• Question: If you had to, what would you release into the Earth's atmosphere. Neurotoxin or Hydrogen Cyanide?

    Asked by konekoraian to Andrew, Ash, Gem, Paige, SJ on 4 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Paige Brown

      Paige Brown answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      All of those are bad!!!! I guess it depends how potent the neurotoxin was… I would look at the poisonous concentrations of these things and see which one would be more potent in the atmosphere. We release toxic gases into the atmosphere all the time, but it is ok if they disperse or degrade quickly and if they are harmless at low concentrations. I think hydrogen chloride is very toxic and so we wouldn’t want to inject this ever into the atmosphere unless it were at VERY low concentrations. You see it’s all about the poisonous levels of these things… If these things are around us but in very small amounts then we might be ok!!! But I wouldn’t chance it…

    • Photo: SarahJayne Boulton

      SarahJayne Boulton answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      Ah what!!

      Actually – I guess smokers release hydrogen cyanide in really small amounts into the atmosphere everyday as well as everything else in cigarette smoke, see ::

      http://www.livestrong.com/article/134964-list-chemicals-cigarette-smoke/

      So I guess if the amount was tiny – I’d go for cyanide – and totally blame it on the smokers…

    • Photo: Gemma Staite

      Gemma Staite answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      I’m with Paige and SJ, it would totally depend on the amount and the concentration. I guess I’d look in to ways to release it too, making it less toxic before releasing it.

    • Photo: Ashley Cadby

      Ashley Cadby answered on 5 Jul 2012:

      I would go for hydrogen cyanide. As a guess it would leave more people alive, of course if you wanted to just kill everyone on the planet, I go with the one that would cause the least amount of pain.

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