There are so many conspiracy theories out there that it
is easy to just toss them all into to skip bins and not
give a damn. Just live life to the fullest and you will
have nothing to worry about if the end of the world
comes.

2012 is popular because on December 21, 2012, after three thousand years and change, the Maya Long Count runs out.  (The Maya calendar consists of two counts, a shorter one which cycles and the Long Count.)  The Maya religion doesn’t propose anything catastrophic happening, however; the catastrophes are a modern fetish which we can blame on the dramatic nature of capitalism if we like.

There has been a lot of talk and rumors about Comet Elenin and asteroid Apophis colliding with Earth in 2011 and 2012 causing the end of the world and an extinction event for every bird, flower, tree, and animal.

Conspiracy theorists claim that Comet Elenin’s name comes from the code word “ELE”, which supposedly stands for, get this, “Extinction Level Event”, instead of the true origin, which is amateur astronomer Leonid Elenin, the Russian that discovered the comet, which the nuts also claim is dead and/or killed off by NASA to cover up the truth about the Earth’s demise.
http://nextgenfmradio.com/2011/02/25/doomsday-comet-elenin-and-asteroid-apophis-colliding-with-earth-false/

Well that’s true Anarcissie

But isn’t that the case in most things?

Somewhere back in this thread I pointed out that the most immediate theat to our Planet was the Asteroid Apropis.

I think that I mentioned that the latest estimation was that there was a 1 in 400 chance ( by Russian Scientists last year ) that it would hit earth.

Should it beat those odds and hit earth, it is large enough to become an extinction level event.

Everybody is talking about 2012 but that is just speculation.  Apropis exists and is on course to scare the pants off Earth even if it doesn’t collide with our planet ( close passes in 2027, 2029, and the most likely pass to hit is in 2037 I believe.)

Apropis has a better probability to knock off human life than does Global Warming or Pollution.

Hear anybody talking about it?

Cliff Carson, July 31 at 8:45 am:

‘... To answer your concern Anarcissie, you could do what I do, go to the Journals.  This is where you will find the empirical data you seem to be seeking. ...’

No, I just thought they should have organized their web sites so that if anyone were surprised or skeptical about their opinions they could get the information behind them immediately.  For some reason many people concerned with environmental issues are attracted to the apocalyptic mode, which I think is highly counterproductive.

Take any or all of the problems besetting the planet today and you will find that the common thread linking them is TOO MANY PEOPLE! Wake up homo sapiens! Your mythical “Be fruitful and multiply” god is going to make us extinct along with most of the rest of living organisms. Oh, but don’t worry! After it’s all done the ants, spiders,and cockroaches will still be around to take over and won’t give a hoot about what and if god might will or whether there is prayer in school or any other manner of dogmatic idiocy! Life will continue and follow its ultimate course without the church, the market, mindless politicians, and greedy “entrepreneurs”.

What if, I mean just suppose, that we destroy all the food sources for sharks and giant squid. So that, in order for them to survive, ‘god’ speeds-up evolution and teaches them to walk on land.

That would fix us, wouldn’t it? And be rather poetic, too.

After the last animal is killed, all the trees clear cut and the waters poisoned, only then will they realize you cannot eat money.

Buffalo Spirit, old Indian comment.

Anarcissie

“I did not find pages or links to records of physical observations and their interpretations, only more apocalyptic predictions and vague appeals for immediate action.”

That is why I usually just ask people to google.  On the other hand if I don’t include a link, some will disparage me for not doing so, but when I do, often I hear that it was a cherry picked route.

To answer your concern Anarcissie, you could do what I do, go to the Journals.  This is where you will find the empirical data you seem to be seeking.

The link I originally placed was written by someone who looked at summaries on the subject and that is what 99% of the time you will get from articles.

There are On-Line libraries that you can subscribe to that will have millions of sources and routines to let you extract subject data and will even help you organize that data to present in a Thesis format, etc.  I believe mine cost $22 Per Quarter.  I used it to work with my Grandchildren in their College work.  It was a lot of fun and quite informative as I started research on a Book I am writing.  And there used to be easy access to Government Publications although that is going away, Obama says to save money, I say that is BS, our Government doesn’t want you to have access to records allowing you to be able to point out some of the more nefarious criminal acts that they commit.

Theories are questioned when people think the consequences or implications of a theory are important.

However, the unimportance of facts to this particular field of dispute is interesting.

The great pacific garbage patch comming to a shore near you!

