Begining of the End
 

With all the natural disasters and death in recent years are these some of the events that are leading upto the begining of the end? I am not afraid of it happening, but will we see it in OUR lifetime?

The beginning of time was the beginning of the end. Beyond that, there is no way to forsee.

Things are always beginning and always ending . . . Earth is in one constant state of upheaval and change . . . both phsyically and socially amongst the beings on this planet . . .

I am not religious . . so i dont believe in the "end times" as so many have pointed out recently . . .

However . . . if this were the beginning of the end . . .
aka, the end of the cycle of death and greed and inequality that Earth is locked in right now . . . the end of suffering, the end of starvation of large percentage of the humans on this planet, the end of unequal distrubution of wealth, food, resources . . . then count me a Supporter of this being an end to this time in our history . . . I think that humanity can be alot more than what we are right now . . .

Every generation wants to believe "this is end times". I believe that thinking your in "end times" in some way psychologically allows you to deal with your own mortality. Let's face it, none of us truly want to die and face that great unknown (religion and phlosophies of afterlife aside....) and in some fashion saying it is "end times" allows us to believe that life on Earth will not go on long after us. Religions and governments have always used the fear of "end times" to control the people.

The fact that we hear about all these tragedies and natural disasters is a product of the mass media that spans the globe and can have the story here in minutes instead of days and weeks as in the past or never hearing of it except as folklore and stories passed down as our distant ancestors did.

But through science we also see that events like this have happened throughout the Earth's history.

Are there changes to the Earth and nature? Again that is debateable, for every scientist that says yes, there's a scientist that says the Earth simply goes through cycles (Global Warming is a great example.)

This is known though, never have so many been alive at once on this planet, and yet as much as we claim there are not enough resources for all, the Earth IS supporting us and there are plenty of resources.... it is the greed of man and governments that prevents the resources from being equally distributed. (I dam up a creek on my property to build a lake and it dries up your farmland, it wasn't an act of God but the greed of man that did it..... and that is what is happening throughout the planet.)

I think mankind has many many many years to live on this planet and I believe as history has shown our progeny will live through hard times and good times, seeing evil and greatness. But it is all the balance of things.... Yin and Yang.

Times are tough now, but that I believe is because the news can broadcast far more info in one day about anything than our forefathers got in their lifetime. Perhaps, we have old schoolers, who still believe war and superiority should rule. And, perhaps, because of the media's ability there is a greater mindset to find peace. But I think that is seen also throughout mankind's history.

In the end perhaps 100 years from now our great great grandchildren will be reading about these days and wondering how we could have thought these were such bad days, when they are living in what they believe to be end times.

KUDOS for your beliefs and sharing them and you can count me in also.

As far as natural disasters go, what we are going through now can be considered mild compared to some of the ravages the earth has been through in the past. However our population is huge and increasing rapidly. I fear mother nature has a way of taking care of such imbalances.

Pan, I think you are right on with what you wrote, particularly about our perceptions being defined by the media's reporting. There haven't really been more natural disasters recently, it is just that they are reported differently. Michael Crichton's new book, State of Fear, deals with this concept...

perfectly stated.

Geologically, recent events are nothing more than a slight case of indegestion for the earth.

Now if you want to look at some real show stoppers, check out Exit Mundi.

I'm personally betting on a large solar flair or an asteroid strike.

Gamma ray Burst from a Super Nova....that'd put a bit of a damper on my day.

thanks very much!

did i mention how much i Love TFP? This site is amazing :)

good points made!
absolutely flstf . . . If everything is a cycle and everything has a balance, in which i believe is true . . . then the imbalances will be righted . . . if i look at what i see on Earth and think it is chaos . . . it is merely because i am incapable of seeing the quiet nuances that are ordered and following patterns amongst the chaos . . .

Life is far more resilient than people give it credit - I think we'll see life on Earth for another 500 million years - it's managed that long so far - and it's been through much worse than any human has witnessed.

