The Countdown to Extinction has Begun

This is chapter 34 of my book, Fever Rising. This chapter examines the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis and whether the gun has fired yet or how close it may be. To read previous chapters of the book, check out this link to chapter 33 and at the beginning of each thread are links back to previous threads.

The Hand of God and all the Signs

Chapter 34: The Countdown to Extinction has Begun

Has mankind already begun the countdown to extinction? Has the trigger been pulled on the Clathrate Gun?

The Clathrate Gun Hypothesis is the popular name for nearly everything we’ve discussed in this book. It’s the hypothesis that rises in sea temperatures and/or falls in sea level can trigger the sudden release of methane from methane clathrates, also known as hydrates, buried in the sea beds and permafrost. The release of the methane leads to a chain reaction of more release from global warming which further destabilizes the clathrates, in effect, causing a runaway process that is irreversible.

Once the gun is fired, we’ll have passed a tipping point and the process will be irreversible. The hypothesis originally postulated that this process could occur within a human lifetime, but scientists have changed their tune claiming it would take thousands of years because most methane clathrates are buried around 100 meters below the sea floor. The warming of deeper waters would take that long for it to thaw down to the frozen hydrates, but, when you take into account that methane hydrates throughout the Arctic are frozen just below the surface, not 100 meters, and evidence already exists that methane is seeping from vents as large as a kilometer wide throughout the Eastern Siberian Arctic shelf, you begin to realize that the original hypothesis is much more accurate…meaning this process could occur in a human life time and even less than that. In addition to the Arctic seeps, there is the fact that the Gulf Stream has changed over the past few years causing methane vents to be discovered along the northwestern Atlantic, the East Coast. These vents are spread out over 4,000 square miles. Methane gas is escaping in large quantities in both of these locations, by the tune of millions of tons of gas each year. In my opinion, our finger is pulling the trigger right now and any more tension on that trigger is going to cause it to fire. Once the bullet is fired, it’s too late.

The following is from the Jumping Jack Flash Hypothesis and what Jonny says about the Clathrate Gun Hypothesis.

JumpingJackFlashHypothesis.blogspot.com
By Jonny Mnemonic
As I have been saying for some time, the oceanic methane stores - called methane clathrates or methane hydrates - are dissociating (melting) and polluting our atmosphere. I was sure of this year’s ago. Now scientists are finding out that it is the case. As the methane is released into the atmosphere the temperature of the Earth will increase. This will cause the 'dead zones' to increase in size and potency, resulting in massive releases of hydrogen sulfide into the atmosphere. The biosphere, including human life, will sicken and die from the poisoning, especially by hydrogen sulfide. Fires and explosions will consume our homes and vehicles and businesses and infrastructure, spreading like a burning cancer across the land. The ozone layer will dissolve, exposing the surface of the Earth to more radiation, resulting in exponentially more mutations and genetic chimeras. This is all already underway.

The methane releases alone would be enough to eradicate human civilization in its current form from the surface of the Earth. The hydrogen sulfide contaminating and poisoning the atmosphere would be enough to do the same. But the two problems work together synergistically, each amplifying the other. Together these two problems form an unstoppable tidal wave of death and destruction that is even now sweeping across the planet.

It should be apparent at this point why governments around the world are so industriously building underground shelters and facilities: the survival of the human race itself, at least on Earth, is in imminent and grave danger, with complete extinction a not-at-all-unlikely possibility. The options are limited: move underground (still fraught with problems) and/or move off-planet (the Moon, Mars, Ceres, Titan, etc). Heading out to the boonies to grow tomato plants will be of no help in surviving this extinction event. One can't buy off this catastrophe with gold, nor shoot it away with guns. (In fact, as the gas plumes increase in number, size and concentration, the odds increase that firing a gun will simply make the person pulling the trigger explode or burn to death, possibly killing everyone in the local area too.)

On my dangerous gas thread, someone asked Jonny if he had any clue to the timeline humanity faces with this extinction level event.

Post by JonnyMnemonic
AboveTopSecret.com
The Above Network, LLC
Dangerous Gas may be the cause of super-charged, mass die-offs, quakes and more
www.abovetopsecret.com...
No way to know the timeline, but since this is fueled by bacterial growth rates, and bacteria breed like...well, bacteria, then the 'catastrophe curve' will steepen rapidly. I've been watching this since around 2009. That's when I first started suspecting what was going on. And then when the Gulf current changed in 2010 everything really seemed to start escalating rapidly. Now this year there have been three big events involving large-scale methane hydrates releasing (in the Arctic, off the East Coast, and off the coast of Israel). Hydrogen sulfide detected in California, 'rotten egg' smell mentioned in Britain, Australia and elsewhere. For the first time in history a major metropolitan area (Kuwait City) was issued a shelter-in-place warning due to hydrogen sulfide. Hydrogen sulfide was detected around that sinkhole in Louisiana. Methane is bubbling up from the ground in Pennsylvania, from the ground and rivers in Australia.

