Many have predicted the end of the World around 2012. Given the current economic trends, food shortages (and skyrocketing prices) and energy costs that will only go up due to a looming production/consumption imbalance...
Could we be on track for global nuclear war in the next half decade?
While I don't think this is the case, I certianly get the feeling that people don't see any resolution to our current situation and neither of the three contenders for US President are talking about it seriously.
I have a more morbid vision of the ensuing doom! Rising costs of everything, shortages of food, fuel, money.....rising unemployment and more and more foreclosures.......I see us turning on each other at some point.
Don't worry be happy. I figure that isn't anything I can do so why worry about it. Now if it comes to turning on each other I am pretty small so I won't be a very good meal for anyone but you Larry you could feed a whole family. Hey Craig I pick my first asparagus tonite
"A beach is a place where a man can feel he's the only soul in the world that's real"
I am sure people in 1930-45 said holy crap how will we ever survive. A great depression followed by war on a scale hopefully we will never know but somehow the nation got through it. What I would like to see from our political leaders is a plan of action that will result in change things even if it is bitter going down. We were able to get a man on the moon in less than ten years after making it a national goal. Why can't we do the same for algae or hemp based biofuel. How about a tax structure that rewards people who save. For every 500 dollars average increase in your designated savings account over the course of a year you get 50 off your taxes. A higher % income tax rate for those people making over 5 million. A higher inheritance tax for amounts over 10 million. Elimination of hard and soft pork projects. There is a lot of stuff we could do if we had the stomach and backbone for it.
I think we are in for a tough road,, Yes there is an economic crisis looming and the foreclosures will get worse,,,,
It will be very tough for some and gas and food prices will really show their effects on many this fall,,, If there is no give this winters fuel prices might just break the bank.
I also think the News only tells the doom and gloom,,,, We will get through it,,, it just might hurt a little,,,, So here it comes,,,
I watched an amazing program on The History Channel a few days ago. It was about the history of Earth, all 4.5 billion years of it, how it cooled from a lump of motlen rock to become what we have today. The planet has been through so many incredible global changes in its' exsistence, it seems rather vain to say that we humans, as insignificant as we are in the Earth's history, can influence the course of our planet's evolution. There have been times when Earth has boomed with millions of species of organisms only to freeze and lose almost every living thing on the planet. Extinction of global levels has happened throughout Earth's history.
We human beings are but one of Earth's tenants, here for probably a short time in the grand scheme of things. Our ability to think so advanced may ultimately become our greatest liability...
Our pollution will be wiped away, it may take a few million years, but in Earth years, that is the blink of an eye, and there will come a day when finding proof that human beings exsisted will be much like finding dinosaur fossils.
Here is an interesting read, it is the prologue to the book Jurassic Park, take a second and read it in the context of today's upheaval and global warming fears:
You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years. Earth has survived everything in its time.
It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. Might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. You think this is the first time that's happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine.
When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. Hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.
So, we may be destroying life as we know it, but I might disagree when it is said that humans are destroying the planet. The Earth is very resilient. I realize this has little to do with the original post regarding the Mayan calendar, but hey, I'm on my first cup of coffee, bear with me!
It's not about saving the planet, it's about saving ourselves. Carlin did a great piece on that thought. People have to learn to give to get, right now greed rules and there's no giving, only gimme,gimme. And THIS is what we get in return. Hooper, nice post.
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Thomas Paine
Don't worry be happy. I figure that isn't anything I can do so why worry about it. Now if it comes to turning on each other I am pretty small so I won't be a very good meal for anyone but you Larry you could feed a whole family. Hey Craig I pick my first asparagus tonite
ProfessorM
i havent had time to mow the bed....
and i see nothing emerging...yet Paul...
but thanks for the heads up...just the same....
since it's gonna rain all next week..
i'll get right on that endeavor...on sunday
George Carlin does a skit on saving the planet that is hilarious and thought provoking. The guy is right on the money. Well worth the listen. Be ready for some salty language. Hooper you will like this
Last edited by ProfessorM; 04-26-2008 at 01:40 PM..
"A beach is a place where a man can feel he's the only soul in the world that's real"
I'm not really buying into the Mayan Calendar Prohpecy. I don't think there will be Armageddon on December 21,2012..
Extremely accurate calender in every sense though.Tides,sunset/rises,and the movement of heavenly objects like planets and yes comets and large asteroids were so accurately predicted you can use it to this day and be completely accurate.The cycles of some of these objects in our solar system bring them very close to Earth and its the belief of some that the Mayan calender has predicted that the Earth and one of these objects will occupy the same space on Dec.21,2012.
Like you I don't buy it though.No proof just theory.
2012 is the last day of the Mayan calandar.. or that is how far the mayan's thought that THEIR civilization would end.. They got it off by 400 years.
Alternative fuels will come to the forefront.. Big Oil is trying to rape us all why they still can and the Whitehouse is pullling the strings to make it happen....
Time will prevail...but can the normal person who is not loaded make it through the tough times ahead??
George Carlin does a skit on saving the planet that is hilarious and thought provoking. The guy is right on the money. Well worth the listen. Be ready for some salty language. Hooper you will like this
Prof,
I LOVE George Carlin, I've seen him a few times at the Melody Tent here in Hyannis. Great clip, thanks, I enjoyed that!
I believe that date is when the earth will be the center of the galaxy which happens every 26,000 years. I could be mistaken however, I think I heard somewhere that the world will shift 3 degrees on it's axis. Who knows????
I believe that date is when the earth will be the center of the galaxy which happens every 26,000 years. I could be mistaken however, I think I heard somewhere that the world will shift 3 degrees on it's axis. Who knows????
it is true. However, if you forward that email to 54 different people, you will be able to save the earth from impending doom
I have a more morbid vision of the ensuing doom! Rising costs of everything, shortages of food, fuel, money.....rising unemployment and more and more foreclosures.......I see us turning on each other at some point.
yeah me too. once the system stops working, I envision gangs of thugs (the rest will be killed or starve) killing, raping, and pillaging for food and fuel to stay alive. Got thousands of rounds of ammo saved for my AK-47, .45, and 12 guage. A thompson center B/P and a compound bow for when all the high powered ammo runs out.
Last edited by MotoXcowboy; 04-27-2008 at 08:06 PM..
Europe was wasted in the middle ages, plagues wiped out millions, war has been raging since history began, dictators massacring millions.
The US civilians in WWII rationed gas, rubber, metal, meat.
Gas is $3.50 a gallon and we're all about to call it quits.
We're humans, the top of the food chain, we got through ice ages,floods, plagues, famines, wars, disease..........something tells me will get through this too.
Awe it's ok spence no need 4 apologies I understand why you find the urge to find flaws in my shooting, although shooting the bullseye in a tight group I believe that is decent shooting Oh 1 question for you where's your video of you shooting
Hmmm, I probably wouldn't characterize my urges in that manner
But anyway...the weapons I practice with are very advanced technically speaking. If a video were to surface it could cause serious problems for the US Government and some associates from Alpha Centauri, which I'm not at liberty to name at this time.
I do have over six thousand posts though, which should go far enough in proving my manhood.
I agree with the guy who said you need your own column or section in the scuppers. It would be pretty funny....but like you said we all may become to dependent and there will be major crisis at hand.
Cool topic
Oh 1 question for you where's your video of you shooting 
sorry back to the 2012 thread...
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