What do you mean by "the end?"

End of all humanity? Civilization? Life on Earth?
Some kind of biblical Armageddon?

I don't think the "Left Behind" type end is very likely, but I suppose it's always possible we'll blow ourselves up or something.

I don't really think that these are the end times. There'd have to be more signs than just a Tsunami. And as for being locked in a cycle of greed, I'd think those living during the Great Depression would have a lock on being worried about that.

I think that if we found a comet or asteroid heading for earth, that would be a good sign of "The End Times"

Um, aren't you off by a factor of almost 10 there?

Which way? I took what I thought was a conservative, rounded figure of 500 million from what I read here

Though here's a site quoting an age of 3.5 billion years

Which also ages mankind at something between 4.4million years for hominid ancestors to 100,000 years to evidence for our good selves.

Yes. The end is definitely coming. The year 2000 is quickly approaching, and we're all doomed...

That URL has life's age between 4.5 Gyr and 3.5 Gyr.

The Cambrian era starts with the "Cambrian explosion", when life exploded into lots of different forms that formed pretty fossils. I believe that hard shells became relatively common during this period (or, at least, in this period's fossil record!). Life before the "Cambrian explosion" is harder to find in the fossil record. The pre-cambrian Vendian period goes back to 650 million years, and contains relatively common, soft-body, earlier fossil life.

More data:
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cambrian/camb.html

The oldest rocks we've found on earth are 4.03 billion years old (near Great Slave Lake in Canada). Asteroids seem to top out at 4.6 billion years old. The oldest evidence for live on earth places it back 3.5 to 4.0 billion years.

I don't think we have any way of knowing when or if the world will come to an end. We'd have to see the future and no one can do that.

Does the poster know something the rest of us don't? ;-)

Disturbing weather could mean "the end" depending on how far into the greenhouse effect we are. If we have set off a runaway greenhouse effect then the end is in sight. The planet will turn violent and heat up enough to kill us all. Earth will get so hot that water will be able to escape the atmosphere and instead of water it will rain sulfer. My astronomy prof last year was talking about this, the theory is earth will slowly adapt an atmosphere like venus, thus we die. :)

First off the Earth, and life on it, is gonna be around for a long time to come. Natural disasters has happened on this planet in greater force and with greater frequency many other times in its history. As for humanity though, its harder to say. Only in the last several decades has humanity ever concerned itself with the possibility of our own species one day going extinct. As I see it the threat is present in two forms: environmental degradation and nuclear warfare. Either way, the problem is there and it could happen in our lifetimes but there is no way of knowing. The solutions to either of these problems are within our lifetimes grasp too, but also no way of knowing.

Agreed, but I think humanity will be around for a very long time to come.

Disagre here, I think it would have been very hard to tell the Romans during Nero and the Barrack room emporers thatthat wasn't end times. Also, there is proof mankind has almost always thought of his demise. The Book of Revelations is a good example, as is some of Socrates and Plato's teachings and Nostradamus.

Again, I truly believe that every generation looks down at the next and thinks the world will end after their generation is gone... in one way it's ego and in the other it is a way for us to face our own demise.


I believe this is giving us far too much credit. The Earth (nature) has far more powerful forces than that we EVER will have, that being said, and my belief that Earth itself is living and growing in it's own way has ways to protect itself from our abuses. I think the Earth gows through many cycles (El Nino,El Nina, the ice age etc.) and those are nature's ways of healing the Earth.

Plus, I believe mankind to be very, very, adaptable to change, with a strong survival instinct and therefore will change as Earth changes, as we always have.

I do agree that pollution (especially air) is unhealthy and may cause Earth to change and adapt itself, but to claim that it will destroy everything is a myth that the media and welll paid scientists would love us to believe. Look at volcanoes and how they will throw out far more air pollution than man will in 100 years.

If our air is so unhealthy and our water so polluted then how do you explain lifespans to be getting longer?

