Gloom and Doom

Thinking about this near-future post-global-warming apocalyptic utopian SF thing I’m working on, there occurred to me what seems like a great way to seriously screw up the earth. But I don’t really have the SF skills or the particular inclination to gloom and doom to write the kind of story such a situation would warrant. So I thought I’d offer it up here in case anybody’s interested.

What would happen if you directed tactical thermonuclear strikes simutaneously at both poles? I mean, granted, you’d have to be comic-book-villain-level depraved to be remotely interested in any such thing. Plus you’d have to already be in control of a sufficient portion of the globe to allow missile silo sites ranged far enough apart to get the job done. Not to mention the megatonnage would be pretty fricking high to achieve the desired effect. This would have to be a SNAFU well past Dr. Strangelove caliber. You’d have to be Russia or the US, probably. But assuming all that…could you in fact achieve the kind of sudden, crazy, tidal wave ocean surge that Gore’s worst-case scenarios depict? Ruptured ice shelves. Polar bears, penguins, Inuits, Pacific Islanders all pretty much wiped out. Along with coastal cities. Nothing left but red states.

I dunno. Seems so obvious maybe it’s been done. Weather-control machines, sure. Lameass Sean Connery supervillain in the Avengers movie. Waterworld… nobody really explains how Waterworld happened, which isn’t surprising given the whole Kevin Costner complicitness. Likewise Day After Tomorrow. These are not works of hard Science Fiction, whatever else can be said for them. But as you can see by my example set, I am not the most well-versed SF fan. Which is probably why I’m swearing off the whole idea.

But you all have fun.

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