Really enjoyed reading this and learned a lot. Thank you for writing it! I’m especially intrigued by the proposal for regional alliances in table 6 — including the added bit about expansionist regional powers in the co-benefits column of the linked supplemental version of the table.
I was curious about one part of the paper on volcanic eruptions. You wrote that eg “Indonesia harbours many of the world’s large volcanoes from which an ASRS could originate (eg, Toba and Tambora eruptions).” Just eyeballing maps of the biggest known volcanoes, the overlap with some island refuges seems concerning. Do we know what ash deposit models say about how much these places would get covered in ash for various kinds of volcanic eruptions in the region and what this would mean for infrastructure and agriculture?
Hi Christian, thanks for your thoughts. You’re right to note that islands like Iceland, Indonesia, NZ, etc are also where there’s a lot of volcanic activity. Mike Cassidy and Lara Mani briefly summarize potential ash damage in their post on supervolcanoes here (see the table on effects). Basically there could be severe impacts on agriculture and infrastructure. I think the main lesson is that at least two prepared islands would be good. In different hemispheres. That first line of redundancy is probably the most important (also in case one is a target in nuclear war, eg NZ is probably susceptible to an EMP directed at Australia).
Really enjoyed reading this and learned a lot. Thank you for writing it! I’m especially intrigued by the proposal for regional alliances in table 6 — including the added bit about expansionist regional powers in the co-benefits column of the linked supplemental version of the table.
I was curious about one part of the paper on volcanic eruptions. You wrote that eg “Indonesia harbours many of the world’s large volcanoes from which an ASRS could originate (eg, Toba and Tambora eruptions).” Just eyeballing maps of the biggest known volcanoes, the overlap with some island refuges seems concerning. Do we know what ash deposit models say about how much these places would get covered in ash for various kinds of volcanic eruptions in the region and what this would mean for infrastructure and agriculture?
Thanks!
Hi Christian, thanks for your thoughts. You’re right to note that islands like Iceland, Indonesia, NZ, etc are also where there’s a lot of volcanic activity. Mike Cassidy and Lara Mani briefly summarize potential ash damage in their post on supervolcanoes here (see the table on effects). Basically there could be severe impacts on agriculture and infrastructure. I think the main lesson is that at least two prepared islands would be good. In different hemispheres. That first line of redundancy is probably the most important (also in case one is a target in nuclear war, eg NZ is probably susceptible to an EMP directed at Australia).
Thanks, Matt! That makes sense