Don't get me wrong, I do want my children to inherit a cleaner Earth than what we have now.... but I don't believe us to be destroying our home planet and I don't see us ever doing so or be allowed to do so.

I believe that it is the beginning of the end, in a more litteral sense. People see things as having a definite beginning and a definite end. With new advents however we are being forced to come to the conclusion that a lot things are simply self-sustaining, and perhaps 'infinity' plays a greater role than 'nothing' in our life. This is derived from the discovery of prbability, quantum mechanics, relativity, Astronomical studies and the relivation, discovery and containment of anti-matter. Humanity as a whole defines itself through starts and finishes and specific point, however it is critical to realize that time is just as relative as jogging, it can slow or speed up, depending on the references and percetions of the subject, or it could possibly be as flexible as any other dimension.

I don't agree. While the Romans might have believed it was the end of Rome and John might have forseen the end of days both scenarios still didn't entail complete human extinction. Even in Revelations there is talk of the people who don't live in the city of gold and essentially a human existence carrying on. What I am really talking about is complete and total human extinction, not just life as we know it or most people.

I think we might have a misunderstanding here. I meant what I said earlier in that the Earth and life on it is not going anywhere. However, the Earth correcting the damage we cause can kill us through the far more powerful forces that you mentioned. I dare say though that the doesn't cause fussion or fission reactions, though it does occur naturally in stars. The point is we now have the power to wipe ourselves out if we aren't careful either through war or unchecked development.

Wouldn't that be wonderful?

No i dont beleive that *this is the end of our civilization or life as humans on earth*.

Theres nothing like a big natural disaster to get all the doom propheteers talking, apparently we have between ten - twenty years before our way of live in the western hemisphere with regards to carbon emissions starts un-reversible effects on the earths climate, I don't know how much credence to give end of the world theories anymore since they are often discredited.

However we have put a hole in the ozone layer and we are using up our natural reserves of fuel so we are definately capable of affecting the planet with our actions as a species and I can't see how, if we continue as we are that the planet will support us.

The natural disasters of recent years are just that, natural, they have nothing to do with us as their cause so I don't think they should be taken as indicators that the end is upon us

The Earth has always gone through many changes and natural disasters...

it's just its way of changing.

There you go, I set it to the end of the Mayan Calendar, a favorite "end time" of conspiracy theorists and paranoid historians.

At the risk of encouraging any more paranoia, I just came across this link http://www.nepanewsletter.com/polar.html

You're giving the "disasters" too much credit. As many (if not more) people die daily from hunger and disease as were killed by the Asian tsunami. As many people as that were fried by atom bombs in Japan during WW2. That was pretty harsh. Yet somehow "justified". 40 more million were killed around that time too.

The end has been a long time in coming. Yet, it never does. I wouldn't worry about it.

I like the stat that the expected death rate from a ELE asteroid beats out some more 'common' death-causes, like airline deaths.

That doesn't mean one should expect it to happen anytime soon.

zen_tom: I think that website that you quoted has proved itself wrong:

So I was reading through this guys site and according to it aliens told this man he was going to die in 2003, yet he somehow still believes in the rest of their message despite his still being alive today. Also I have apparently missed the massive sightings of "motherships" around the globe... I knew the second I stopped reading the paper something big was gonna happen.

Ha! I didn't spot the 2003 thing - I suppose that actually makes it even more relevant to this discussion than I initially thought!

The beginning of the end, possibly. The Mayan predicted the world would be destroyed by "great fire" in 2008. Now what "the end" entails is open to debate, that aside though, I do believe that humanity as a whole will undergo a dramatic change. Good or bad is just point of view.

Nah, during the Mesozoic era it is hypothosized that the CO2 levels were much higher and the planet much warmer than it is now. Now, if we pump that much carbon back into the atmosphere it might be an unpleasant ride back to that climate, but we as a species will survive nicely.