It’s the End of the World As We Know It
Scientists, religious leaders, and everyone in between have gone back and forth for centuries on when exactly the end of times will come about. Even the leading astrobiologists are in agreement that, sometime within the next billion years, all life will be wiped off of the face of the earth due to a burning up of our atmosphere by an increasingly unstable sun. However, you’re probably not here to see whether or not the world will end in a billion years, you’re more curious as to whether the world will end, say, within your lifetime, right?
Unfortunately, I’m not silly enough to predict when it will happen. What I can do, however, is give you some real information on happenings around out planet in recent years and hopefully convince you of the need to be prepared.
Let’s start with locusts. When looking into possible signs of the world’s end, many fall into the category of the religious based. Locusts, largely, belong to that category. The validity of such signs then depends on your religious affiliation, belief in certain texts, etc. This particular sign, however, may be rooted in science as well.
In Madagascar right now, locust swarms have infected the island and devastated plant life to the tune of 100,000 metric tones of vegetation per day per swarm. Even if you don’t believe in the locusts as a sign of supernatural wrath and foreboding, they could pose a serious threat if/when they spread to the mainland. If these creatures were allowed to reproduce on mainland Africa they could spread to other continents, endangering food supplies and entire populations in a matter of months.
The development of a new super-virus or infection is always a threat, and in early 2013 over 13,000 pigs were found floating in a river in China. Later, in another river, about 1,000 dead ducks were discovered. Some of the deaths were pinned on a new strain of avian flu. This morphed virus could pose a very serious threat to humans and, without a current vaccination for this new strain, casualties could be catastrophic.
Weather is another major indicator of the times we face, though this falls into the scientific category, rather than the religious one. The weather our planet currently faces is the warmest climate since the Ice Age, meaning that regions of the world are reaching temperatures never seen since the human development of agriculture. As a result, drought and adverse growing conditions are effecting much of the world and have had a trouble effect on certain region’s ability to sustain themselves.
Ultimately, the validity of any of these “signs” is left up to the interpreter. Absolutists, who assert that their doomsday predictions are bulletproof, have been disproved time and time again, and the more likely answer is that despite any amount of faith, or number of scientific models, we simply don’t know. In any event, the idea is to be prepared and have supplies stocked up in the event that any disaster, even if it isn’t one that ends the world, should occur.
Category: TEOTWAWKI
