Sunday, January 02, 2005

    Take a Sniff

    While walking the dog this morning she saw something white in the distance and altered her course to check it out. She didn't know if it was something to eat or chase or ignore until she got the facts - smart dog. Since the big quake and subsequent tsunami I have heard and read all sorts of myths regarding these phenomena and would like to help my readers sniff out the facts:
    • Myth: The massive quake is the result of excessive oil removal creating massive underground potholes. Sniff: Huge quakes have taken place long before any oil was ever pumped.
    • Myth: Massive quakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanoes, etc. all lately only points to the fact that we are living in the end times. Sniff: With the advent of radio and TV news from around the world about such events are more readily known than ever before. The access to the internet even helps spread such news as well. There are no more events than hundreds of years ago - more people are just more aware of them.
    • Myth: The Earth is paying back the humans that have been on a course of destroying and mismanaging the resources of the planet. Sniff: In the deserts of Southern California many quakes occur - most people never hear about them because there is no population to disrupt nor are there buildings to be destroyed. Where ever people are there is some potential risk from the natural events of the planet.
    We live on a dynamic planet. Most people live a looping routine and forget they are on a small ball flying through space, being bombarded with all manner of rays and particles. This little ball is not dead like the moon, but very much dynamic and quakes (average of 1 with a magnitude 8 or higher every year), tsunamis, volcanoes, tornados, hurricanes, lava, lightning, severe weather, etc. are just normal for our little ball. The continents do shift, the axis does change, the magnetic field have flipped, the rotation can be altered, and we can be impacted by galactic crap. All we can do is to take care of this little ball the best we can.

    3 comments:

    mojo shivers said...

    Personally, I'd much rather have an earthquake, which you can prepare for ahead of time, than a tornado or hurricaine, which if it wants to bust up your house it's going to bust up your house.

    JustaDog said...

    Actually, no party owns me - I frequently cross those party lines. I have no respect for M. Moore, so I'm sure I would not retract any comment I made about him (it).

    However, thank you for your feedback and your post. All comments are welcome. :)

    Norma said...

    I've been surprised, but not, at the wild explanations for the earthquake/tsunami. I think it is probably very human to want to believe either man is in control of everything, or God. Hmmm. Then those who chose God decide s/he must be punishing, so then they wrestle with what. Interesting they never ponder deeply why they have had blessings over the years.

    To look back over history and science and see that these things have been happening since the earth was formed would be too difficult--and it would take the event out of our hands.

    All I know is that many thousands more died in Darfur, in Rwanda and in Iraq in the 1990s, and we all went about our business.

    Nice site.