ColGlobe At The Spoof

Friday, February 13, 2009

DoomsDay 2012?

Okay, I am not a superstitious person, and have very little use for ancient rituals of any religion. But I neither am I foolish enough to think that modern man knows so much more than his less-industrialized predecessors. Whether humanity is headed for Doomsday in a little over THREE years is doubtful, but the fact that we are very near to some major social cataclysms is irrefutable.

Let's put aside our haughtiness for a few moments, and look, not at the science of celestial rotations, but at the events in the world around us. I do not have enough fingers on both hands to tick off the many points of balance that are dangerously close to tipping, and that is a very bad thing, indeed. Instead, I'll name a few seemingly isolated groups, which encompass most of these problems through various interaction.

  • Global Warming
    Even as the fools of the Northern Hemisphere have jumped onto their soap boxes and began to preach that global warming is a farce, and we are having one of the coldest winters on record, human beings are being cooked in their vehicles in the Southern Hemisphere. Droughts that have carried over and intensified for many years are starting to culminate in the inhabited portion of Australia becoming little more than fire tinder under the right conditions. And yet self-proclaimed experts in the United Kingdom tell us the danger of global warming has passed us by.

  • Geologic Stresses
    Around the world, volcanoes that have lain in dormant remission for decades or longer have begun to rumble and spew and spit. Earthquakes, tsunamis, avalanches, and all manner of devastation related to movements in the crust of the Earth are becoming weekly events in many countries around the world.

  • Global Food Shortages
    Around the world, millions of people are falling short of the basic requirements of sustenance. Grain is rotting in shipping yards as human conflict prevent delivery to entire peoples who are facing slow death through malnutrition. Ill-considered concepts of sustainable fuel are further reducing the available grains that feed the world, and luring landowners away from human food crops altogether in search of elusive farming profits.

  • Droughts and Floods
    As the ecosystem wobbles around, fumbling to adjust its internal balance to account for carbon releases beyond anything that should have been naturally possible, fields are wilting and dying, while other fertile regions are made unusable by rising waters and unprecedented rainfall.

  • Financial Collapse
    World economies are poised to crash if only a little more stress is applied to the systems. Stocks which traded at record highs a few short months ago can now be had for pennies on the dollar. Working class people around the world are being faced with choices between food and shelter. Entire nations are struggling to prevent an economic failure unimaginable a quarter of a century ago.

  • Human Deviance
    The murder rate is rising. White collar and strong arm crime are flourishing. Pedophilia is becoming commonplace, and tragic stories of abuse and neglect have become so common that there is a fear that society will be desensitized to their dangers. Psychopathic behavior, which has always afflicted a percentage of the population, is becoming more apparent as larger populations are crowded into smaller areas of habitat.
Now then. Let's look at 2012 again. No failure of such unprecedented proportions could happen overnight, short of some major calamity such as a meteor striking the earth. And the nightly news is happy to point out the chance of that happening is less than the chance of dying by falling in the shower. But it seems as though everyone is either missing the point, or choosing to ignore it: No failure of such unprecedented proportions could happen overnight.

Instead, let us consider that the current state of the world indicates an overall collapse of systems which is not GOING to happen, but is IN PROGRESS. Global warming won't happen overnight, but has been in progress for longer than any human living today. Desperate people will do the unthinkable. The very law of evolution supersedes any human legal edicts, and people will do what they feel is required to protect themselves and their offspring.

While researchers are pulling in grant money to study things which no one believes will come to be, the ugly truth is slowly wrapping itself around the figurative throat of a majority of the life forms on the planet. Doomsday, whenever it may arrive, won't come in the blink of eye, but will simply be there one day when the veil of ignorance is pushed aside.

We are not waiting on a global emergency, but living through it's final stages of development. And most us are blinded by the tiny points of consideration to the point that we are totally unable to see the larger picture of how these individual parts combine into a tapestry of human futility.