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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My facepalm was not enough!
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QVQE7ikGTR4/T-W14HfkAHI/AAAAAAAAlvg/LPFkhc8wyFU/s1600/godzilla-facepalm-godzilla-facepalm.jpg
If the Earth stopped spinning… What a lovely GedankenZeit that would be.
Just imagine how tricky that might become.
Not quite as tricky as if the worlds media stopped the gravy-train that CAGW has become but far more believable.
Everyone knows that CO2 is a dense and despotic gas thanks to the illuminations of legions of catastrophists.
.Everyone accepts that concentrations of the demon dioxide greater than 350 parts per million is GUARANTEED to lead to multiple and dastardly tipping-points and the irreversible reduction of Gaia’s angular momentum to zero should come as no surprise.
Kiddies heads exploding is but another 10-10 moment, good buddies.
Welcome to the dizzy, new-world of scientific-discovery as advertised pro-bono (let’s neglect the odd trillion $ or so) by scientifically switched-on and totally dispassionate commentators.
Gawd bless the forces of reason that blast away the dark-clouds of logic, scepticism and numeracy that pervade the growing legions of questioning apostates of the one and only true religion.
(/Scientists against Real Climate- sarc)
If the earth stopped spinning in our lifetimes, the rotational momentum would tear the earth’s crust apart, and we’d all be dead.
@RoyFOMR, the sudden cessation of CAGW gravy-train may be coming, sooner than we think, the desperation and fear is obvious now, and the politicians are deserting.
But a documentary of it, or SF facsimile there of would be a best seller.
Simple fix actually. Westbound speed limits for cars, trucks, trains should be 5 MPH more than eastbound speed limits. North and Southbound can be equal. Roads on a diagonal (NW, NE, etc.) can be adjusted using the sine / cosine ratio of the prevailing compass heading.
The differential momentum transfer from vehicle to Earth times millions of vehicles will have things up to speed again in no time. Nothing you can’t fix with fossil fuels.
(awaiting my shill check from the evil oil companies)
Cheers, Kevin..
Oh, but the science fiction movies on National Geographic are so well written compared to the ones on SyFy! And they obviously have higher production values. Why are you all so down on them?
/sarc
If the current trend continues, the Southern Hemisphere will be completely covered in ice, and the Northern Hemisphere will be completely ice free. This will (I’m sure) cause the earth to capsize! Might cause it to stop spinning, too. Better institute global governance immediately, just to be on the safe side!
(do we have a tag for “I hope it’s sarcasm, but it might not be?”)
National Geographic is wrong because the end of the world is actually going to happen this month … the Mayan doomsday of 21 December 2012. I’ve already booked my ride to the space station!
Imagine if Nat Geo stopped spinning, ……
National Geographic does not have a lot of credibility anymore, its TV programs are suspect, but I kind of enjoy Air Crash Investigation.
Ah yeah, old versions of the Mag are good at doctors and dentist waiting rooms, especially the ones printed before they went gaga on AGW. But good photography is not sufficient.
I don’t think the program ever made the claim that the Earth is ever actually going to stop spinning. I think it’s just a thought experiment of “what would it be like if…” Just like that thing about what would happen if the entire human race disappeared suddenly.
If the world stop spinning our aussie politicians have enough spare spin to set things in motion again.
I have not read the full article so I may have missed something, or not understood what they were saying, but if the Earth stopped spinning (presumably this is a reference to the spin on the axis), why would one be “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…”? Surely if the planet is not spinning one side would be forever in darkness, and the other side forever bathed in sunlight (until the planet was consumed by an expanding sun, or until the sun burnt out).
If the Earth stopped spinning, an Earth day would not be 6 months, it would in effect last for ever (assuming a day is the time required for an object to complete one rotation about its axis).
Either they or I are making a school boy error (I have an excuse,it is just after 5am so a late nighter!)
Richard, if it stopped spinning around its axis *AND* around the sun, then things would be as you say. However, if it just stopped spinning on its axis then yes, you’d get the six month effect.
