Terrence Aym
Conspiracy theorists move aside, some of the world’s top scientists are taking center stage with claims the remainder of the 21st Century will be a time of unprecedented catastrophes. In less than 40 years the population will swell past 9 billion, water wars will erupt, consumption will soar, and a cooling planet will reduce food productionand strain energy resources. Mass migration could take place from the Northern to Southern Hemisphere, and aFukushima radiation cloud could poison billions north of the Equator. Read what some of the world’s greatest minds predict will unfold during the coming decades. And then study the advice on how to survive it all…
Scientists are predicting another mass extinction
Cosmic catastrophes…Earth changes…deadly pandemics, nuclear war or meltdowns…mass extinctions. Every day people wake expecting the sun to rise like it did the day before and the day before that…until the day the volcano erupts, the megathrust earthquake strikes, or the flood waters rise.
Human lifespans are short compared to geological time, so Man’s shortsightedness when it comes to epochal and transitory events may be forgiven—by Man. But nature is blind and very unforgiving. And the history of the world is darkened with episode after episode of mass extinctions on a planetary scale.
Now scientists are predicting another mass extinction, one that most of humanity may not survive. The Singularitists, survivalists, preppers—even a few nation’s militaries and political institutions—have been preparing for the approaching mass extinction for decades. Smart money is betting the extinction has already begun and will continue to accelerate through the remainder of this century and into the next.
What are the dangers? How could Mankind slip into extinction?
And most important of all: how can you protect yourself and your family from the possibility of mass death?
Checklist of self-inflicted death and destruction
Many of the world’s great theorists, futurists and climate-biological experts are jumping on the extinction bandwagon. Are they all delusional or politically motived by some shadowy New World Order? Probably not.
A disturbing timeline of world-killing paradigm shifts has been compiled by striketheroot.com. The timeline, outlined by Glen Allport, includes many mushrooming trends and variables that, unchecked, likely will lead to extinctions, even mass extinction. The irony is that while many are fearful of supervolcano eruptions, gigantic asteroids smashing into Earth, or intense solar flar ‘killshots’ that sterilize the planet, the most likely mass extinction event would be self-inflicted.
What is most alarming is the fact that there is not just one trend, but many trends.
Allport’s checklist of death and destruction seems to lead inexorably toward what some scientists are calling the Sixth Great Extinction. Some of the tipping points toward the slide into oblivion include:
1. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and nanotech projects
An increasing number of studies,and intensifying research, are exposing the horrific truth of genetically manipulting the world’s basic food supply. The GM food business promises trillions of dollars in future profit and the ability to patent whole classes of bio-consumables—that is if the human race is still around after consuming biologically altered and “improved” grains, vegetables and fruits.
Some independent studies have discovered GM foods are linked to “…high rates of infertility, miscarriage, and birth defects in animals exposed to certain GMO foods that millions of humans are now consuming.”
Nanotech, applied to self-replicating organisms and machines, also lays the foundation for the future demise of the human race.
Bill Joy is quoted by Allport about this emerging technology and the quotation is beyond frightening. Joy, is the cofounder of Sun Microsystems and worked for years as the company’s chief scientist. Author of the article that thrust fear into the hearts of some technologists, Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us (Wired Magazine, April 2000), Joy unemotionally spelled out in vivid detail how the direction of modern technology is heading for a catastrophic conclusion—and humans will feel the brunt of it.
Quote: “Thus we have the possibility not just of weapons of mass destruction but of knowledge-enabled mass destruction (KMD), this destructiveness hugely amplified by the power of self-replication.
“I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals.”
2. Radioactive Armegeddon
The Three Mile Island nuclear emergency was a not-too-gentle nudge. Overall, people ignored it.
Ukraine’s Chernobyl disaster was the world’s wake-up call. But collectively the people rolled over and went back to sleep.
Then the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami slammed into the Tokyo Electric Power Comaony (TEPCO) reactors in Fukushima during March 2011. The damage, which many experts claim caused a partial or total meltdown of at least two of the four reactor cores, is gradually poisoning all of Japan and the surrounding Pacific.
A dead Japan and dying Northern Hemisphere?
Some nuclear experts are extremely concerned that if TEPCO reactor #4 loses total containment eventually most of the world will be radioactively poisoned.
Recently evidence came to light that the hydrogen explosion at the TEPCO power plant blew a huge quantity of deadly radioactive particles into the atmosphere at supersonic speed.
Brad Jacobson has given an excellent summation of the dangers TEPCO’s reactors still present to a mostly unwary world and “Why Nuclear Experts Are Calling Fukushima a Ticking Time-Bomb.”
3. Climate change: massive Ice Age kills billions
While the last several decades have seen the Western political structure gearing up to combat long-term anthropogenic global warming, the smartest climate experts are warning that the next real climate changewill be an Ice Age. A growing number expect it to begin after the sun enters the Maunder Minimum—a period of extended, significant cooling that NASA and other space agencies predict will last between 30 to 50 years. That cooling begins after 2013.
