I think there is too much sensationalism about these earthquakes. It is always a tragedy when people die from natural disasters, but that is a
constant in our world that will never change and reading anything more into these natural disasters is fallacious. Fears about the end of the world
from the action our planets natural forces, forces we
CANNOT currently or ever hope to control, is a natural state of mind. Our minds do not
handle such overwhelming concepts with great ease. It is difficult for us to subscribe to just how small and powerless we truly are. We like to think
of ourselves as more refined and with a greater understanding of and control over the natural world then our ancestors. However, we still conjure up
ghost stories about punishment for our sins or some equally baseless idea to explain why these natural events happen.
Take the cold & calculating scientific view for a second. This planet is in a constant state of flux and earthquakes are continuous;
over a
million happen in a year. While the vast majority are minor tremors or generally imperceptible to most instrumentation, every month there are
three major earthquakes (see links at the bottom).
Again, we don't like to think of the world in such random and unsystematic terms. We find far more pleasant views in explanations that contend
there is some balance of nature. But any knowledge of rudimentary physics tells that nature has never been and never will be in balance. Its the
second law of thermodynamics, entropy(disorder) always wins out even when certain ordered systems, specifically life, temporarily stablize entropy.
When the organism dies entropy wins.
earthquake.usgs.gov...
www.newton.dep.anl.gov...
www.ceri.memphis.edu...
