Surely, we all remember the pre-millennial prophecies that led up to the Year 2000, already two decades ago! Now, we don´t find as much of the “Get-right-with-God” preaching, since those declarations didn´t really materialize. But, we have seen increasing reports in the incidents of violent weather in all corners of the globe. Perhaps, the explanation lies in our advancing scientific accuracy and reporting of global weather events? Plus, as a planet, Earth seems to be perking right along with many improvements of the quality of life, worldwide. Meanwhile, regular volcanoes add their destructive force to the whole mixture of earthquakes, tsunamis, mudslides, droughts and torrential rains bringing vast epidemics in their wake. After my travels through Central America´s volcanic Ring of Fire, I shouldn´t be surprised. This has gone on for a long time.
I wonder if this planet is still “ringing like a bell” the way it was for days after that December, 2009, undersea earthquake and record-breaking tsunami off the Indonesian coastline. Surely, that didn´t take ten years to calm down, but what other extreme events might have set it off, again? Humans couldn´t hear anything, of course, at the time, but the instruments could. The force of that one event was enough to change the axis of the earth slightly, and slowed our rotation by a small, but measureable amount. Something very big was happening and the ramifications continued. The immediate death toll was over 160,000, followed by epidemics and survivor-starvation. This particular journal entry was written in 2005 and the beat continues almost fifteen years later.
The good news is, that we haven´t fallen into a Third World War and the likelihood is almost zero, because our planetary nuclear capacity has assured total destruction of life if any of us should deign to push the button.