Not one single human left on the island of Barbuda after Hurricane Irma

boing
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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/09/18/not-one-single-human-left-on-t.html

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Beach front property is going to take a hit in the wallet going forward.

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This sort of thing makes you think how quickly ancient civilizations were wiped out in areas like this from natural disasters. No wonder so many flood myths exist.

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Not in Florida. There will be suckers buying the beach front condos there when the lobbies are literally underwater.

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The only living creatures left on Barbuda are pets and livestock

Now that’s just absurd. The only domesticated living things, maybe, but the humans and their animals aren’t ever the only creatures/

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First climate change came for the Barbudans, but I did not speak out - because I was not Barbudan…

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I don’t know if this idea has been discredited or not, but about 10 years ago there was a fascinating opinion that, if an ice comet hit the ocean, it would cause global tsunamis and weeks of rain.

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/nov/did-a-comet-cause-the-great-flood

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I mean, sounds like progress to me.

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Is there actually geological evidence for a worldwide flood then? It sounds like he’s just looking at a few mythologies.

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I get why people are interested in the question, but then again it’s not like there needs to be a single (near-)global flood for flood myths to exist in cultures worldwide. Any people living in places where “flood” is a concept will have been nailed by a really apocalyptic-seeming one at some point in their history, if not many.

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Now would seem an opportune time to convert the entire island into a wildlife refuge. I’m guessing that’s not really a feasible idea, but still… it would be nice. Just think of all the eco-tourism dollars it could bring to the tiny nation.

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There is some evidence physical evidence, although it’s hardly conclusive. The Holocene Impact Working Group is looking at Burckle Crater in the Indian Ocean as a likely impact site.

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The only living creatures left on Barbuda are pets and livestock, which the non-profit group World Animal Protection are trying to feed and rescue.

I presume they are being feed and rescued by drone, because otherwise how could there be “Not one single human left on the island of Barbuda after Hurricane Irma”?

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I assume they mean no person with permanent residence on the island?

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In the 1990s/2000s, there was a fair amount of interest in the notion that a landbridge had closed off the black sea and, over time, it had receded miles (100+?) from the current boundaries. When it broke, the reflooding of the Black Sea would have likely had the shore move up in places a mile or more in a day. That’s certainly a story that, if true, would live in any oral history. Certainly, too, the place where a flood story would leak into the oral history that ended up become the Old Testament version of it. I understand the geologists now weigh against it, but I think you could imagine other flood stories – local tsunamis, etc., being such a big deal that the stories would last.

I think this theory has fallen out of favor, but you could image other more localized ones.

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It helps if regions have enforced building codes. Having your cities destroyed for every hurricane or earthquake is not a viable way to operate a nation.

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Yeah, that’ll be a great idea, in theory, but practice seems ify.

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If you don’t then your city will cease to exist. There is not much we can do for people unwilling to help themselves. Sympathy isn’t going to correct failures of the social contract.

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Perhaps there are only married people on the island now?

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The flood “myths” exist because everyone is actually Christian, but doesn’t know it. Yet.