Yet another reason why I no longer subscribe to National Geographic
Turned on my TV today, and this popped up, so of course I had to write about it. This is stupidity on steroids, packaged as psuedo-scientific claptrap entertainment for the gullible. Of course they had to work in the obligatory New York City flooding scene. But what’s worse is Nat Geo’s wholesale failure to even consider basic science before making this garbage.
From their website:
When The Earth Stops Spinning
If the Earth was to suddenly stop our seas and the atmosphere would change so drastically that it would no longer be able to support human life. Looking to a future where one side of the planet is dark and cold for six months at a time, and the other is bathed in deadly solar radiation, this episode explores how long human and animal life might survive in a cruel new, stationary world.
There’s the usual climate porn in this video, roasting temperatures, people fighting for resources, global sea level rise, etc…but what makes this NatGeo docu-wailer extra stupid is the simple math that tells us when the Earth will actually stop spinning. They apparently couldn’t be bothered to do that, since it blows the premise of the whole show right out of the water.
OK here’s the basic science and math relevant to the issue.
The Earth’s rotation around its own axis has been observed (thanks to atomic clocks) to be continuously slowing down. The main reason for this slowing is believed to be due to tidal friction. This is primarily caused by the moon’s gravitational actions on the oceans of the world.
![EarthMoon[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/earthmoon1.gif?resize=622%2C321)
The Earth will still be spinning in ~ 5 billion years when the Sun will turn into a red giant star and obliterate it. Prior to that, due to solar brightening, ~ 500 million to 2 billion years into the future, the Earth is likely to be uninhabitable anyway.
Now compare that to “…this episode explores how long human and animal life might survive in a cruel new, stationary world”
Let me just say whoever produced this garbage science drama for National Geographic could use a good whack upside the head with a solar science book. You can let them know if you feel as I do:
To contact us from the United States, please email comments@natgeochannel.com or go to www.nationalgeographic.com/community/email.html.
You can watch the whole ridiculously bad thing here:
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“Let me just say whoever produced this garbage science drama for National Geographic could use a good whack upside the head with a solar science book.”
And they need an even harder whack with a grammar book.
When they write “If the Earth was to suddenly stop… ” instead of “If the Earth were to suddenly stop…” they have already given sufficient reason for you to stop subscribing.
Everything happens to New York, n’est ce pas?
In fairness it DOES say it will never happen?
Q. When will the Earth stop spinning?
A. When you let go of that tequila bottle.
Ah, let it spin then…
What’s this? The No Spin Zone? Who let O’Reilly into the NatGeo studios?
But seriously, by the time this is even remotely possible (many millions of years, as the doc admits) our own race will have either ceased to exist (by evolution or self-destruction) or left the planet entirely. I also will venture a guess that we’ll not be driving Toyota 4Runners, or whatever the guy drove from Denver to Nebraska.
How can the Earth stop rotating when anyone with a brain knows it is flat? (and warming due to CO2!)
science spin of the year? my #1:
1 Feb: Virgin: Antarctica log 3 – the world will never have another ice age
by Richard Branson
The good news is we now know how to heat up the world. We just release an excess of carbon into it. So any time we’re heading to an ice age again that is what we can do to stop it.
The bad news is that we’re are in danger of releasing so much carbon that we could fry our beautiful earth and our great-grandchildren too.
If we move quickly and get on top of this issue we could regulate the earth’s temperature so that we need never go back into another ice age. And have the best of all worlds.
Work to do!
http://www.virgin.com.au/richard-branson/blog/antarctica-log-3–the-world-will-never-have-another-ice-age
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I do know there are a lot of idiots in the world, I didn’t realize NG was hiring them all.
michaeljmcfadden says:
December 2, 2012 at 3:12 pm
” Heh, I was a bit slow, even for a 13 year old Catholic school boy: I don’t think I’d even NOTICED the breasts by that point: bugs were SOOOOO much more fun!”
