Earth Changes

Pole Shift

Pole shifts have been predicted for a long time in relation to the end times.  Two kinds have been proposed.  First, a magnetic pole shift where the North and South poles suddenly move to new locations, possibly with the magnetic field disappearing completely for a while.  Second, a shift where the spin axis of the earth suddenly changes, like a top that is slowed down and topples.  There is some evidence that both kinds of pole shifts have occurred in the past. Geology tells us that the magnetic fields of the earth have changed many times over the life of the planet.  We know this because the iron in lava maintains its magnetic direction as the lava cools and hardens, so lava flows contain a history of the magnetic poles of the earth.  The last magnetic pole flip occurred 740,000 years ago. The sun also undergoes magnetic pole flips, and they happen every 11 years at the peak of the sunspot cycle.  The next expected magnetic pole flip of the sun is in 2012;  there's that date again!  Could the sun's pole reversal help push the earths reversal if the earth's field was already unstable? Some believe that the magnetic field strength would decrease to zero during the transition time of the pole shift.  If that indeed happened, it would be extremely bad for life on the planet, as the magnetic field acts as a shield protecting us from lethal radiation.  Of course some would survive, but the vast majority of people and other life forms would perish.

Physical pole shift would be much more violent, and destructive.  The physical pole shift theory says that due to some impetus, like a redistribution of polar ice, the earth's crust suddenly slips on the liquid core of the earth.  The polar regions may rotate to the equator, and the equator may migrate to the polar regions causing gross changes in the climate of earth.  The energy required to do this in a rapid time frame would be enormous, as all of the land mass, and all of the oceans would be in motion.  Huge devastating tidal waves would overwhelm the land, and enormous winds (air tries to remain in place) would scour the earth destroying everything in its pass.  There is some evidence that this has happened, as deep underneath the ice in Prudhoe Bay Alaska, oil wells have brought up ferns and tropical plants.  Also, the woolly mammoths in Siberia were found quick frozen showing the climate changed so quickly that the animals still had tropical vegetation in their guts.

On the other hand, if physical pole shift happened over a period of millennia, no one would probably notice except by scientific measurements. 

Which one will happen?  No one knows.  Maybe neither one.  Stay tuned until December 22, 2012 for the answer.

Global Warming

Global warming means simply that the earth is getting hotter.  How much?  Less than 1 degree centigrade on average over the past 100 years.  There is little doubt that this is happening, and many think it will lead to catastrophic events such as higher sea levels, increased storms with more violence, drought, floods, famine, and melting ice caps. One degree in temperature change does not sound like a lot, and its not unless the average temperature of an area is close to the freezing point, in which case it could mean a large difference in the amount of ice cover.  But the temperature change is not uniform across the globe.  A one degree average temperature change means that some areas could see changes far in excess of one degree; hence the droughts, ice melting, flooding and storms of higher intensity. What is causing global warming?  The standard line is that we, the human race, are.  Driving our SUVs to work, using electricity, heating our homes, and in short, enjoying our industrial lifestyle  is to blame.  All of these activities use fossil fuel, hydrocarbons, and when that fuel is burned to release its energy carbon dioxide is released.  This carbon dioxide in the atmosphere acts as a blanket, and causes heat to be retained that would have otherwise radiated into space.  But, there is a problem with this explanation.  It seems that every planetary body in our solar system is exhibiting some kind of warming... even as far out as Pluto.  Obviously, soccer moms driving their kids to school in their H2 Hummer cannot be the reason that Mercury is getting warmer can it?  So something else must be going on, something that we don't understand, but is most likely linked to increased activity from the Sun.  Solar activity is greater now than it has been for thousands of years.  Knowing that warming is occurring on other planets, wouldn't it be wise to consider that humanity and fossil fuels may not be the root cause of global warming?  If we fail to identify the true cause, there is little hope in finding a solution.

From Filer's Files :  

And from Nasa:

Whatever the cause, global warming is going to contribute to the drama leading up to the 2012 event, both in political terms and in physical terms.  We are already seeing disturbing changes in weather all around the world.  We live in a delicate balance with nature, and nature has the ability to decimate populations through floods, drought, and violent storms as we have recently seen.

Peak Oil

Peak oil is a topic that hasn't been discussed very much in the past, but is starting to be noticed by the mainstream media.  Most people think Peak Oil means that we have run out of oil, but that is not true.  In a nutshell it means that we can no longer produce enough to meet demand.  There is plenty of evidence to suggest that we have reached that point.  For more information about what Peak Oil is, see the Peak Oil Primer

This is going to play a major role in what happens in the next few years as we approach 2012.  Oil is what drives modern society.  Without it, we revert to the 19th century, and that means that a lot of us are going to die. 

