After Tomorrow"?
They also ducked the issue of mass casualties; they counted up a few hundred thousand in the first few days; but with all of Europe under snow for several years and failure of the Asian monsoons the casualties due to starvation would be in the hundreds of millions or billions.
I can't see any point worrying about events like this. The risk is tiny and there is nothing you can do about it anyway.

 

[IanPoole2]

Seemed quite a good yarn to me. The documentary that followed it on Beeb 2 was quite interesting.
As a drama it was OK - as a piece of Science probably a bit doubltful.

 

[jimi]

Interesting Fact sheet here

 

[oldharry]

Movie makers do just love predicting the end of the world, dont they! The thing that annoyed me was the claim that what they presented was "FACT - it just has not happened yet"

Just as we have not yet been smashed by a rogue Asteroid, drowned by a mega Tsunami from La Palma, or have so far failed to blow ourselves to radioactive dust.

The only FACTUAL element in what I saw last night was the President of the USA (FEMALE!) running away to leave 25 million Americans to perish..... that seems remarkably close to the likely truth! Unlike Independence Day where cleancut all American Mr President takes a jet fighter up and personally saves the world..... Cannot somehow see George doing that, can you?

Just goes to prove that life can never be sanitised and made safe. If it was, Blair would have banned sailing as a 'dangerous and life threatening activity' long since!

 

[boatmike]

Good lord! Hate to admit it Jimi but I agree with you. Seems most forumites either don't watch properly or listen to what is said. It was meant to be a fictional dramatisation of what could happen and was followed on BBC 2 with a scientific program. Seems nobody watched that.....
I think what is happening here is the same people that recently said global warming is crap thought this program was crap. Seems the ostriches among us dont want to know what could happen even if it's long odds. Heads back in the sand you lot!

 

[Das_Boot]

For those who were to lazy to read the fact sheet in Jimi's post.
Here is a salient point

If another large caldera-forming eruption were to occur at Yellowstone, its effects would be worldwide. Thick ash deposits would bury vast areas of the United States, and injection of huge volumes of volcanic gases into the atmosphere could drastically affect global climate. Fortunately, the Yellowstone volcanic system shows no signs that it is headed toward such an eruption. The probability of a large caldera-forming eruption within the next few thousand years is exceedingly low.

How can the bbc turn an exceedingly low probablility into the crap they dished up.

 

[boatmike]

Interesting web site Jimi but nowhere do they mention Yogi Bear........
Is he still stealing pickanic baskets?

 

[Talbot]

Personally I took the programme in the same manner as the movie "The day after tomorrow". A fictional story based on a real high risk with very low probability of occurence. IMHO as a fictional story it worked and had dramatic impact and I for one much prefered to watch this than the 200th version of property make-over that seems to be flavour of the month with most programmers.

If people reckon this was short on warning - they should look at what happened in USA when the first dramatised version of War of the Worlds was transmitted by radio - there was mass panic and hysteria. /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

 

[ubuysa]

[ QUOTE ]
How can the bbc turn an exceedingly low probablility into the crap they dished up.

[/ QUOTE ]
It was a DRAMA. Granted it was presented in a documentary style, but even the BBC labelled it drama. Why shouldn't they take a low probablility real-life situation and hypothesise what it might be like if it happened? Better that than Doctor Who (again) with aliens masquerading as wheelie bins (apparently). I'm sure many people enjoyed Supervolcano for the fictional drama that it was. I did.

Tony C.

 

[milltech]

Sure, I thought it was good too. There's nothing you can do about natural disasters on that probability scale except live with them anyway.

 

[Das_Boot]

I am not talking about the Drama part but the documentary part. I never watched the Drama.

You might as well say what if pigs could fly and make a documentary about that. You could bring in all sorts of experts to discuss the mass of falling pig [censored]. The take off and landing strategy of pigs. We could discuss the forces required to get them airborne ad nauseum.
The health and safety issue can be reserved for a 10hr epic.

We could pay all these experts tons of license payers money we could fly presenters all over the world to discuss other nations strategys on collision avoidence.

Wow there is a whole money making industry out there for these soft brained idiots.

 

[jimi]

I watched the documentary as well and thought it factual and formative. Which particular part aroused your angstire so much?

 

[Das_Boot]

Because the probability of this happening is about as low as pigs flying.

 

[jimi]

OOOOOhh .. I'd imagine when a pig flies it'll fly low and knock your head off!

Actually my take on this is:

The probability of this happening is close to 1 ie its almost absolutely certain to happen. The chances of it happening tomorrow is close to zero ie almost absolutely certainly it will not happen tomorrow.

 

[Das_Boot]

It is in no way absolutely certain to happen.
The crap they talk is just that. They look into the geology and say well this happend before it will happen again. This logic might suite some feeble minded psuedo scientists but it does not hold up.
Many Billions of years ago the earth was completley molten it has been cooling ever since. Now how can you use this cooling to predict a state we will return to when the earth was much hotter. It is crap reasoning the probability decreases with time.

 

[BrendanS]

The reasoning is not weak nor pseudo science. The fact that the earth is not a molten ball any more, does not detract from the fact that very active volcanic sites exist, and that these active sites will erupt from time to time