Sunday, July 18, 2010

Will "Doomsday" Happen Before the Sky Falls?

I'm not sure how many people have read about the ancient Mayan prophecy in which the calendar abruptly ends on December 21, 2012. The first time I personally remember hearing about the world ending was 1968. I was only eight years old, so I forget what event was to allegedly trigger the 1968 Doomsday event. But I remember being curious, and a bit scared. And paying REALLY close attention in church one Sunday as Father Dolan explained from the pulpit that none of us would know the time so why speculate... when it is nothing we can control or know. All we can do is live every day loving God and our neighbors so we don't have to be afraid. Gimme a break! I was eight. I am sure that's a loose translation ;)

As I've gotten older, I've realized that speculation (displayed as mass hysteria within some groups) as to when the world will end has been around since the beginning of time. The next world-ending event that I remember hearing about was in the early 1980s due to some unusual alignment of the planets. There have been a few of those over the years. And of course, thanks to Nostradamus, there was rampant speculation around the turn of the century. I didn't pay too much attention as I was in information technology at the time and really busy adapting computer systems to accommodate the date change. And I was turning 40. And had found my birthmom :)

Over the past few years I've read articles and books about global warming and how it will trigger our impending doom... and how there are plates shifting under the ocean that will cause the earth to turn on its axis so that the poles and equators all do a 180 (so to speak). Of course these issues are more complex than that... but I don't have time to get into ALL the technicalities of it and am far from a rocket scientist ;) To be honest... I've always felt that other than living in moderation as much as possible... there wasn't a whole lot I could personally do about global warming... And plates on the ocean floor were even more out of my jurisdiction than global warming... So I relied on that old sermon from Father Dolan: All I could personally do about any of it was live every day of my life as if it were my last... being kind and loving to my family, friends... and mother earth... and that hopefully if anything cataclysmic happened... or my personal journey ended... I could rest knowing that my heart had always been in the right place. At 50 I have gotten to a place where I am comfortable with that philosophy and don't give our impending doom too much thought.
So why did my brain start travelling down this path again this week? I read an article on Helium entitled "Doomsday: How BP Gulf disaster may have triggered a 'world-killing' event". The article speculates that methane bubbles caused extinction events twice before in our planet's history, and that the Gulf Oil spill just may have hastened another one. Allegedly, within 6 months, another methane event will occur, and no known technology will stop it. To summarize the article: "The bottom line: BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling operation may have triggered an irreversible, cascading geological Apocalypse that will culminate with the first mass extinction of life on Earth in many millions of years." Of course, according to the article, the media has been kept away from the center of operations, allegedly with a threat of a $40,000 fine for each infraction as well as felony arrests.

Frankly, every journalist I know is into scooping a story, First Amendment rights, and the "truth." At least idealistically. So I have a hard time believing that not one journalist is attempting to breach the alleged media blackout. But my personal thoughts? I have no proof that any of this is true... and I am again back to Father Dolan's sermon. So I dismissed the article as "interesting" and got back to work ;)

And then ran across a CNN article: "Scientists baffled by unusual upper atmosphere shrinkage"... about the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years... and I thought "oh JEEEEEEEEEEEEZ!" Fortunately, despite the headline, it seems that the collapse of the thermosphere is unlikely to have a direct effect on our daily lives... unless of course you count slight disruptions in satellite communications or space navigation around all the space junk we have left up there... (You'd think we would be happy just polluting our planet and leaving space alone? But noooooooo!) So at least it looks like, at least for now, the sky is not falling... and that's a good thing...

In the meantime, I am counting on the powers of the Bilderberg Group to take care of any other prophecies of doom. A cataclysmic event would surely disrupt their plans for the "New World Order." ;)

Posted via email from momsdaword's posterous

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