Posted on 08/24/2002 5:20:19 PM PDT by vannrox
Apocalypse How?
Reel to real: Experts speculate on ways the world might end.
DIANE GLASS
Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer
In the cool darkness of the multiplex, the world comes close to ending several times each summer, only to be saved by Bruce Willis or Ben Affleck or Arnold Schwarzenegger. From the threat of nuclear war to close encounters in space, we escape certain death with a little bravado and a lot of computer graphics -- Bruce and Ben, cheating the fates yet again.
But the story lines behind those Hollywood scripts are darker and messier than Arnold is letting on. Perhaps the success of apocalyptic entertainments reflects our fear that the real ending won't be happy at all.
We asked some experts in cosmology, ecology, epidemiology and other disciplines to speculate on the end times and what might bring them about. And we cast each scenario in cinematic terms, since the end has already been imagined in dozens of movies.
Starring Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson
Yet the rate of population growth is decreasing in many countries. Take China with its one-child-per-family policy. The growth rate is only 1 percent -- the same as in the United States. But as Brown points out, a 1 percent growth rate in the United States equals roughly 3 million people. In China, it's roughly 13 million.
Dan Maguire, author of "Sacred Choices," an examination of contraception and world religions, believes that consumption has a greater impact on the Earth than overpopulation. Population, ecology and consumption are the three factors that threaten life as we know it, explains Maguire. The "ecological footprint" of an affluent child is 200 times greater than that of a child in a poor country, he says.
Children in poor countries "simply won't have as much chance to do damage to the environment as an affluent child. They consume more and contribute more to pollution." This is why many consider the United States a greater threat to the environment than poorer nations with higher populations.
Yet another impact of overpopulation is the growing water crisis.
"In most of human history when we were manually pumping water with paddle- wheeled devices, we couldn't pump very much water. But we now have electrically driven pumps and thousands and millions of them pumping," says Brown.
He estimates that 70 percent of the water we pump from underground and divert from rivers globally is used for irrigation, 20 percent for industry and 10 percent for drinking, bathing and other residential purposes.
"Seventy percent of that water is used to produce food. So if we face the fact that we are facing widespread water scarcity in the years ahead, then we're also facing food scarcity."
The chain is clear, he says: Water shortages lead to food shortages, and food shortages lead to political upheaval.
"If the Pat Buchanans of the world run for president, they'll want to feed all of the hard-working Americans instead of all of those Chinese," says Brown.
"There is no substitute for water. If you run out of oil there are a lot of other energy sources that you can turn to, and we're beginning to do that. But when you run out of water, you're in trouble."
Cataclysmic virus kills its victims in one day
Starring Dustin Hoffman and Rene Russo
When asked what the greatest health threat to human life is today, James Hughes, director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, didn't cite AIDS or an exotic disease, but influenza. Hughes points to the 1918 epidemic of the Spanish flu, estimated to have killed half a million in the United States alone.
U.S. war casualties since the Civil War are slightly greater than 1 million. Worldwide, the Spanish flu is thought to have killed more than 20 million.
"We were lucky in 1997 with the bird flu in Hong Kong," says Hughes. That strain, which killed six people, was easily transmitted from chickens to humans, but it did not spread easily from human to human. Another bullet dodged.
But a flu pandemic will occur again, of that Hughes has no doubt. And when you have an avian flu such as the one in 1997 that spreads easily among humans, the resulting pandemic could be fast-moving and devastating, warns Hughes.
Antibiotics are not a fail-safe for the complications of influenza, since antibiotic resistance is on the rise. "You get an unfortunate synergy between the emergence of flu and the complications that produce resistance to antibiotics," Hughes warns. "When we get the emergence of the next pandemic strain it is likely to spread worldwide. It won't kill everyone . . . it may not be as bad [as the Spanish flu], but you'll have to deal with antibiotic resistance. And it could be as bad."
Even given the bleak numbers of casualties that could result, Hughes does not see disease as a threat to existence. "It is not in the best interest of a microbe to wipe out all of its hosts. Because it would then become extinct. We live in peace with the vast majority of the microbial world."