Well, this latest science-junk by National Geographic just goes to show that, after all these years, the editors are still just a bunch of boobs…(sorry – couldn’t resist :).
Just remove the paycheck, as in subscriptions etc. Interesting is that the viewership of mainstream media is so lacking yet they perpetuate their demise. Odd, other than the sensationalism is the sell factor.
errr…
well…..
I’d be far too busy flying off into space at 1000 mph to really care about anything else, to be honest.
Anthony, I am puzzled by your incredibly churlish, humorless, unimaginative reaction to this show! Did the NatGeo need to splatter “SCIENCE FICTION” or “SPECULATIVE FANTASY” banners all over that show to avoid knee-jerk reactions? They clearly state that this is purely a speculation, a thought experiment. It isn’t any more offensive than a science fiction novel like Robert Charles Wilson’s “Spin” or the classic “The Day of the Triffids”? For that matter, if instead of the after-effects of the Earth stopping its spin they made a program about the equally impossible “zombie apocalypse”, would you have the same vehement reaction?
REPLY: It’s not presented as science fiction. It is presented on a channel that carries factual documentaries, with no disclaimer as being science fiction. As science fiction goes, it isn’t even good science fiction, because it isn’t remotely plausible. . Tough noogies if my opinion upsets you. At least I have the integrity to put my name to it, unlike your opinion. – Anthony
Run for your life Alfred E. Newman. Your magazine doesn’t stand a chance.
Never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn.
For those SciFi fans among us, the late, great, Roger Zelazny’s excellent “Jack of Shadows” has an interesting take on what would happen if the Earth stopped rotating.
Mike Bromley the Kurd says:
December 2, 2012 at 3:54 pm
Everything happens to New York [City], n’est ce pas?
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That is the due to the prayers of the rest of the state. We really wish New Jersey would annex it.
Grandpa Boris says:
December 2, 2012 at 4:48 pm
Anthony, I am puzzled by your incredibly churlish, humorless, unimaginative reaction to this show! Did the NatGeo need to splatter “SCIENCE FICTION” or “SPECULATIVE FANTASY” banners all over that show to avoid knee-jerk reactions?
Uh, Gramps, ever hear of Al Gore’s documentary?
Look over the August 2010 National Geographic article the “Bahamas Blue Holes”. Note the cyclical, 125,000 year change in ocean level. Note the previous high levels. Note the average global temperature that would be associated with these levels. Draw your own conclusions. I noted that there were periods with the ocean levels as much as ten feet above present in the last million years. Now look through the rest of the magazine. You will find that there are articles describing how it has never been this warm before. If that is true, then how did the oceans get so much deeper so many times before? If the ocean has been deeper many times before, who are we to try and stop what is and has been a natural process for many millions of years? My conclusion is that National Geographic’s is a propaganda tool with pretty pictures to lure you into reading it.
Nobody makes tax policy for zombies, Gramps.
Grandpa Boris says:
December 2, 2012 at 4:48 pm
Yes.
Most of us expect a certain amount of professional science and discovery from NatGeo. But they and others in the mass media stream have been taken over by children who hire children; no other explanation???.
This is expected to happen in the future, after the Dangler, the transportation cable system that hangs from the Moon down to just above the thermosphere, accidentally gets hung up on the Space Elevator.
If I set up up a website downplaying this threat, ignoring the catastrophic consequences, and arguing against prudent precautions; will big oil fund me?
If National Geographic wants to explore unlikely scenarios, why not imagine everyone worked hard for a living.
John Lennon singing:
“Imagine there’s no welfare…”
Nah. Too hard to imagine that. Easier to imagine the world stops spinning…
If I were a good Warmist PR specialist I’d be squirming while watching When the Earth Stops Spinning. Nat Geo is nudging the pendulum of Pop Alarmism towards the absurd, which can’t help the arc of Anthropogenic Global Warming one bit.