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=the+great+pacific+garbage+patch&qpvt=the+great+pacific+garbage+patch&FORM=IGRE#x0y0

For those on the east coast.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=great+atlantic+garbage+patch+pictures&qpvt=great+atlantic+garbage+patch+pictures&FORM=IGRE#x0y0

They look like the same pictures because it is the same problem.

Instead of aircraft carriers and billion dollar subs we should be outfitting ships to clean up this mess.

The scientific accuracy of AGW (anthropogenic global warming) would not even be questioned, if it didn’t put limits on industry greed. The fact that we have to control our carbon footprint has a short term cost - which the corporate piggies don’t want to spend.
Any environmental issue is framed as a left-born conspiracy to leech money from the people. That is so stupid it’s hard to even articulate. The stupidity is viewing our well-being as separate from that of our natural environment.

kerryrose, July 31 at 12:07 am:

Anarsissie

If you are interested, research it in depth instead of griping that this particular blog does not give you all the info you require.

That was not my gripe.  My gripe is like this: the blog referenced a news article; the news article had no links, but it did mention the names of two organizations.  I looked these organizations up in Google, and they turned out to be self-selected groups of people who had organized their organizations precisely to push the opinions which they were pushing.  Looking around on their web sites, I did not find pages or links to records of physical observations and their interpretations, only more apocalyptic predictions and vague appeals for immediate action.  Perhaps if I pored through the curricula vitarum of the participants…. or perhaps I should become a marine biologist myself.

The actual result of this sort of thing, this style of agitprop in the field of anthropogenic global warming and/or climate change has resulted in a decline in belief in the problem(s) and the solution(s) proposed.  Assuming the members of these organizations and others like it are sincere and concerned about something important, and not just trying to pump up grant opportunities, they’re doing something seriously wrong.  That’s my gripe.

Michael.

How stupid.  As if the dying oceans have nothing at all to do with ‘Climate Fascism’?

Anarsissie

If you are interested, research it in depth instead of griping that this particular blog does not give you all the info you require.

Anarcissie

It appears that you are not interested in what 7 of 10 Biologists believe.  I assume, they being Scientific types believe the data supports their opinion.

Now the article didn’t say that the other three had any opinion at all or did I miss that?

Those three could have an opinion based on data that:

1.  They thought it was a serious problem but weren’t convinced it could lead to the extinction level.
2.  They could have thought it would be harmful to life but wouldn’t be all that serious.
3.  They could have though the whole story was a bunch of baloney.
4.  They might not have wanted to posit an opinion because they hadn’t researched the data thoroughly.

Each of the 3 could have chosen 1 or 2 or 3 or 4, the 3 could have each chosen all of the above or none of the above.

The point Anarcissie is that we have no clue what the other 30% thought, but for a fact we do know what the 70% thought.

When speaking statistically it is rare on anything to find a correlation of 1.0 (certainty ) so my statement is that “speaking scientifically” it is very unusual ( the purist will say impossible ) not to find variation.

But your point is accepted.  Not agreed with , but one of the myriad of opinions possible when studying voluminous data to reach a threshold sufficient to call it an acceptable proof.

In 1900… there were almost ONE BILLION babooony humans on Planet Over-Birth Earth. It took from point zero to 1900 to put one billion+ people on the planet.

Today… 111 earth years later… SEVEN BILLION humans are crapping on the planet, and all of them want to eat $teak and drive around in giant gas-hog $UVs. They want to wear fine clothes… and live in air conditioned homes… and enjoy other conveniences.

But it ain’t gonna happen! The planet cannot sustain the current population… let alone a bigger one. Perpetual growth in a closed looped system of finite space and finite resources (the Earth) is not progress. It is cancer! It is death.

I predict… the UNITED $TATES OF PERPETUAL WAR PROFITEERING will not exist by 2050, certainly not the way we presently know (and $urvive) this violent, plutocratic nation $tate. And it gets worse. Most of humankind (a.k.a.: ewe-man-unkind) will probably be dead by 2100. Perhaps even extinct.

Humans are colorful and creative and imaginative… but they lack prescience and common sense, especially the corp-rat ruling class. Humans also suffer from outdated religious ‘dogmesses’ and arrogant tribe-all-eeego. I rest my case here with the Tea KKKlaner Party… and ethno-racist KKKristian/Zionists.

1. Where there is no insight, the people perish!
2. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad!
3. ASS-ASS-IN-NATION… is a politician’s ultimate achievement.

