# A new start, on a new Earth **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 10, 2015, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467 "2015-01-10T13:34:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/41 "2015-01-12T00:44:40Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > No other fans of the US Pacific NW coast for this? Cool summers, mild winters, plenty of tasty wildlife and sea-life… Southern England has all that, plus abundant natural resources, no volcanoes, no earthquakes, and next to no tsunamis. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/42 "2015-01-12T00:56:40Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Southern England has all that, plus abundant natural resources, no volcanoes, no earthquakes, and next to no tsunamis. Isn’t the climate a lot milder in Northern CA/OR than southern England? Other points make sense, except I think that region also has plenty of natural resources. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/43 "2015-01-12T11:17:26Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > No Africa. > > The issues of Guinea Worms, Sleeping Sickness, & all the rest, make it a rotten choice. Not in Southern Africa (AKA The Cradle of Mankind) - none of that here. But Southern Britain gets my vote as it has better mineral resources in a smaller area. Although I don’t favour splitting up into too many subcolonies - a two- or 3-way split seems optimal… Kit to bring - this is a whole warehouse, so I’d bring a couple of small wooden sail boats in addition to all the farming/building/knowledgebase stuff everyone else said. Definitely horses and chickens. Either goats or sheep. Dogs & cats. And I’d go if I could go with my wife and kids. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/44 "2015-01-12T11:38:45Z")
Some of the valley areas of inland Colombia get my vote. Travel via river is feasible. Loads of mineral resources. Major coal reserves. Significant oil resources once the population grows to that point. Temperate weather due to altitude. Amazing variety of microclimates good for raising all sorts of agriculture goods and livestock year-round. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/45 "2015-01-12T12:21:47Z")
> [@Iggy](#): > > Some of the valley areas of inland Colombia get my vote. Travel via river is feasible. What about mosquitoes and malaria? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/46 "2015-01-12T13:48:39Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > What about mosquitoes and malaria? Malaria is an African disease, as are dengue, West Nile and Yellow Fever, the other major mosquito-borne killers. ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/47 "2015-01-12T17:22:13Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Malaria is an African disease, as are dengue, West Nile and Yellow Fever, the other major mosquito-borne killers. Is this a joke? Malaria and dengue are endemic in many South and Central American areas, as is Yellow Fever which just about made the Panama Canal project un-doable. See the CDC website for maps of each. ETA: I admit I don’t have data on the locations of these diseases 1 million years ago, though. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/48 "2015-01-12T20:05:27Z")
Dengue is not widespread at the higher altitudes where temperate climate is found. By going tropical but to a higher altitude you can get the benefits of a year round growing season with more moderate temperatures. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/49 "2015-01-12T20:35:41Z")
Well according to Wikipedia, the parasite that causes malaria is 50-100 000 years old and it’s spread was greatly aided by human agriculture (more standing water for mosquito breeding). I reiterate what I said above: we’d be pretty uncertain what kind of diseases we’d be facing. You cant talk about the diseases we know now what region would be good. Many of the diseases we worry about developed along with humans. The diseases of this unspoiled Earth never saw a human. A very knowledgeable and equipped medical group would be required. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2015, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/50 "2015-01-12T23:13:04Z")
But those diseases have also no exposure to our antibiotics, so they haven’t developed resistance to them. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/51 "2015-01-13T01:53:40Z")
> [@USCDiver](#): > > Is this a joke? Malaria and dengue are endemic in many South and Central American areas, as is Yellow Fever which just about made the Panama Canal project un-doable. See the CDC website for maps of each. > > ETA: I admit I don’t have data on the locations of these diseases 1 million years ago, though. It’s controversial because pre-Columbian records are sparse, but there’s reason to think that malaria didn’t make the jump across the Atlantic until Europeans started the slave trade: [http://www.pnas.org/content/109/2/511.abstract](http://www.pnas.org/content/109/2/511.abstract) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/52 "2015-01-13T06:10:43Z")
> [@USCDiver](#): > > Is this a joke? Malaria and dengue are endemic in many South and Central American areas, as is Yellow Fever which just about made the Panama Canal project un-doable. See the CDC website for maps of each. > > ETA: I admit I don’t have data on the locations of these diseases 1 million years ago, though. They were _all_ brought there post-1492. They would not exist in Colombia if you jump straight there (and don’t bring them from your Earth, of course). Botflies, on the other hand… ---
**Author:** ![Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrogance_ex_machina/32/192_2.png) [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogance_Ex_Machina)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/53 "2015-01-13T10:20:43Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > But those diseases have also no exposure to our antibiotics, so they haven’t developed resistance to them. What’s the minimum tech level to keep manufacturing antibiotics, though? The hypothetical colony is going to have to say goodbye to a lot of modern medicine, sooner or later. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2015, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/54 "2015-01-13T12:15:32Z")
> [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](#): > > What’s the minimum tech level to keep manufacturing antibiotics, though? '30/'40s tech is all you need. Probably not even that. If you travel there with the right cultures all ready, you should be able to sustain and increase them in (sterile) clay pots and the like. It’s identifying and testing the cultures that were the initial hurdle, then developing the best growth medium. That work’s all been done, so in the ||earth, it’s sustaining the cultures that will be all the work. Think of it like having several sourdough starters on the go at once, kind of thing. I imagine a position like Keeper of the Cultures will be a socially significant one. Of course, eventually the ||earth microbes will evolve resistance, but hopefully by then the colony will be at tech levels that permit research into new strains. ---