Modern farming requires vast amounts of oil to run machinery, and to produce fertilizer.  Without oil, crop yields will plummet, and food shortages will ensue.  Also, we are accustomed to eating a meal where the average distance each morsel traveled to get to our plate is 1500 miles.  That cannot be sustained without oil.  I recently bought a jar of peaches in my local store, which were grown in Peru, canned in Thailand, and consumed in the USA.  No doubt the transportation cost more than the peaches. 

Without gasoline, people cannot drive to work.  People no longer live close to where they work, and in my neck of the woods, people often commute 100 miles one way each day.  If people can't get to work, they can't pay their bills.  So expect a lot of home foreclosures, and bankruptcies.  With the rising cost of energy, a lot of manufacturing will be forced to shut down, which will exacerbate the employment problems even more.....  major depression will be the result.

Without oil, a lot of people cannot heat their homes.  Winters in the cold parts of the countries will be especially cruel without sufficient oil supplies.  Expect a lot of people to die from the cold.  If they were all to convert to electricity, it would put a rather large burden on the generating plants, and they may have trouble supplying their present loads due to shortages of natural gas.  Whether heat is supplied by electricity, oil, propane, natural gas, or coal, it is going to get a lot more expensive in the years ahead. The economy of the western world is very tightly coupled with oil consumption.  Any forced decrease in consumption will certainly affect the economy negatively.  So we have what is known as a feedback loop.  Decreased supply causes high energy prices which cause a recession or depression, which lowers demand for oil which causes energy prices to decrease, which starts the cycle over.  This will happen because we cannot produce more oil as required.  If we had a substantial surplus of production, the economy could continue to grow, but sooner or later the same thing happens.... not enough supply to meet demand causing high oil prices, which starts the cycle. All of these issues will culminate in a lot of civil unrest.  War may be the result as we try to grab what oil resources remain.  Because of the civil unrest, martial law may be instituted.  Much of the stability we have known in the past will vanish.  Expect food and gas rationing as supplies diminish each year.  This could happen relatively quickly or could take several years, as world demand for oil could ease considerably due to a worldwide economic depression.  In short, Peak Oil could destroy our civilization.

What about new technology?  Won't that save us?  No it won't.  It is too late to bring any new technology onboard in time to save us.  In fact there is no technology even being explored which could put a significant dent in the problem except perhaps biodiesel.  Hydrogen is often touted as the wave of the future, but the truth is that it takes more energy to make hydrogen than it gives back.  Its a good carrier, but produces no new net energy.  Biofuels are also talked about a lot, and biodiesel holds a lot of promise, but we do not have the infrastructure at this point to make use of it.  It would take over 3 billion acres of oil seed crops to make enough biodiesel to meet our transportation needs based on a yield of 30 gallons net biodiesel per acre.  That would require land acreage larger than 100 times the area of Pennsylvania.

Bioalcohol (made from fermented corn) produces a small net energy gain, and functions more as a farm subsidy than a solution to the energy crisis.   Ok, what about windmills?  Well, windmills are great, but they don't produce near enough power, and they are continually fought by the environmentalists.  Solar?  Solar cells are extremely expensive for the amount of power they produce, and require a lot of energy to manufacture.  So they are not the solution either.  That doesn't mean we should not build windmills and solar plants; just that they alone will not replace the oil energy we are losing.

That leaves nuclear.  That is our best hope (there is always hope isn't there?).  Nuclear has proven itself to be the safest, lowest pollution energy we have ever had in the US (fortunately, we were smart enough not to build graphite reactors like Chernobyl).  There are much better designs now than there were when the last ones were built.  However, we haven't built a new plant for over 30 years.  We may not even have the  manufacturing ability to build new plants in the short term, and the lead time for planning and permits etc makes nuclear out of the time frame to save us.  Too bad.  Ultimately though, we are going to have to learn to live within a much tighter energy budget, until we reengineer our lifestyles, and our energy policies to make sensible use all the currently available alternatives, as no single one will be able to replace oil.

A very good candidate for a modern nuclear reactor design is the pebble bed reactor.  It has the advantages of self limiting reaction (no chance of melt down), modular scalable design so one basic reactor would fit more requirements, the same design could use multiple radioactive fuel types, and it doesn't have to be shut down for re-fueling.  See the Wikipedia entry for more information about pebble reactors.