Where the Ice Age supporters disagree is how long the period of cooling will last. Some say 50 to 100 years. Others predict a so-called Little Ice Age will trigger a prolonged 100,000 year Ice Age.
The scientists that think the cooling the Northern Hemisphere will experience may last up to 100,000 years base their belief on the fact that the climate cycle on Earth has been predominantly an Ice Age the last several million years with periods of warming that last roughly 11,500 years. That warming period is known as the interglatial period—the relatively short warm-up between Ice Ages.
Now, many are beginning to suspect that the current interglatial period has reached its end.
If true, very hard times are ahead for the human race: whole regions will become unlivable, massive crop failures and famines, mass migrations farther south, extreme social unrest and a likely string of devastating wars. Upwards of several billion people could perish. And while that’s not exactly a mass extinction, the collapse of modern civilization could occur.
Climate researcher Robert Felix is at the forefront of the Ice Age science. He has been fighting against the idea of man-made global warming for decades. He argues in his book, Not By Fire, But By Ice that increasing precipitation, not CO₂, is what drives climate change. And the biggest climate factor of all is the sun.
Other experts raise other warning flags.
Sir John Sulston warns of dwindling resources
Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston of the oyal Society in England is warning that unless the world population stabilizes and consumption is cut Mankind faces ultimate extinction.
Water experts and environmentalists warn that the world is fast approaching a potable water shortage. The crisis, they claim, is of such magnitude that civilization could collapse after a series of devastating wars, the survivors fall into barbarism, and the collapse into primitivism followed by the final die-off of the vestiges of humanity.
In essence, the remainder of the 21st Century may be a time of trials and tribulations, resulting in ongoing misery for the masses, culminating in the final demise of Man.
During a mass extinction virtually everyone will die
What can you do to protect yourself and your family?
Certain basic steps for surviving disasters can be easily found on the Internet. Many of the large prepper sites contain valid, well thought out information, checklists and guidelines for dealing with and meeting various disasters such as pandemics, the loss of the electrical grid, widespread civil unrest, currency collapse, governmental collapse, and more prosaic catastrophes like floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes.
Few, if any, of the prepper and survivalist sites deal with such issues as a mass extinction caused by an accelerating hemispheric Ice Age, global nuclear poisoning or protection from the rapidly encroaching, worldwide threat of GM food.
Specific action plans must be created to deal with those categories of threats. Mass extinction of the human race may be avoided if enough people are prepared to deal with it in the event that one or more of the catastrophic scenarios comes to fruition.
If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, consider acquiring some second property south of the Equator. Geologically and politically stable countries are preferred. If you don’t already have hard assets (precious metals such as gold and silver) consider acquiring and stockpiling them. In the short-term stocking extra food, water, and emergency survivalist supplies is helpful.
Create a family plan so everyone knows where to go and what to do if an emergency or catastrophe strikes.
If the Fukushima worst case scenario unfolds, much of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres couold become death zones and whole regions devolve into Mad Max bands of roaming, foraging thugs. Many would die of starvation, radioactive exposure and tainted food.
Experts suggest the safest place on Earth (prevailing winds that carry radioactive particles are blocked by almost impassable mountain ranges and the ocean currents are influenced by Antarctic waters far to the south), are areas of the Patagonia region in and around the countryside of Western Argentina. Every other area of the planet will eventually become contiminated to some degree.
An Ice Age’s effects would be felt more slowly—over a period of decades or more. There’s more time to prepare for it.
Living deep underground [Image credit: Jerry Taylor]
Recently, io9.com asked some experts how to survive cosmic catastrophes and mass extinctions. Most experts advised going underground. That’s something governments like the U.S., Russia, and China have been doing for decades.
Learning from the Nazi’s engineering of underground factories and cities, the world’s largest countries began building underground to create a defensible and survivable layer of government in the event the surface of the world becomes unlivable for periods of time.
Subterranean living is not feasible for very many people. While some have taken to living in former missile silos, or built homes deep inside hillsides, most cannot afford the expense.
Yale biologist Ellen Thomas, editor of Marine Micropaleontology, told io9.com that “Humans are predicted to have problems in a mass extinction. We’re too big.”
io9.com goes on to explain that “…all animals of more than about fifteen pounds went extinct after the cosmic event that ended the Cretacious and the reign of the dinosaurs. Top predators on land and sea usually died off first, because the animals and plants they ate also died out during the toxic cold that seems to accompany most mass extinctions.”
Yet, surviving a mass extinction event is doable, as most people will not be prepared for it, have no plan, and will rely on ineffective governments to save them.
Be forewarned, though, survival may not be a very pleasant experience.
