posted on May, 6 2006 @ 12:56 PM
They're only 'disasters' because their occurrence collides with the circumstances of human life. Sometimes inevitable (we've all got to live
somewhere--but so do the faultlines, for instance--it gets crowded) and sometimes because mankind, in general, has never let go of the foolish
notion we can bend nature to our will (such as when we continue to build our homes in a flood plain forced dry by our man-made dams). Also, Volcanoes
often kill us because we like to live at the feet of their mountains, where the soil is abundantly fertile for our agricultural purposes.
If we weren't here, they wouldn't be disasters--they'd just be natural mechanisms inherent to the Earth's cycle. Without volcanoes, there would
be no life on Earth. These processes are vital to the planet's life--they cause our death in the short range, but in the long range the picture is
one of continuing life.
God made the Earth, with it's inherent upkeep functionality--but not in wrath. It is a model of perfect efficiency, IMO.
Currently, though, with the increase of tectonic activity and storm severity, there is a specific cause: the melting of the polar ice caps. Global
warming (whatever the causative factors are is actually irrelevant, because it can't be stopped) is a reality, and the fact that 75% of the world's
fresh water has been bound up in the ice caps for the last 13,000 or so years means that when that water re-enters the ecological flow as liquid
water, all weather systems are being disrupted. The gulf stream and trade winds are changing their course, and the oceans are undergoing drastic
temperature changes in diverse areas. The tectonics are disturbed because the water weighs a lot and is impacting the geology underneath it.
It's simply time for 'spring cleaning,' the way I see it. Both geologically and anthropologically.