And what about a terrorist attack with anthrax or smallpox? Hughes answered cautiously, "You can always conjure up horrific scenarios, but we don't like to do that because that can scare people. But if there were to be multiple releases of a large amount of smallpox in an environment, say, in multiple international airports, because of the incubation issue period of 12 to 14 days, the incubation period for smallpox, it could be widely disseminated around the world."
But a threat to all human life? Not very likely.
Starring Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman
The threat of nuclear destruction by land-based missiles has waxed and waned in our culture for more than 50 years. But what happens when strategic nukes take the high ground in space? No elaborate strategies and human error to worry about. Just click the mouse on your computer and pinpoint your target from space. Theresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense Information, cautions the United States on an arms race in outer space, but she fears that it may not be listening.
The United States is preparing for missile testing after recently withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-ballistic Missile treaty. Hitchens suspects that this may clear the way for the developent of weapons that target enemy spy satellites, a major step toward the "weaponization of space."
If the United States deploys weapons in space, other nations may follow suit, and the arms race in space will have begun.
But racing toward this finish line may be a pyrrhic victory, propelling us into yet another Cold War -- a standoff whose dangers are even greater, many scientists believe.
One outcome of nuclear war may be nuclear winter -- the theoretical environmental effect of soot and dust kicked up from a full-force nuclear exchange that would block out the sun's light. Global temperatures would dip worldwide. A combination of radiation and a lack of sunlight would kill off much of the Earth's vegetation and result in global starvation and disease.
A nuclear war fought in space has the potential to do a lot of damage, Hitchens warns. And even though the end of the Cold War marks a time of relative peace among nations, and an unlikelihood of nuclear winter, political climates change. "There is a fundamental question as to whether a U.S. policy to weaponize space would be a 'silver bullet' for future security, or a game of Russian roulette," Hitchens says, weighing the outcome.
Texas-sized asteroid uses Earth for target practice
Starring Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton
Nuclear winter may not be imminent -- or even possible -- but physicists are more concerned with the threat of nuclear war than with asteroids and alien invasions. Physics professor and cosmologist Tony Rothman notes that, when you gaze into deep space, "the farther you look, the farther you look back in time." So while moviegoers clench their teeth in anticipation at scenes of world destruction, Rothman's knowledge of the past allows him to see humor in the questionable science of movies such as "Armageddon."
Although there is a chance of an asteroid hitting Earth, the possibility is as remote as Pluto. "But maybe we are due," Rothman teases.
OK, the Earth isn't going to be pounded to dust by errant space dreck. But what about the end of the universe? The sun will burn out in five billion years, which would be our death if we were still in the galaxy, he explains. "If we're living around some other star, then we might escape until that one goes. Once they're all gone, unless life evolves to a point that it doesn't need heat, that's it. There has been some speculation . . . that life could conceivably slow its metabolism to live near absolute zero, but things would probably be pretty boring. It might take millions of years to have a thought."
Paul Halpern, physicist and author of "Countdown to Apocalypse," concurs that cosmological catastrophe is unlikely. Nuclear disarmament and how we treat the earth are foremost in Halpern's mind as ingredients for human disaster, not cosmological clashes. Humans are the likely catalysts of their own demise. "We need more Martin Luther Kings and Ghandis, who promote non-violence," he suggests.
Salacious sexpot ponders sex or salvation
Starring Mimi Rogers and David Duchovny
Nonviolence won't prevent the end of the world if all events are preordained. For theologian Tommy Ice, director of the Pre-Trib Research Center, we are all living out the events already scripted by a master screenwriter. Ice's days and nights are spent studying what is commonly known as the end of the world, in association with Timothy LaHaye, co-author of the wildly popular "Left Behind" series. He maps out the end times like a scientist with flowcharts. Arrows and diagrams point down to unpleasant locations like the "bottomless pit" and up to "paradise," with a lot of human misery in between.
