Rant: A supervolcano would cure my boredom
15 Mar 2005 by Paul Davies
With the political world being super-boring this week, as each party fights to come across as the most honest, charming and reliable through lying, unctuousness and fanciful economics, the BBC stepped in to make things more exciting and stimulate discussion outside of whether or not Camilla Parker Bowles' hair is real. Super.I talk, of course, of their dramatic investigation into supervolcanoes and the rather wonderful potential annihilation of a large chunk of America.
On the surface, this may seem like a morbid and super-petrifying prospect, but it does have its advantages.
The world has flirted with Fukuyamian notions of an end-of-history, neo-conservative consensus since the end of the Cold War and, quite frankly, it's getting rather mundane. If America were to explode and become pretty much uninhabitable for a good few years, it would give the world a much-needed shake-up.
The global populace might once again look to super old England for its leadership. Plans are already afoot for such a scenario. Un-Americanising the Earth's English is top of the bill, followed by the dissemination of Blackadder and teaching as many people as possible how not to cause a scene.
True, we might fail miserably and humiliate ourselves in a Tory-party-like manner, but it shouldn't be anything a stiff upper lip and a delightfully posh accent can't solve.
Boris may even emerge from the shake-up to sell his golden-haired super-politics to a new global audience. If anything can lessen the impact of the death of thousands upon thousands of people, it's the elevation of the super Mr Johnson.
Furthermore, it could signal an end to international terrorism: with America temporarily out of the way, Al-Qaeda won't have any one to wage jihads against, making their angry cause a bit pointless.
The most exciting thing about all this is that the unstoppable, epoch-defining explosion is only a matter of time away. The sad thing, however, is that we, the people of 2005, will most likely miss out on all the fun. Estimates for when Yellowstone will erupt, ushering in darkness on the scale of a Will Self short story, range between about now and 100,000 years in the future. Not so super.
