And
then, there are those who frantically try to bring about the end of times
themselves. To fulfill the Apocalypse out of some religious scripture, or
simply, to get attention. But could a terrorist actually do it? Probably
not. However, an enterprising terrorist could always try out one of the
following
ideas, bringing about a disaster of truly apocalyptic proportions.
1. Paint a pole
Difficulty:
Hard
Needed: A big amount of dirt
Find a way to blacken the ice
of one of the poles (the South pole is best). Cover it with dirt, soot or
charcoal. Tainting it black with ordinary paint might take a little longer. A
black pole doesn’t reflect sunlight but absorbs warmth -- and melts. The
result: climate change, sea level rise, inundations and much annoyment for
your enemies.
2. Design a disease
Difficulty: Very hard
Needed: A well-equipped laboratory, biology training
Build a biotech lab in some
obscure country and hire some bad guy scientists who share your evil ideas.
Now, piece together a version of Ebola that spreads through air. Design a new,
upgraded version of the flu, or AIDS. Alter the camel pox virus so that it
infects humans. You’ll find all the basics you need to know in the
scientific journals and textbooks.
Now comes the tough part. The
best way to spread your disease, is to infect yourself and visit the public
transportation facilities of the cities you wish to attack. Cough, sneeze and
snort at will. Touch every handle and doorknob you encounter with your
virus-laden hands. You will see: it’s gonna be fun.
An even
more evil way to spread your doomsday disease around, is by letting
animals do it for you. This takes a little extra research. Find out what
animals carry your germ, preferably animals that don't go ill themselves. Most
diseases have such a ‘carrier animal’: SARS, for example, gets carried
around from human to human by common house cats.
A carrier animal will make
your virus all the more successful, because it will be very hard to detect and
even harder to contain the outbreak. Another upshot is that you survive the attack
yourself. You might want to stick around to witness the misery you’re
causing.
3. Detonate a disaster
Difficulty: Medium
Needed: An atomic bomb
Give a terrorist an atomic
bomb or a huge amount of explosives, and he will immediately run off to blow
up Washington DC. Dumb, of course. There might be better targets.
A well-chosen spot on the
Western Arctic ice sheet might accelerate the melting of the pole. This should
give you four to six meters of worldwide sea level rise, inundating many vital
areas in Europe and the US.
A big enough boom in Yellowstone Park might awaken
the now dormant supervolcano under the park, turning
half of the US into an ash-covered no man’ s land and bringing ice age to
Europe.
Blowing up the already unstable volcanic island of La Palma could
prompt a mega-tsunami, which would slosh cities like
New York City, Boston and Miami to kingdom come.
A massive explosion on the
seabed in the Gulf of Mexico could trigger a vast methane gas eruption,
warming up the world’s climate and -- with some luck -- causing a huge
firestorm over the US.
And the really good part is:
you will find no guards on ocean floors, pole caps and volcanic islands.
4. Smash
the dollar
Difficulty: Medium
Needed: A large amount of money, a PhD in economy
Forget the Twin Towers, attack
the US dollar instead. Become a stock broker, and infiltrate the stock
markets. Now, organize a coordinated attack, Al Qaeda-style, on the US dollar.
With some luck, you'll see the dollar die before the day is over, bankrupting
the US and leaving it in economic shambles.
Know: every second, the US
loans 18,000 dollars from abroad. The US national debt has passed the eight
trillion dollar mark already. That's 8,000,000,000,000 dollar! The reason is
that US citizens and the US government spend more money than they make. So, they're living on
borrowed stuff.
This leaves the US dollar
very, very vulnerable. One good punch, and the buck might fall over. So, sell
a vast amount of dollars, preferably in a coordinated attack from multiple
places. This should cause the dollar to take an evil plunge. Other stock
brokers and banks should respond and sell their dollars, too. The dollar will
plummet even further. Within days or even hours, dollar notes will have become
worthless scraps of paper. Americans abroad will find they can no longer pay
their bills. Oil producing countries will switch their currency from the
dollar to the yen or the euro. Trade will grind to a halt. There may be riots,
or wars, or both. You'll have fun!
In the end, the US will be
alone in the world, a poor and bankrupt country with high unemployment, no
fossil fuels and in need of almost everything. Things will never be the way
they were. The yen or the euro will have replaced the dollar as the world's
main currency - just like the dollar dethroned the English pound in the
1920s.
5. Crush a current
Difficulty: Hard
Needed: Several ships, plenty of salt
It’s a bit of a long shot,
but with some luck you may be able to plunge the Western world into an ice age.
Now, wouldn’t you just love that?
The only thing you need to do, is disrupting the North Atlantic Current. This ocean current
brings
warmth from the tropics to Europe and the US. Without it, temperatures would
be up to 10 degrees lower, disrupting agriculture and wreaking havoc with the
economy of the civilized world. They would hate your guts for it, those
westerners.
Already, the North Atlantic
Current is weakening. And the best part is: some scientists believe that the
current could break down relatively easy. Perhaps you may be able to kill the
current yourself!
So, warm
up the sea water near Greenland with atomic bombs. Load some ships with
salt and sink them in the Atlantic. This should make the sea water locally
denser and heavier, putting a 'plug' on the current. Blowing up some
well-chosen glaciers on or near the South Pole might do the trick, too.
We warn you: it is all very
speculative. But failed crops, severe winters and millions of pissed-off
westerners could be your reward.
6. Bring in the plagues
Difficulty: Easy
Needed: A library membership, plane tickets
If you’re a terrorist with a
small budget, you could always try to unleash an agricultural plague of
apocalyptic proportions.
Already, there are many pests
around, causing billions of dollars of damage. Locusts,
rabbits, parasites, fungi, worms and insects often become a plague when
they’re introduced to a place where they're not supposed to be. The
critters encounter no natural enemies, multiply wildly, and become a plague.
That’s why Australia and New-Zealand have their rabbit problem and the US
has its boll weavil.
So, study agricultural
diseases. Track down some obscure Asian fungus or insect, and bring it over.
Smuggle some sinister bird disease to the country you like to attack, and
introduce it to its chicken farms. Bring in foot-and-mouth disease, or mad cow
disease. Introduce weird weeds, exotic moths, sex-crazy rodents, hungry
beetles and obscure insects. It might take a while before your Apocalypse
kicks in. But boy, will it be some mess.
7.
Shortcut a state
Difficulty: Hard
Needed: Explosives, wire, a high-altitude airplane
Can't afford an atomic bomb?
Don't panic. There's always 'the poor man's atomic bomb'. That's a device
called an 'electromagnetic pulse weapon', or simply e-bomb.
E-bombs are quite easy to
make. Just take a big 'sausage' of explosives, wrap coil around it, and put a
magnetic field to the coil. Should you decide to detonate your e-bomb high up
in the atmosphere, you should shortcut every piece of electric equipment below
you. The bigger the bomb, the bigger the damage. It'll be fun.
