One of the groups involved with the conference is the Planetary Society, an organization that works with the scientific community and decision-makers with one goal in mind: “Reducing the risk of Earth being hit by an asteroid or comet.”
The group emphasizes the devastating impact such as it can cause if we are not prepared – and not just the direct damage from the asteroid but the long-term effects of various crises it can cause.
“Impacts on or over densely populated cities can cause millions of deaths, and impacts on water can cause massive flooding of coastlines,” they said.
“Any major impact will cause widespread damage, injury and death, and will create a humanitarian and refugee crisis unmatched worldwide.”
In the conference simulation, the PDC 2021 Asteroid is predicted to attack Europe, North America and parts of Africa while most of Asia, Indonesia and the Pacific are outside the explosion zone.
Billions of people live in this target area, and it is also home to much of the “first world” – a somewhat outdated term that refers to the industrialized nations of western Europe, North America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
News of an upcoming asteroid is set to wipe out this part of the world and render it uninhabitable for a predictable future that will no doubt prompt mass panic and attempts to relocate to “safe” parts of the planet.
“As more observations occur, the location of the impact will become more specific than the” half world “which is the starting point in the PDC scenario,” Dr. Bruce Betts, Planetary Society chief scientist and head of the planetary defense program, told the Daily Star.
“So there are fewer refugees, but if the impact is unavoidable it is still a big refugee crisis.”
Wealthy citizens will likely have a little trouble moving around the world. New Zealand is already a popular bolthole for billionaires like Peter Thiel, who was granted citizenship for much of the controversy and is suspected of having set up an “doomsday bunker” in the island nation in the event of such a disaster.
However most people will not have the means to relocate personally on their own change, which means some sort of emergency asylum program will need to be established to allow people to escape.
This is likely to put huge strain on the resources of “safe” countries and continents, and no one has said what conditions they might need to enter.
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