So, best guess, we've got 5 years. Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic and we have 10 years. But maybe I'm being overly optimistic too and we have less than 5 years. That's why maybe we ought to wake up and concentrate on this problem - on maximizing human survival - like a laser, before we're too weakened to do much. Think of all the energy and resources we're wasting, selling each other 30-year mortgages for coastal properties that will probably be gone in a few years from fires or explosions, building useless stuff that contributes nothing to our survival, that kind of thing. If ALL of our energy and ALL of our talented people focused on THIS problem then I think a lot more people could survive. The difference could be you, or me, or if not us then people we care about.

Continued...

To conclude this chapter I’d like to share with you a post made on my dangerous gas thread at Above Top Secret. This is one of the best and clearly-stated explanations for what methane hydrates are and what would occur should the hydrates melt.

Post by happykat39
AboveTopSecret.com
The Above Network, LLC
Dangerous Gas may be the cause of super-charged, mass die-offs, quakes and more
www.abovetopsecret.com...
First we have to understand how methane hydrate is created in nature and how it is kept stable. Most of the ocean floor, and smaller bodies of water like the gulf, have methane gas constantly bubbling out of fissures in the sea bed. In fact there are many places on land where there are shallow bodies of water, like the Louisiana Bayous, that are also constantly bubbling methane.

So the question now becomes "Why is methane hydrate formed in some places and not others?". And the answer is...
It takes both low temperatures and extreme pressures for the methane to combine with water and form methane hydrate. Shallow bodies of water on land simply don't meet those requirements.

If you were keeping tabs on the B P Deepwater Horizon well failure there was a perfect visual example of methane hydrate being formed. In most of the videos taken underwater by the ROV's around the leaking well there was something many people didn't understand and asked questions about. What I am talking about is the wispy shreds of material that were constantly floating gently down to the gulf bed. They looked like mucus strands or like shredded cloth floating all around the well site and at other places in the gulf sea floor where considerable quantities of methane were leaking.

What was actually happening is that the methane was trying to float to the surface as a gas. But most of it never made it to the surface because the cold and pressure a mile under the gulf was forcing the methane to combine with the water and form methane hydrate. If you remember, even though there were massive amounts of methane leaking out from the well along with the oil, as well as from the gulf floor around the well, there was very little, if any, bubbling at the surface like there is in the Louisiana bayous. That is because nearly all the methane was being converted to methane hydrate, otherwise known as methane ice before it could reach the surface.

Think of the rising and falling action of a lava lamp. But with the methane it is the methane, which is lighter than water, rising and forming methane hydrate, which is slightly heavier than water, which then sinks back down to the sea bed. The analogy isn't perfect since the material in the lava lamp is driven to rise and fall in a continuous cycle driven by the heat of the lamp and the cooling of the material as it rises away from the lamp. But with the methane / methane hydrate the cycle is closed ended and is complete when the methane hydrate falls back down.

Now lets address what it is that keeps the methane hydrate from separating back into methane gas and water. Another nearly, but not quite perfect, analogy to explain it is to look at the CO2 in a can of carbonated soda. The CO2 is forced into solution with the water of the soda by a machine that exposes the water to the CO2 under high pressure. And just like the soda, where CO2 is made to dissolve in the water, both pressure and temperature play a role in forming it and keeping it that way. A very cold can of soda will remain fizzy longer than a warm soda. Also, if you take a can of warm soda and shake it vigorously before opening it as soon as you pop the tab the CO2 will violently erupt out of solution and you get a soda shower.

Now we can begin to see what we are facing with the huge amounts of methane hydrate on the floors of every deep cold body of water. Since the pressure at depth will not change we have to look at the other variable, temperature. And we have been seeing in the news that water temperatures are increasing considerably in some parts of the worlds bodies of water.
Even at stable temperatures and pressures some of the methane hydrate will convert back to gas if sufficiently disturbed by an under water quake. Alternately, a new hot water or lava vent can warm the methane hydrate in the area enough to cause a gas eruption.

But with the warming of the waters we are seeing the temperature variable changing enough to allow massive chain reaction releases of methane even with a relatively minor disturbance.

I can only suggest that the smaller plumes are burnt, making carbon dioxide, which plants just love, collecting and storing the contents of the larger plumes, using it for aircraft and rocket fuel, plus auto's and trucks, also for power stations, any other ideas?

originally posted by: pikestaff
I can only suggest that the smaller plumes are burnt, making carbon dioxide, which plants just love, collecting and storing the contents of the larger plumes, using it for aircraft and rocket fuel, plus auto's and trucks, also for power stations, any other ideas?