Yesss… Old Coyote Knose! Old Coyote Knose!

During the extreme cold of last winter, lots of the imbecilic conservatives, brain washed
by their corporate masters could be seen laughing and joking about global warming,
throwing snow balls on T.V..Where are they now that the country is burning up, in many
weeks and Months of record heat. Why aren’t those same folks out frying eggs on the
side walks, or taking photos of cattle that are skin and bones without grass to eat and
water to drink. Why aren’t they fighting brush fires?  Hmmmm?

Their at home with the air conditioner cranked up to the max, sweating, swilling down
any thing cool.  Bitching about how those dam liberals and tree hugger are ruining
everything.

They should join Rick Perry, and pray for rain….They can see how much god listens to
Their dumb bleatings…

If you ask me, it’s plain to see that god has cursed them for voting in conservative
ignoramuses just like themselves.

If we’re discussing science, then what 7 out of 10 biologists believe doesn’t matter.  What matters are the physical observations from which their beliefs are supposed to be derived, and the theories in which those observations are interpreted.  ‘7 out of 10 biologists believe’ is a sociology, not biology.  People making claims about science, especially people making apocalyptic claims about scientific predictions, should always provide the evidence for their claims, along with whatever apparatus is required to make it understandable.

Anarcissie

I am leaving you a link and an excerpt from the link article.  As I said earlier in the thread I have been looking at both Fauna and Flora Die-Off of species since in the early sixties.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/animal-extinction—the-greatest-threat-to-mankind-397939.html

The excerpt:

“You probably had no idea. Few do. A poll by the American Museum of Natural History finds that seven in 10 biologists believe that mass extinction poses a colossal threat to human existence, a more serious environmental problem than even its contributor, global warming; and that the dangers of mass extinction are woefully underestimated by almost everyone outside science. In the 200 years since French naturalist Georges Cuvier first floated the concept of extinction, after examining fossil bones and concluding “the existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some sort of catastrophe”, we have only slowly recognized and attempted to correct our own catastrophic behavior”.

I do not believe Human Caused Global Warming is much of a threat.  I do know for a fact that the Earth is warming up since we have recently come out of the Little Ice Age ( ended around 1780).  But what I have written over and over is that we are poisoning our environment and this is causing a huge die off of Flora and Fauna.

In the sixties I became interested in looking at Flora ( Plants and trees)Die off and Amphibian (Frogs and other animals) ) die off ( plus birth abnormalities).  All you have to do to see multiple specie die off going on today is google Fauna Die Off.

The named organization is a group of people already ideologically committed to a certain view of the world and a way of dealing with it.  Their report, then, is not so much news as a manifesto.  There is nothing wrong with that, but it should be made plain in reporting it.

A light look at the named organizations came up with some web sites, but none had the sort of science I would like to see to get an idea of the situation.  Apocalyptic predictions, as I have noted before, especially vague ones, serve only to encourage apathy, fear, hopelessness and disbelief.

MAN IS NEXT!

When living in a culture of death one expects death.  We kill our babies, provide inadequate health care and kill people, promote cars that speed and kill people, we kill on movies and television, in video games, on street corners and front porches, in foreign wars, in drug wars, in our fields and streams, our foods kill, our air kills, and when the ocean dies we mostly ignore it.  Death is consuming everything.

I agree with the author and this very condition or should I say pollution is why I keep on saying that the Human species greatest threat is pollution not Global Warming.  My statement is that we as a specie will never exist long enough to die out from Global Warming - Human Caused or otherwise.

I first started following die-off’s back in the early 60’s.  Not only is it continuing, it is accelerating.

Twenty years ago when I entered college I planned to be a marine biologist.  Only the death of my mentor changed my plans.  Who would have guessed that the legacy of Jacque Cousteau on my Sunday childhood nights, my initial inspiration, would give way to this… only that many years later.

It is hard for me to sit on my local beach on Long Island now because it has been the dumping ground for ten bodies, just discovered in the last few months.  We pollute the waters with our greed and lack of empathy, and have disgraced the beaches with the same.

It’s fitting somehow that mankind will die in his own filth. Our intelligence could not
overcome our own psychopathology.  There is no pie in the sky, no incantations, no
prayers, no committee, or presidential commission that can save us from ourselves..
Delusions are so easy to believe in, but being crazy takes a hell of a lot of work.  Enjoy
your sushi, pretty soon it will be gone along with all the air we now breathe.

Great fertilizer.