Another post in the Novel News, this time about a subject near and dear to my heart — the apocalypse! I’ve long been fascinated with the apocalypse, which the Heritage Dictionary defines, in addition to the various biblical references, as either:
2. Great or total devastation; doom: the apocalypse of nuclear war.
3. A prophetic disclosure; a revelation.
I’ve thought long and hard about both options. When considering the magnitude of looming ecological crises that face humanity of the 21st century, definition #2 does not seem so far fetched. However, it is the third definition that is most intriguing. I’ve been reading (yet another) book that deals with this interpretation of apocalypse: 2012: The Return of Quetzlcoatl. Author Daniel Pinchbeck places particular emphasis on the Mayan prophecy of the end of the fourth cycle of humanity and beginning of the fifth slated to occur when the cosmological clock strikes December 21, 2012. I’ll spare you the details — after all, who could actually know when or how the apocalypse might occur? — except to say that 2012 focuses on the third definition of apocalypse under the guise of radical transformation and offers some interesting global examples that point to just such a transformation already underway.
With so much gloom and doom in the forecast, such a perspective offers some much needed hope. But the gloom cannot be avoided; in fact such doom might be a necessary catalyst for the type of societal transformation necessary to meet and address the worsening conditions on planet Earth. And so, to keep us all on our toes, with eyes open and synapses firing, I offer these tidbits from the week’s news:
Norway to house seeds in doomsday vault
(06-18) 18:42 PDT OSLO, Norway (AP) — It sounds like something from a science fiction film — a doomsday vault carved into a frozen mountainside on a secluded Arctic island ready to serve as a Noah’s Ark for seeds in case of a global catastrophe.
But Norway’s ambitious project is on its way to becoming reality Monday when construction begins on the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, designed to house as many as 3 million of the world’s crop seeds.
….
Its purpose is to ensure the survival of crop diversity in the event of plant epidemics, nuclear war, natural disasters or climate change, and to offer the world a chance to restart growth of food crops that may have been wiped out.
[LSG comment] It’s about time someone in government starting thinking about preserving the genetic diversity of our agricultural stock, catastrophy or no. It’s a no brainer…this is our food we’re talking about here! Of course, Norway is doing it in grand fashion.
Hawking Says Humans Must Go Into Space
(06-13) 04:50 PDT HONG KONG, China (AP) –
The survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe because there’s an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy the Earth, world-renowned scientist Stephen Hawking said Tuesday.
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He added that if humans can avoid killing themselves in the next 100 years, they should have space settlements that can continue without support from Earth.
“It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species,” Hawking said. “Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.”
[LSG comment] I love his caveat: “If humans can avoid killing themselves in the next 100 years.” Never knew my man Hawkings was so optimistic. All kidding aside, chalk up another dire prediction about the bleak prospects for the near term survival of humanity to a growing list of preeminent scientists espousing the same. Ugh.
Filed under: Novel News, The Future