Re the “deadly solar radiation”: just remember… there is “no safe level of exposure” to that nastiness! Sunscreen and awnings provide only partial protection! Serviced patio dining must be banned! Regardless of what “spin” might be put upon it!
:>
MJM
Is methane hallucinogenic? Sounds like NG has their heads where the Sun don’t shine!
Rotation Tax, that’s what we need.
John Ratcliff,
What a great clip. Thanks so much, I’m moving it around. Song and dance to explain the galaxy and the universe. Wow.
On the plus side, theres a real, genuine, bonafide, hockey stick!
If the Earth, “suddenly stopped spinning” as it refers, I do not see how the friction created underneath our crust wouldn’t melt much of the surface and boil off most of the H2O. Sounds like 2012 doomsday ‘woo woo’ rubbish so… wasn’t interested and won’t waste time.
Philip Peake says:
I think you missed the point, this isn’t an article saying that the earth is about to stop spinning, but its exploring what would be the result. We will have to assume the laws of inertia are suspended so that the crust doesn’t split and fold up allowing magma to run over a large part of the earth, that the atmosphere stops dead too avoiding those 1,000 miles per hour winds at the equator.
In which place wouldn’t Sy-fi be a more appropriate place to broadcast it. It’s hardly a “documentry” if you have to suspend the laws of physics for the basic premise.
Earth will be uninhabitable in about 200 million years due to CO2 depletion unless we continue releasing CO2 from marble, limestone, and carbon fuels. We are actually pretty close to the point where many plants begin to have a difficult time reproducing. Conifers have greatly reduced seed production compared to what a 2x increase in CO2 produces. I think it was a 2x increase in CO2 provides a 9x increase in viable seed production. Broadleaved trees do better because they create their own CO2 supply from decaying leaf matter. But in the end there will be no trees and the grasses will get thinner until there are no plants to support animal life as more and more carbon is scrubbed from the atmosphere into insoluble carbonates and plate tectonics slows down and volcanism can no longer create enough CO2 to keep up with the scrubbing rate.
We’ll be gone long before the sun gets too hot.
Here’s an idea. If we could hook up a dollar launcher that would propel compressed $1 bill pellets with sufficient force, we could keep the Earth spinning forever.
Hilarious that you think Geography is a science- Geo- Earth, Graph- Draw. Its art. So National Geography is doing fantasy art.
crosspatch,
Don’t be silly. We would need at least a $100 million launcher. Probably a $1 trillion launcher, truth be told. Remember, we’re talking government numbers here. Let’s be realistic.
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Don’t have the time or inclination to watch the entire thing – is it just a “what if”? or are they actually suggesting that it’s a real possibility? Even if it’s a just what-if, it seems pretty silly – I imagine that most anyone who’s graduated middle school has at least a vague notion of what would happen if the planet stopped spinning.
Currently, the rotatioinal kinetic energy of our lumpy little spheroid is about 2.138(E)28 joules, or roughly 2.138(E)25, or ten-trillion-trillion, BTUs. That energy would have to be dissipated somehow, on a 5 year time table, and the only possible mechansim I can think of is heat. Let’s see, that comes to 4.2 trillion-trillion (4.2(E)24) BTUs per year, more than 8 million times the yearly energy consumption of the entire planet, or almost 4,000 years worth of solar energy (at about 5.4 trillion-trillion joules/year). So – that would be equivalent to an 800% increase in solar radiation for 5 years? Methinks it would get a little toasty, maybe enough to boil the oceans into space; maybe even enough to slag the entire surface several meters deep. At any rate, it’s a sure bet that, whatever the conditions after the world finally stopped spinning, we would be way past caring.
If they are suggesting it’s a real possibility, are they also suggesting that destructive homo- industrius is somehow to blame? That would be stupidity on stilts.
The classic TV sci-fi 1999 was based on the premise that the Moon decided to leave Earth orbit and head off into space at many times the speed of light to visit other regions of the universe.
Nobody said that was far fetched!