Bird Flu

[sephitor]

Anyone read this month's issue of Foreign Affairs? It paints a pretty poor picture of what might happen to the world if H5N1 avian flu becomes transmissable person-to-person. Basically, they say up to 5 percent of the world's population could be killed, trade would shut down, the world economy would crash, and panic would spread everywhere. FA isn't normally this fatalistic and makes a good argument.

Are they crazy and trying to sell magazines or is it time to start thinking about whether I'll follow the old black lady or the dark man?

 

[alonzomourning23]

[quote name='sephitor']Anyone read this month's issue of Foreign Affairs? It paints a pretty poor picture of what might happen to the world if H5N1 avian flu becomes transmissable person-to-person. Basically, they say up to 5 percent of the world's population could be killed, trade would shut down, the world economy would crash, and panic would spread everywhere. FA isn't normally this fatalistic and makes a good argument.

Are they crazy and trying to sell magazines or is it time to start thinking about whether I'll follow the old black lady or the dark man?[/QUOTE]

Worst case scenario, like the year 2000. Many articles are sensationalist, but every once in a while something really does turn out to be catastrophic.