# Antienvironmentalist belief in Christian fundamentalism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 11, 2004, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antienvironmentalist-belief-in-christian-fundamentalism/264051 "2004-09-11T16:32:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antienvironmentalist-belief-in-christian-fundamentalism/264051/41 "2004-09-19T18:53:33Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But, look at it this way: Do you honestly believe an all-out nuclear exchange – one that would involve a majority of nuclear warheads now in existence being detonated – would have **less** impact on the biosphere than that comet that wiped out the dinosaurs? I think we really are talking “extinction-level event” here. I believe there was more energy released by the meteor impact than could be released by all our current nuclear stockpiles. Besides, 65 million years later, look how far we’ve come from the impact. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antienvironmentalist-belief-in-christian-fundamentalism/264051/42 "2004-09-19T18:59:06Z")
> [@Qadgop the Mercotan](#): > > I believe there was more energy released by the meteor impact than could be released by all our current nuclear stockpiles. Cite? > [@Qadgop the Mercotan](#): > > Besides, 65 million years later, look how far we’ve come from the impact. Exactly. **65 million years later.** After the extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period, the first modern mammals did not emerge until the Eocene, which began 37.2 million years ago. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic\_timescale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_timescale)) A gap of almost 30 million years. Extinction-level events have **lasting** impact. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antienvironmentalist-belief-in-christian-fundamentalism/264051/43 "2004-09-19T19:25:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Cite? Unable to find at present. > [@](#): > > Exactly. **65 million years later.** After the extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period, the first modern mammals did not emerge until the Eocene, which began 37.2 million years ago. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic\_timescale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_timescale)) A gap of almost 30 million years. Extinction-level events have **lasting** impact. We’ll just have to differ on what we consider to be significant time scales. Once mankind is wiped out, I think anything less than 250 million years is pretty much small-time. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antienvironmentalist-belief-in-christian-fundamentalism/264051/44 "2004-09-19T19:59:29Z")
Estimates of the total energy released by the Cretaceous-Tertiary impact seem to range from [100 teratons](http://muller.lbl.gov/teaching/Physics10/chapters/1-Explosions.htm) to [300 teratons](http://www.gps.caltech.edu/seminars/mineralphysics/022603.html). (A teraton is a million megatons.) Of course, a single impact like that is probably less efficient at mass killing than a larger number of more evenly distributed smaller explosions. Without taking radiation effects into consideration, or any other differences between nuclear or thermonuclear explosions and extraterrestrial impacts, if you simultaneously detonated one relatively modest 20-kiloton nuclear bomb over every square mile of Earth’s surface, you would release the energy equivalent to the explosion of “only” about 4 teratons of TNT, a fraction of the energy of the K-T impact, but I imagine you would do considerably more destruction to this planet’s biosphere. (Not that I am saying this scenario is remotely within the human race’s capabilities; it would require nearly 200 million nuclear weapons; just that making comparisons between different catastrophic events is more than a matter of adding up the megatons and teratons.) ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antienvironmentalist-belief-in-christian-fundamentalism/264051/45 "2004-09-19T21:38:11Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. We humans destroy the biosphere while still preserving ourselves, after a fashion. See Larry Niven’s collection of stories, _The Flight of the Unicorn,_ set on a future earth which is lifeless except for humans, who live under domes, and the “dole yeast” they grow in vats for food. The air outside the domes is polluted and unbreathable. I believe you are remembering incorrectly. The humans of that future, as well as the few remaining dogs, are quite capable of breathing the heavily poluted atmosphere. In fact, they are unable to breathe the much cleaner air of our time and must wear filter helmets during time travel. The many animals which have been retrieved from the past and placed in a zoo, do need special enclosures and the atmosphere is toxic to them. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2004, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antienvironmentalist-belief-in-christian-fundamentalism/264051/46 "2004-09-19T21:42:44Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > I believe you are remembering incorrectly. The humans of that future, as well as the few remaining dogs, are quite capable of breathing the heavily poluted atmosphere. In fact, they are unable to breathe the much cleaner air of our time and must wear filter helmets during time travel. The many animals which have been retrieved from the past and placed in a zoo, do need special enclosures and the atmosphere is toxic to them. You’re right, my bad. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2004, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antienvironmentalist-belief-in-christian-fundamentalism/264051/47 "2004-09-20T06:46:09Z")
> [@](#): > > Viewed in that light (and there are studies to support this theory), it makes total sense. And what studies would those be? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/antienvironmentalist-belief-in-christian-fundamentalism/264051.md?page=2)