{"id":10978,"date":"2012-10-19T13:25:35","date_gmt":"2012-10-19T23:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=10978"},"modified":"2021-02-11T14:52:08","modified_gmt":"2021-02-12T00:52:08","slug":"pre-halloween-event-addresses-longterm-threats-to-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2012\/10\/19\/pre-halloween-event-addresses-longterm-threats-to-humanity\/","title":{"rendered":"Pre-Halloween event addresses longterm threats to humanity"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/zombies.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-10983\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/zombies.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/zombies-195x260.jpg 195w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In this season of ghosts, goblins and zombies, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ifa.hawaii.edu\/UHNAI\/home.cfm\"><abbr>UH<\/abbr> NASA Astrobiology Institute<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ifa.hawaii.edu\/\">Institute for Astronomy<\/a> (IfA) at the University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M&#257;noa present, It&#8217;s Not a Zombie Apocalypse: Scientific Views of Threats to Humanity. This Frontiers of Astronomy Community Event will take place on Tuesday, October 23, 7:30 p.m. in the Art Building Auditorium. Admission is free, parking on campus costs $6, and costumes are optional.<\/p>\n<h2>Featured speakers<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Karen Meech<\/strong>, an astronomer at <abbr>IfA<\/abbr> and the head of <abbr>UH<\/abbr> <abbr>NAI<\/abbr>, will speak about the life and death of planet Earth. She takes the long view: &ldquo;Our Earth is 4.5 billion years old and may live for 12 billion years, but it has not always been hospitable to advanced forms of life.&rdquo;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Larry Denneau<\/strong>, a member of the Pan-STARRS team at <abbr>IfA<\/abbr>, will address the threat from near-Earth objects and asteroid impacts. He says, &ldquo;Unlike humans, asteroids have been wreaking havoc on the Earth for billions of years.&rdquo;<\/li>\n<li>Professor <strong>Mike Mottl<\/strong> will talk about the threat from within Earth\u2014volcanism. He says that we don&#8217;t know when the next supervolcano will erupt, but when it does, &ldquo;we will all wish we were someplace else!&rdquo; In the past, these events have caused major changes in the climate and perhaps even mass extinctions of species.<\/li>\n<li>Associate professor <strong>Rich Gazan<\/strong> will explain how information technology represents a threat: &ldquo;As information technology encompasses more and more of our lives, and creates ever better simulations, will there come a point where people prefer it to reality? Are we there already?&rdquo;<\/li>\n<li><strong>Steve Freeland<\/strong> will discuss biological threats. He declares, &ldquo;The greatest imminent threat to our species&#8217; continued existence comes from within. Exponential growth cannot go unchecked, and we are living on borrowed time.&rdquo;<\/li>\n<p>This event is co-sponsored by the Friends of <abbr>IfA<\/abbr>. For more information, visit the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ifa.hawaii.edu\/info\/press-releases\/zombies\/\">Institute for Astronomy&#8217;s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Talks will address threats from all angles&#8212;from human activity to information technology<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[35,9],"class_list":["post-10978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-institute-for-astronomy","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10978"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135361,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10978\/revisions\/135361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}