It is a good idea to burn off smaller plumes of methane, turn it into CO2. which is much less harmful than methane. And yes, would be good if we could harness the gas and use it. It's just that its kind of scary to think about us trying to access these hydrates (as Japan is doing) because if we screw that up at all, we could actually set off the hypothesis if we let too much gas escape. Jonny Mnemonic thinks that the true reason for the explosion of fracking, that no matter how bad the side effects are, is because its coming up anyway, so why not capture it. There's between 3% and 9% of fracked methane gas becoming fugitive gas escaping into the atmosphere, but that's better than 100% I guess. That's what Japan is trying to do now, tap into the frozen hydrates off their coast, and supposedly they've successfully done this recently, so that would be a good thing to capture it this way, rather than have it thaw and plume into the atmosphere.

I don't know much about the topic, but was definitely a good read so thanks for sharing. Let's say they improve their methods for fracking and can capture 100% of the methane gas. Would it make The Clathrate Gun Hypothesis null and void?

a reply to: Rezlooper

I was wondering whether you had seen the news about the giant "hotspot" of methane discovered over the four corners region (the place where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah all touch together).

Here's an interesting article:
massive methane hotspot


At he bottom of the article it says that U.S. methane emissions are 61% higher than had been originally estimated!!

originally posted by: amicktd
I don't know much about the topic, but was definitely a good read so thanks for sharing. Let's say they improve their methods for fracking and can capture 100% of the methane gas. Would it make The Clathrate Gun Hypothesis null and void?

No, because they'd have to learn how to capture 100% off shore first. If they can tap into the frozen hydrates at the sea floor and capture it, harness 100% of that, then that would be huge. But, man, that's a phenomenally humongous task. Like I said, Japan says they are harnessing that gas now, but I'm sure its too soon to tell if they are successfully capturing 100% of it and not losing any fugitive gas.

Still here and reading your book, Thanks REZ
Regards, Iwinder

originally posted by: lostgirl
a reply to: Rezlooper

I was wondering whether you had seen the news about the giant "hotspot" of methane discovered over the four corners region (the place where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah all touch together).

Here's an interesting article:
massive methane hotspot


At he bottom of the article it says that U.S. methane emissions are 61% higher than had been originally estimated!!

That's truly a great mystery and one that proves my theories are correct...methane gas is now the real game changer. It's stories like these that are making it become more obvious that Houston...we have a problem!

It's funny the Hopi Indians have some prophecies that deal with the Four Corners area. They believe this area is sacred and literally holds the heart and lungs of Mother Earth, which translates to coal and uranium. This stuff has been mined in this area decades ago and now the Hopi believe that Mother Earth is suffering because of it. The Hopi predicted that when this land was dug up great disturbances will develop in the balance of nature, "for the Hopi holy land is the microcosmic image of the entire planet; any violations of nature in the Four Corners region will be reflected and amplified all over the Earth."

Here's another statement passed down from a Hopi Elder years ago that I find strange with this methane cloud hanging over the Four Corners region. "The time will come when from the earth will arise a mystic fog which will dilute the minds and hearts of all people. Their guidelines of wisdom and knowledge will falter, the Great Laws of our Creator will dissolve in the minds of people. Children will be out of control and will no longer obey the leaders, immorality and the competitive war of greed will flourish. When the end is near, we will see a halo of mist around the heavenly bodies. Four times it will appear around the sun as a warning that we must reform, telling us that people of all color must unite and arise for survival, and that we must uncover the causes of our dilemmas. Unless man-made weapons are used to strike first, peace will then come."

He said a mystic fog which, I know the plume of gas isn't a fog on the land, but yet, I found it an eerie coincidence that this is right over the Four Corners. Then, I found another part here is the halo of mist around the sun, and these triple sun halos have been frequently common in this past two years, and increasing.

IMO, the plume is coming from a combination of the left over holes dug up for gas and natural resources as well as some sort of natural vents. I even heard that there has been some massive underground digging in this region by the government and of course, White Sands isn't too far away, which may be a part of this underground digging. Maybe this region is where the government started preparing for whatever future they already know is coming, by digging underground cities for our survival. This underground digging may have caused some fractures that inadvertently caused some massive methane gas vents. Oops! And according to my theory throughout this book, that may have been the reason they were digging in the first place!

originally posted by: Rezlooper

"The time will come when from the earth will arise a mystic fog which will dilute the minds and hearts of all people. Their guidelines of wisdom and knowledge will falter, the Great Laws of our Creator will dissolve in the minds of people. Children will be out of control and will no longer obey the leaders, immorality and the competitive war of greed will flourish."

Well, that Hopi elder's words definitely describe the current state of the world...

The words "mystic fog" could be representative of anything going on in the atmosphere including all the methane - I mean, maybe "mystic" refers to it being a "fog" that is not visible...

a reply to: lostgirl

Yeah, its strange that they predicted something like this and yes, a massive 200 x 200 mile plume of methane gas directly over the Four Corners, of which remains a mystery of how it got there in the first place, could be considered a "mystic fog"

a reply to: Rezlooper

Oh I forgot -

I read in one report that 'experts' said the methane was not dangerous to residents near the four corners, but I'll tell you what - I wouldn't want to live any where nearby, and if I did I'd be doing a whole lot of independent research to decide for myself if it was dangerous...