September 23 2023
COLLAPSE COMING
We’ve just had the hottest summer on recorded history, with runaway wildfires in Canada and Hawaii, ruinous floods from Slovenia, Sudan and Hong Kong to Vermont and South Americaand Libya. We’ve seen nearly half of the world’s ocean waters in a heat wave, having absorbed almost all of the heat produced by our greenhouse gas emissions. Even the Arctic has become almost tropical in temperature. The number of Hurricanes so far in the Atlantic is unprecedented for an El Nino year. And it will also affect you, and you, and me too, sooner than later: prepare for it.
The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, said that “humanity has opened the gates of hell” by unleashing worsening heatwaves, floods and wildfires seen around the world. He echoes Matthew 24.
Collapse is in the cards
Collapse first come gradually, and then, all at once. People say that I am an alarmist because I expect collapse. I admit: I am a Collapsetarian. I see emission of greenhouse gases increase; I see how new fossil fuel projects are subsidized; I see how global warming accelerates, how bushfires and floods engulf the planet; I see climate science ignored, climate change projections kept away from the public eye; I see nations invest in killer submarines rather than water spraying aircraft and other fire-fighting equipment. Yes, I am a Collapsetarian.
ARCTIC NEWS.
Almost every day I have a look at the ARCTIC NEWS website. I sincerely believe that our future lies buried there, or, better, the lack of our future. Especially its September 15 issue is frightening. It states, based on NASA observations, that the Arctic is heating up beyond any other region in the world. The ice that used to reflect the sunlight is now absorbing the solar heat and temperatures there are heating up with the Gulf Stream pushing hot water toward the Arctic Ocean. As the temperature of the Arctic Ocean keeps rising, more heat can reach sediments located at the seafloor, since much of the Arctic Ocean is very shallow and sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean contain vast amounts of methane. The danger is that additional heat will destabilize hydrates in these sediments, leading to explosive eruptions of methane, as the compressed volume of methane increases 160 to 180-fold when leaving the hydrates.
This will result in huge eruptions of methane both from the destabilizing hydrates and from methane that is present in the form of free gas underneath the hydrates. The scientists studying this phenomenon fear that a tipping point may be reached within months, causing a sudden spike in the world’s temperature beyond the limits of human endurances.
COLLAPSE
I have this book, 575 pages, COLLAPSE, How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, written by (Dr.) Jared Diamond. He discusses the tragedy of Easter Island, discovered by Jacob Roggeveen, and his Dutch crew, in 1722 on Easter Sunday, hence the name. Not a living soul remained, only gigantic statues. All trees gone. Dr. Diamond wonders, “What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it?” Like modern loggers, did he shout “Jobs, not trees!”? Or: Technology will serve our problems”?…. The parallels to today are chillingly obvious.
Looking around in the world, thanks to ‘The Internet’, everybody should be a “Collapsetarian”. Faith in the rulers of this world is fading. Look at the USA and the politics there: the Republicans seeking the presidency, don’t believe in Climate Change, ridicule science and scientists. For them Collapse will come as a total surprise.
Before COLLAPSE happens, all sorts of little collapses will take place, just as what happened in ungovernable Libya where civic strife prevented regular maintenance of the dams that collapsed and took away thousands of lives in a matter of minutes. I think it is a metaphor depicting our sudden demise, also due to human indulgence.
Just imagine: a sudden spike in the overall world temperature beyond the THREE DEGREES Celsius wherever you are in the world, will make life impossible for all that has a being. Do have a second look at the ARCTIC NEWS website. If its observations are correct – for their information they rely on NASA’s satellites regarding ice formation and water and air temperatures – then it is very possible that life on earth may cease as rapidly as the sudden deluge that occurred in strife-torn Libya.
Jesus had a unique insight into the future. Matthew 24 offers a glimpse of what is to come: for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
We do well to take stock and consider what it means when sudden Collapse, ultimate death and destruction, overwhelms all and everything. Be aware.