I just finished watching the trailer to the movie "2012". It is going to be released in November this year. This is going to be a planet annihilation type of movie, which is no surprise, considering the producer of the movie also came out with Independence Day as well as The Day After Tomorrow. This is a dude who likes to make money, talking about the tragedy of millions of people losing their lives in the blink of an eye.
This makes me wonder. What is it that drives all men to believe that the world is going to blow up? It starts right from the beginning with that whole talk about someone coming and marking the end of the world. Of course by the time we realise the "HE" is here, in whatever cultural form that HE finally decides to reveal Himself in, it would be too late for us to atone for our sins. We would be doomed. We would be judged and basically all of us except those that happened to chose the correct religion, whatever that is, would be found wanting. It's a great "Wheel of Fortune" game that's going to be played at the end, according to religious views.
Thinking about this the scientific way, assuming that there is no religious day of Reckoning upon us, we have to realise that we've strayed on to the very path of planetary destruction by our damn selves; without the help of a "DEVIL" or any such manifestations of evil. Yup ladies and gentlemen, I believe there is a planetary level self-fulfilling prophecy that is unfolding.
I feel the greatest difference is now felt post World War 2, when U.S. dropped the 2 atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Suddenly it is now possible to annihilate a huge population. All this while, you could make big bombs but nothing that could take out an entire city and render the surrounding area sterile for generations (not to mention the oddities and freak of natures that you create) with the nuclear dust fallout.
It was possible to render nations, even continents uninhabitable with the firepower that existed then. This is where the strange turn of events take place. Instead of decommissioning those lethal pieces of metals, the Americans made more. This was followed by the countries who now have nuclear capabilities as well. The British, the French, the Soviet, the Chinese etc. People usually mention, "boys with big toys are just compensating for a lack in size". Boy, those Generals must have been jealous of the Asians if they needed to compensate with nuclear devices.
Now the world can be annihilated many times over. At its height the US had 65, 000 warheads according to wikipedia and they still might have between 15,000 - 20,000 warheads, left in various stages of completion. The other members of the so-called "Nuclear Club" also have thousands of warheads each. Still, this is a military weapon and the diplomats would try their very best to reason and deal with any situations that arise before the boys start throwing their toys around the globe. So we have some people at least opposing this planetary destruction "efforts".
Somehow though, the human race seems unable to say "stop" when it senses dangers in other forms as well. Fossil fuel usage throughout the world. I agree that there are a LOT of people who are going to be inconvinienced if the oil and gas companies across the world suddenly go out of business. People unfortunately give more importance to that as compared to the consequences of global warming. This is what should be the current focus of scientists worldwide. Fossil fuel is destroying the planet, layer by layer. In raw, Oil spills cause environmental danage; in processed form, unrecyclable hydrocarbon products like plastics are produced daily and USED by housewives; in the form of by-products, greenhouse gases are being emitted everyday by every single oil combustion engine made by man.
We know that the greenhouse effect is making the planet and our co-inhabitants suffer. In fact fellow humans who are lesser educated than us too are not able to grasp the wierd swings in the monsoons and other weather patterns; the increased frequency of "el Nino" and "la Nina" effects etc. But we do not reward anyone who is willing to find an alternative way. We are not drumming into students in the classrooms that the planet NEEDS another way to survive. We are telling them that everything is going to be ok. It is not. Eventually someone's mistakes are going to cost lives of people around the globe, LONG after he/she is dead.
There is also the problem of dumping industrial waste into the planet's water flows. How long do you think the planet is going to be blue from space? There will come a time when the water is going to be brown throughout the oceans. A time when we need protective gear to save us from the outside moisture, which could be poisonous by trapping and reacting with complicated strains of airborne particles from industrial areas, not to mention rain. Could we imagine a world where we run to save our lives from a light April shower?
With all these in motion, we need to ask ourselves. What did the Mayans see that caused them to stop their Long Calender at the date: 21/12/2012 ? Did they see the tipping point that is caused by the barrage of wrong environmental management decisions, starting right from when the cavemen used artificial colours to paint in their cave walls? Could that be the point where so profound a change happens in the way the world has worked all these millenia, that we even stop using calenders as we knew them?
Why do we have to WAIT? Waiting in itself shows that we don't really understand the forces that are at work, causing us uncertainties in our decisions. Let's use our technology the best way possible. Let's come up with a recovery plan. Let's have the political will supporting us to NOT inconvinience our grandchildren. Let's deal with it here and now, not in 2012; or when the oceans have turned brown.
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