Days of Future Past

This is a really interesting pamphlet on how to warn future generations (and by future generations, I mean 10,000 years from now) of dangerous (and by dangerous I mean incredibly dangerous) high-level nuclear waste sites.  The warnings make no assumption as to what language or technological level these ancestors may be.  It’s only purpose is to keep them, whoever they are, from digging up the waste.  The system, unfortunately, has it’s flaws.  To start, the warnings are intended to survive, at the most, 10,000 years.  Unfortunately, the waste itself will survive for millions of years.  The fact is, this waste will be mankind’s legacy.  It will outlast everything we have ever done and, most likely, everything we will ever do.  We can sweep it under the rug, bury it as deep as we can, but it will never go away.  We can put as many warning labels and Mr. Yuk stickers on it as we want so we can sleep at night but this waste will still be there long after we’re gone.  Maybe, in addition to warning them, we should beg for forgiveness.  What monsters they will think of us for having been so selfish and short sighted as to have created this waste in the first place.

Check out the pamphlet yourself:

Passive Institutional Controls