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North Korean nuclear test sets off years of earthquakes

225 points · 181 comments · rbanffy

  1. BigTTYGothGF · · focus · HN ↗
    There's a lot of people in this thread who see "North Korea" and "nuclear test" and get fired up but would otherwise shrug if it were instead, say, "Oklahoma" and "fracking".

    The supplemental information is available and says: > Our earthquake catalog consists primarily of small events with magnitudes of < 2.0 and there were 1399 of them.

    The cited Ren&al says: > The magnitudes of these seismic events primarily range from 1.5 to 2.5 and that there were 647 of them.

    USGS (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.usgs.gov&#x2F;media&#x2F;images&#x2F;earthquake-and-energy-comparisons-updated-2025" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.usgs.gov&#x2F;media&#x2F;images&#x2F;earthquake-and-energy-comp...) says that a magnitude 2.0 earthquake is the equivalent energy of 56kg of explosives, which is more than I&#x27;d want to be around but I think for people who actually use the stuff it&#x27;s not a lot.

    1. loeg · · focus · HN ↗
      It&#x27;s simple, really. Fracking has offsetting pro-social benefits in a way that NK possessing nuclear weapons does not.
      1. antonvs · · focus · HN ↗
        “Pro-social” is a strange way to describe something that’s actively contributing to the death of our civilization.
        1. loeg · · focus · HN ↗
          This is some rhetorical thing people say, but you don&#x27;t actually believe it, right? You&#x27;re not that wildly delusional? You think that if the air is 4C warmer, we won&#x27;t have laws, people, culture, or whatever else makes a civilization? And that in the mean time, people being able to heat their homes in winter and not freeze to death, and otherwise afford electricity, are not offsetting pro-social benefits?
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