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2012 Phenomenon: Has the Countdown Begun?
Hemantha Abeywardena writes from London…
“The series of strange events that we
witness at present are the hallmark of the Armageddon,” say
the experts who rely on, what scientists call
pseudoscience – the analysis of Mayan Calendar,
which predicts the end of the world on 21 December
2012.
The events have, however, baffled the folks
who practise real science – biologists,
physicists, ornithologists and of course, ‘warmists’,
the league who now keeps a very low profile for
obvious reasons: birds fall dead in their thousands
from the sky; hundreds of thousands of fish die
on the shores leaving very little clue for understanding;
winter has become perilously extreme in the northern
hemisphere; in the opposite half, summer is ruined
with floods of biblical proportions. No geographical
area on the earth has been spared by natural
disasters; events that defy reason happen everywhere.
For us, the mortals, who live in the northern
hemisphere, the debate between the two – scientists
and the folks, the former poke fun at - is producing
the much-needed heat – and light humour
too – in the hour of need. We can keep
the gloom at bay.
When the first significant death among blackbirds
was reported in Beebe, Arkansas, it was attributed
to fireworks by biologists, as if it was the
first time ever birds faced with fireworks. However,
when the death of birds was reported in Louisiana
and Texas, the scientists retracted the hypothesis
as fast as the dead birds plummeted from the
sky.
At that point, another set of specialists took
over the issue – at least, the explaining
bit. It was by behavioural psychologists who
attributed the death to ‘stress’:
they were pretty equivocal in saying that the
death was caused by stress, perhaps due to fireworks
during the festive period. However, they failed
to account for the absence of the phenomenon
in the regions where the display of fireworks
is a just a part of daily life, such as Afghanistan,
Iraq, and some parts of Africa. The statistics
do not support the presence of stress among birds;
they don’t support the death in large numbers
either.
Then, came the Theory of Thunderbolt: the birds
may have been struck by a thunderstorm. It was
mocked as well, as the thunderstorms have been
with us since time immemorial and history has
no records to link the two events, even by those
who used believe in superstition. So, that insight
died a premature death too.
After that, we
heard yet another theory, a magnetic one. According
to that theory, the Magnetic North Pole, which
doesn’t not coincide with its Geographical
equivalent, is moving fast toward Russia, which
in turn is influencing the innate navigational
system of migratory birds. However, they stopped
short of saying that Russia was in fact responsible
for manually accelerating it towards them,
perhaps, fearing that such an accusation would
advance
the Armageddon even to a much closer date than
the
anticipated one on 21st December, next year.
So, the debate is going on to determine what
caused the death of the animals both in the air
and in the sea. Naturally, when scientists don’t
come up with a credible explanation, people turn
to what they the scientists call pseudoscience,
because people are eager for answers.
The evidence of mysterious things is emerging
from every corner of the earth at the moment:
in some parts of Western Europe, for instance,
the fireflies are disappearing fast; in Germany,
it was reported that the nocturnal birds do not
chirp anymore;
Against this backdrop, folks in the West are
turning to Mayan Calendar in seeking explanations – or
answers. As the calendar is reported to be ending
on 21 December 2012, most Mayan followers consider
it as the day the world will be doomed. The opinion,
however, is divided even among Mayan followers:
the optimists take a different view; although,
they agree with the calendar, they are not prepared
to see the end of the world on that day: they
interpret that the end of the calendar cannot
be equated to the end of the world; “the
calendar can be reset,” they say with a
subdued enthusiasm while knowing very well that
sitting on the fence on this particular issue
may create a set of problems of its own in the
long run for them.
There are a significant number of people in
the West who compare the arrival of the doomsday
with Y2K – the millennium bug that made
headlines in year 1999. However, there is a notable
difference this time; no one has come forward
to cash in on the doomsday, unlike the way computer
consultants did it with Y2K. They may be wondering
the logic of accumulating ill-gotten gains by
propagating fear, when the world is going down
along with them.
So, we can breathe a sigh of relief for sure.
At least, there is a strong sign of universal
sanity breaking out – well before the arrival
of the fateful day!
- Asian Tribune -
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