Caution: Tsunami Ahead
As Haiti still struggles to pick up the pieces, news of yet another massive earthquake hit the interwebs yesterday. This time it was Chile, and the consequences of this 8.8 scale earthquake were far reaching enough for panicked coastal regions within the Pacific to issue major Tsunami warnings.
Chile Earthquake Radius
Mass evacuations in Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Antarctica, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Pitcairn, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, French Polynesia, Mexico, the Cook Islands, Kiribati, Kermadec Island, Niue, New Zealand, Tonga, American Samoa, Jarvis Island, Wallis-Futuna, Tokelau, Fiji, Australia, Palmyra Island, Pojnston Island, Marshall Island, Midway Island, Wake Island, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Howland-Baker, New Caledonia, Solomon Island, Nauru, Kosrae, Papua New Guinea, Pohnpei, Chuuk, Marcus Island, Indonesia, North Marianas, Guam, Yap, Belau, Philippines and Chinese Taipei… all which have now been cancelled, yet the world is still on edge.
“There was no assessment of any damage in any county, which is quite remarkable,” said Gov. Linda Lingle, who said witnesses had reported seeing “dramatic surges going on in the ocean.”
Coastal Japan however is estimated to be a danger spot, and thousands have now been evacuating their homes. Russia too is not safe, with coastal regions around here being affected. The Japan Meteorological Agency issued a tsunami warning for the Pacific coast of Tohoku, the Pacific coast of Hokkaido, the Japan sea coast of Amori Prefecture, Kanto, Izu/Ogasawara Islands, Tokai, the Pacific coast of Kinki/Shikoku, Okayama Prefecture, the Ariake Sea and Yatsushiro Sea, the eastern part of Kyushu and Kagoshima Prefecture.
Haiti Earthquake
Two major earthquakes in about two months is pretty hectic if you ask me, and mass hysteria and panic aside, sometimes you do start to wonder if the doomsday people have been right all along. What if the whole climate change concern really is going to affect our lives in this day and age? Is it really our doing, or is climate change and/or polar shifting simply something that has been happening since the beginning of time? There are many theories about 2012 and catastrophic events set to take place during this time – I haven’t seen the movie, but there are some very interesting articles on this theory.
Growing up as a bit of a hippy child, doomsday was something I knew about from an early age. I seriously used to believe that tidal waves and asteroids were just one of those things to accept, like fate or karma or something along those lines. Cause and effect meant little to me of course, being on the young side but now I am starting to wonder. Either someone up there is getting a bit annoyed, or we really are managing to implode the planet after all… or perhaps this is just a natural cycle.
When I was at the aquarium we had a talk from someone who made the Living Dead exhibition models, and she talked about various stages including major asteroids that hit during dinosaur eras that sent acid rain and put the world into darkness for months. Up until that talk, I had little interest – I’d begun to question the tidal wave theory when 2000 passed without event. A lot of what she said made sense though, especially the part about human interference having less impact than we like to think.
So now what, do we start repenting for our sins as a planet, or do we move away from the coast and head for the hills? Or do we wait and see what happens next?
Or (and here’s a big thought) do we just focus on doing what we’ve always been doing, but maybe a little more greener, and a lot more compassionate and respectfully?
Or its just the tectonic (sp??) plates moving about as they’ve done for millions of years.
In geological time, these two events are not that significant. Now link them with events over the past 1000 to hundred thousand years, and maybe patterns start to emerge, and conclusions can start to be drawn.
As for conspiracy theories & pseudo-science theories (invalid research), everything can be linked. Which is why only peer-reviewed & peer-accepted scientific theories should be relied on – if you are going to look at it from a scientific perspective. If you are going to look at it from another perspective, then you must accept what that perspective’s “validity” tests are.
I just find that many theories found on the web are so lacking in rigorous & methodical research that even if they had any decent basis to them, all the gaps in reaching their conclusions just leaves the margin of error to wide for us to accept. Let them do proper research and then present the theories. Instead of them presenting the theories & us trying to do research to back up this “nice” “Makes sense” idea for them.
Think that talk may have been about tectonic or whatever shifting perhaps.
I honestly don’t know whether I buy in to all this end of world stuff, I think that what is most likely to happen before we really see much evidence of that happening from climate change alone is that we will either be hit by an asteroid, obliterated by aliens, or maybe we will manage to kill off the ocean when the last remaining sharks go extinct.
But I do like the idea of renewal, maybe it’s a natural process – the earth starts again with a new primary species.
That’s why I try to form my own crack pot theories, and read as much as I can about various other theories – unbased or valid.
I’ve thought about this, and I reckon my overuse of the words “valid” “science” and “methodical” come from me having to read a whole lot about AIDS Denialism again. It always gets me so on edge. When bad theories keep up a deathly fight with a good sound theory.
So sorry about if I seemed a bit to Ra-Ra-Science-Ra’ing there.
I don’t know what I think about the Global Warming theories & anti-theories, so I prefer to stay out of it. But I do know that, as you said at the end of your post, if the global population tries to improve our consuming ways, become more sustainable, more “green”… even if we are not the major cause of the globe overheating, it can only be a better healthier approach.
(Ha! Bet every Cape Townian believes in Global Warming at the moment!)
I hear you, and believe that knowing as much as possible is essential (even if it is hard to know so much!).
And ye, CPT is having global cooking right now.