Ice explains the end of the world from a pre-millennial, pre-tribulationist Christian perspective. Without clear warning, true Christians will be "raptured" into the heavens, disappearing from the face of the earth to join God, leaving "the earth at ground zero," says Ice. "There are over a dozen verses in the Bible to watch for Christ at any moment . . . so we always have to be on our guard." It is unclear when this will happen, but Ice points to the newly formed European Union as a sign of the coming Rapture, explaining that the end days require a unified government that facilitates the Antichrist's world leadership during the seven-year time of the Tribulation.
The Tribulation is not the Roaring Twenties. Human degradation, war and suffering mark these dark days, during which 19 divine judgments will wipe out half of the population and the Antichrist will rule.
It isn't until after a 1,000-year reign of Christ, following the Tribulation, that heaven and Earth are destroyed, and all nonbelievers are thrown into the "lake of fire" for an eternity of damnation. But for the faithful, a new Earth is created with roads paved in gold and an excellent package of amenities that includes no death, strife or pain.
So as long as you are a true Christian, the end of the world isn't so scary.
If there were any roads of gold, many of them would be submerged under water and violent weather would wreak havoc where the waters were once pacific. Neither would there be an option to repent once the damage is done. But it is an issue of belief, Rifkin asserts, because the fundamental problem is what we believe.
"We have a sense that security is based on autonomy and mobility and we treat our relationship with the environment that way," he says. It is this disassociation with the Earth as a means to our end that is making the planet uninhabitable. We have systematically privatized the land, the seas, space and even the gene pool to commodify and manipulate for personal benefit, he says.
Rifkin warns that the Earth is a living organism and that controlling nature with shortsighted gains alienates us from our life source and puts our lives in jeopardy. "We don't want to go back to a state of nature but we need to go forward to a much more intelligent approach where we don't make hyper-efficiency, autonomy and mobility the only virtues."
It is projected that the average global temperature will be roughly 2 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit higher in less than a century, says Rifkin. Cast this against the last significant temperature change -- at the end of the Ice Age -- and you'll find that several degrees in temperature changed an entire ecosystem back then.
Closer to home, Rifkin points to the effects of global warming on Yellowstone National Park. As the temperature range of that region drifts north into Canada, the trees would not be able to adapt. "All of the species that live in that habitat are extinguished because the habitat can't readjust and migrate north quick enough. Now magnify that toward every ecosystem in the world." Thirty to 40 years from now, the climate in New York is projected to be like Miami's, Rifkin says. Suddenly, property in Fargo, N.D., looks like prime real estate.
When Bruce Willis is in the movie there is always a dramatic race to save the world, and there's always a happy resolution. But this time, the curtain closes, the credits roll and we're no closer to the truth than when this article began. There are too many questions and no clear plot line. Does our fate end by our own careless hand? Does it end with a whimper or a bang?
The suspense must be killing us.
Somebody doesn't have their facts straight. Flue is caused by a virus, and antibiotics don't work on viruses at all. For that matter, we have very few effective treatments for viral diseases in general. Vaccination works, but that's a preventive, not a treatment.
That somebody was James Hughes, director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC has become one of the most dangerous organization in this country. One of the dangers is the belief they really know something. Well, see for yourself.
Hank
Another stupidity. I suspct the author believes casualties = deaths. Actual American war deaths during this period were actually just a little over 1/2 million.
I thought it strange too, and reread it just to make sure it didn't mention bacteria. I hope your conjecture about being taken out of context is correct, but, frankly knowing what I do about the CDC, I would not be surprised at this ignorance at that level. The CDC is very politicized and has a strong liberal agenda.
Hank
Yeah. There are a few anti-virals. Once I had a really bad case of flu, and the doctor prescribed a tiny red pill called "Symmetrel". One pill and I started to feel better. In two days I was cured. No placebo effect--I was drowning in my own juices...a borderline pneumonia case.
Next time I got flu, I asked for more Symmetrel. "Sorry, not effective on this strain."
Sigh.
But they have more on the way.
--Boris
Count on it.
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