**Author:** ![Watchtower](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/67e7ee/32.png) [@Watchtower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Watchtower)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/55 "2015-01-15T00:00:16Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > 2000 people seems like a lot for an initial colony that will - regardless of what you bring with you barring Star Trek replicators - end up subsistence pretty quickly. > > So break it into 10 groups of 200 in family. Small towns and villages. Hopefully placed at the mouths of rivers without a lot of marshland. > > In the south of England: > Brighton > Portsmouth > Rye > Dover > All those towns along the channel. Maybe even some along the French side > Le Havre > Abbeville > Ostend > > In North America all along the Piedmont Plateau and the Atlantic > Savannah > Charleston > Jacksonville > Wilmington > Norfolk > > Heck, just along the Chesapeake Bay would work: > Norfolk > Washington > Annapolis > Baltimore > Havre de Grace > Elkton > Wilmington, DE > > The important thing is less access to natural resource - though keep the knowledge of locations it’ll come in handy - as access to readily available food supplies. And discounting unspoiled ocean for fish and shellfish and such would be a big mistake. Plus rivers will give easy access to inland areas when the population gets to the point of wanting to do so. > > Heck, all the rivers along west africa and the gold coast would be good, too. > > Or just claim a large island - like the UK, Cuba or Madagascar - as a starter. But it might make the jump to a continent a bigger leap in the future. I like your way of thinking; ten is good. Like the ten kings of Atlantis. Perhaps Atlantis is still above water in this side-earth. So that’s where I’d go, in search of the island of Atlantis. There, each group will have its own king and lots of land, with plains and mountains, rivers, lakes, etc. As described, the island itself provides most of what is required for the uses of life. Supposedly, there was an abundance of wood for carpenter’s work, and sufficient maintenance for tame and wild animals. Moreover, there were a great number of elephants in the island; for as there was provision for all other sorts of animals, both for those which live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on plains, so there was for the animal which is the largest and most voracious of all. Also whatever fragrant things there now are in the earth, whether roots, or herbage, or woods, or essences which distil from fruit and flower, grew and thrived in that land; also the fruit which admits of cultivation, both the dry sort, which is given us for nourishment and any other which we use for food-we call them all by the common name pulse, and the fruits having a hard rind, affording drinks and meats and ointments, and good store of chestnuts and the like, which furnish pleasure and amusement, and are fruits which spoil with keeping, and the pleasant kinds of dessert, with which we console ourselves after dinner, when we are tired of eating-all these that sacred island will offer us , if it still beholds the light of the sun. This awaits us, fair and wondrous and in infinite abundance, if we find the island above water, still. And so with such blessings the earth there gives, we can feel more at ease with taking less with us on the trip. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/56 "2015-01-15T09:12:52Z")
That took a turn… ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ac8455/32.png) [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Great_Darsh_Face)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/57 "2015-01-15T11:46:30Z")
Yeeessss… If I’m part of a small colonising expedition that likely needs every pair of hands doing their part to keep us alive, I’m probably not looking to punt everything on the chance of finding a mythical island when there are a number of known locations that will serve us very well. That may mean passing up on elephants for a long time to come, but I think I can live with that. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/58 "2015-01-15T12:13:17Z")
> [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](#): > > That may mean passing up on elephants for a long time to come Not if you choose Southern Africa 🙂 [Second-nicest weather](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_Route) in the world (after Hawaii) and [elephants](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knysna_elephants). ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/59 "2015-01-15T15:19:26Z")
1. Probably head for the Fertile Crescent, but would want to make sure the climate there is what I think it is/was a million years ago. Similar stipulation for any other location–what is desert/lovely today may well have been lovely/desert at the target site. Also, maps describing all land masses on the planet and known resources/climates so we know where to head next when we need something. 2. As mentioned above, multiple copies of written & environment-protected “how to” books. Specific hardware would be geared for reliability and aimed at developing’ green’ industrial infrastructure–clearly, we’re gonna have to burn a bit of coal to get there, but that sort of thing needs to be a temporary means to a cleaner end. 3. I’d go, but I’d really prefer everyone be screened for religious leanings and eliminated. Not to paint with too broad a brush, but for all the good things religion has given us, the barbarity perpetuated in the name of “proper” worship vastly overshadows the good. Perhaps faith alignment or even diversity can be conditions for one of the other sister ventures into a different universe, but not mine, please. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2015, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467/60 "2015-01-15T15:24:31Z")
Out of curiosity – why the insistence on agriculture? In the right spot, hunting, fishing, and gathering can be a very easy way to make a living. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-new-start-on-a-new-earth/709467.md?page=4)