CLIMATE CATASTROPHES

Appended below is an article that appeared in The Dallas Morning News in the Science Section on 5 February 2001. The ultimate interpretation is completely wrong, of course, or at least flawed, because it does not take into account all of the historical data. However, the article does demonstrate once again that "big events" occurred around 2000 BCE (Exodus/Santorini) and "8,200 years ago" (add 7,200 years to 1587 BCE and you get 8787 BCE) -- not to mention "about 12,000 years ago", that old reliable often-cited date for the greatest flood of all, the one that destroyed the Lost Atlantis, as the Egyptian priests related to Solon. These climate catastrophes are caused by the 3,600-year-long orbit of the Planet Nibiru, as its arrival sequence results in Polar Axis Shifts here on Earth. For the record, the exact dates are as follows:

12,387 BCE
8787 BCE
5187 BCE
1587 BCE
2013 CE (technically, the end of 2012)

These sorts of establishment errors exemplify how geological dating is dubious at best; scientists, and geologists in particular, would like for the historians to adapt their historical chronologies to the "scientific" geological dates, rather than the other way around, as it should be, and as was one of the most significant points of contention throughout the infamous "Velikovsky Affair" of the late 20th Century.

Establishment scientists often get their "conclusions" right, but they use the wrong methods of deduction to get there. Why? Because, of course, they still refuse, as they have always done in the past, as Madame Blavatsky pointed out time and again, to integrate any "occult" possibilities into their reasoning. Such an establishment approach has always meant a certain path to failure when one is analyzing complex subjects of this historical nature. May Carl Sagan rest in peace. Long Live Dr. Velikovsky!

Roberto Solàrion, Dallas, Texas, 10 February 2001

 

SCIENCE COULD HELP SOCIETIES WEATHER RUINOUS CLIMATE CHANGE
By Tom Siegfried, Science Editor

The world is full of menaces to society, and always has been.

Throughout recorded history, and even before, human societies have tended to fall apart. From the Natufian hunter-gatherers to the Central American Maya to the Anasazi of the American Southwest, cultures of great sophistication have inevitably collapsed.

Guess who's next.

Surely not the post-industrial high-tech mass-marketing culture that rules the world today? Don't count on it.

Collapse of a society can occur rather suddenly, say anthropologist Harvey Weiss and geoscientist Raymond Bradley. Flourishing cultures may abruptly abandon the region they occupy, drastically alter their way of life or radically reorganize their social and governmental systems.

Apparently, archaeologists have commonly concluded, various political and economic problems conspire to drive societies to ruin. But the latest evidence suggests that the real menace was the weather. Recent precise dating of ancient weather changes reveals that many cultural disruptions corresponded with drastic climatic shifts.

"There is mounting evidence that many cases of social collapse were associated with changes in climate," Drs. Weiss and Bradley wrote last month in the journal SCIENCE.

When climate changes suddenly, societies may not be able to cope with the unfamiliar living conditions that result.

"Prehistoric and early historic societies -- from villages to states or empires -- were highly vulnerable to climatic disturbances," the scientists wrote.

About 12,000 years ago, for example, the Natufians of southwest Asia switched their lifestyle from hunting to farming. The impetus for that cultural shift, say Drs. Weiss and Bradley, was a cooler, drier climate. Hunting and foraging could no longer supply enough food, so the nomadic lifestyle collapsed and a culture based on planting crops and raising animals arose in its place.

Then 8,200 years ago, a drought lasting about two centuries led to abandonment of the farming settlements. Only moister conditions millennia later allowed the rebirth of Mesopotamian civilization. From about 2600 B.C. onward, favorable climate supported civilizations from the Mediterranean and Egypt through Mesopotamia to India. But many of those cultures suffered drastic change after 2290 B.C., when the weather cooled and rainfall levels dropped dramatically.

Similarly, severe drought coincided with the Maya collapse of the ninth century, and decades of drought in the 13th century apparently forced the Anasazi to abandon their habitats.

In the past, of course, humans had no control over climate, and their cultures were at the mercy of atmospheric aberrations. In the future, though, climate will be conditioned in part by the gases pumped into the air by power plants, factories and cars. The result, most experts say, will be a warmer planet.

How warm the Earth will get, and how fast, are of course matters of considerable uncertainty and debate. Carbon dioxide, the principal air-warming gas, participates in some complicated chemistry.

Plants suck carbon dioxide out of the air for food, keeping atmospheric levels lower than they would otherwise be. But when the plants die and decay, the carbon combines with oxygen again and returns to warm the atmosphere.

All the carbon doesn't return to the air, though, because some organic matter decays very slowly. Vast amounts of carbon are stored, for instance, in the northern peatlands. In fact, the peatlands may contain more than half as much carbon as the amount already in the air. Writing recently in NATURE, scientists from the University of Wales say the peat decays slowly because it contains chemicals blocking the enzymes that cause decay.

Enzymes are biological catalysts. Without the right enzyme around, most biochemical reactions go slower than a molasses-covered glacier. But the right enzyme turns the light green and abolishes the speed limit.

In the peatlands, it seems, an enzyme called phenol oxidase doesn't do its job of breaking up alcohol-like chemicals called phenols. When phenols accumulate, they block the action of other enzymes that cause decay, the Welsh scientists surmise.

Based on lab experiments and measurements in Florida wetlands, the Welsh group concludes that lack of oxygen keeps the phenol oxidase inactive. More oxygen would trigger that enzyme to destroy the phenols, clearing the way for massive decay.

"This has profound implications," the Welsh biologists wrote. If patterns of global change dry out the peatlands, bringing in more oxygen, reinvigorated enzyme activity could rapidly release billions of tons of carbon into the air, possibly causing dire climatic consequences.

This possibility is far from the only consideration in evaluating future climate threats. But it should serve as a signal to politicians who are cavalier about the global warming problem. Unless they understand enzymes -- and they don't -- they cannot appreciate how fragile the current climate may be.

So today's society may find itself in much the same situation as the historical cultures crippled by climate change. Except that, as Drs. Weiss and Bradley point out, scientists now can anticipate the future.

Science's foresight could help society plan to reduce the damage that climate change might inflict.

"This will require substantial international cooperation," say Drs. Weiss and Bradley, "without which the 21st century will likely witness unprecedented social disruptions."