The End is Here!

As each decade goes by in our modern era more and more people are losing their lives to natural disasters. Why is this? Is it that we are more prone to these events because of our population increase, or is it a natural process that seems to be going haywire.

Our population has never been so large, so it’s logical to assume that a disaster that occurs will affect more people than in the past.

Global warming seems to be occurring on most planets in our solar system; it seems to me that we are in the unstable situation that is climate change. Climate change doesn’t account for earthquakes.

Hurricanes, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Tornadoes, Floods, Drought are these events occurring with more frequency? Lets just take a look and see:

Part 1: Earthquakes

From 1980 to 1989 there were 4 earthquakes that measured a magnitude of 8-9.9 with approximately 58880 total deaths.



From 1990 to 1999 there were 6 earthquakes that measured a magnitude of 8-9.9 with approximately 114646 total deaths.



So far from 2000 to 2008 we have had 12 earthquakes {4 in 2007 alone} that measured a magnitude of 8-9.9 with approximately 375626 total deaths.



Source usgs

There is a marked increase in both larger magnitude earthquakes and death toll. When you consider we have had more magnitude 8-9.9 quakes in the last 8 years than the total of such quakes in the previous 20 years, well it's just a little disturbing don't ya think?

I will add other Parts in the near future.

I'm not saying that all the deaths where due to the big quakes, just total death tolls for each decade

[edit on 8-5-2008 by isadifferentsize]

[edit on 8-5-2008 by everypic]

[edit on 8-5-2008 by ohcrap!]



[edit on 8-5-2008 by LDragonFire]

The Bible says that the days of the beginning of the Great Tribulation would include more wars and earthquakes.
It will be REALLY bad, then.
Are most of these earthquakes even natural?

Mat 24:5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

Mat 24:6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all [these things] must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

Mat 24:7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

Mat 24:8 All these [are] the beginning of sorrows.

In the sea?

Earthquakes in the sea cause tsumanis.
I guess 'diverse' means many different places.

dragonfire, great post, those are some serious numbers on your charts, it really does appear that things are moving in a wierd direction globally, not nay saying your biblical theory but could the earthquakes be due to a shifting magnetic pole changing the way the mantle flows, creating more shift in the plates? i'm not a scientist or anything but people on here and on news sites have been saying such a thing may be happening soon,

Truth be told, I'm much more interested in a secular view of whats happening, God is used so much to explain things that appear to be unexplainable. To me this leads to either you agree or you don't, and the back and forth about whether God is real or not. I posted this in Fragile Earth and I would love to avoid a religious debate about what may be occurring, if you believe that it's Gods hand that is causing this thats all Good and if you must post then do so, but I'm looking for physical reason as to why this seems to be happening.

I'm more interested in the quote by MiRRoR_MuSiC, thanks for the theory, and a good theory it is.

Perhaps what is happening is related to this thread NASA about to announce something Big perhaps there is something that could be effecting our electromagnetic field in some way.

The graphs would be easier to read if it was all in one picture instead of split up into three. This scientist does not see any trend in the graphs at all. The "increase" in deaths is due to the 12/26/2004 tsunami. It could be considered an outlier event since it is out of the norm.

reply to post by LDragonFire

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What makes you say this about 'most planets in our solar sytem"? News to me. I agree we are reaping the side effects of GW, yes. How do we know for sure GW doesn't have some sort of effect on the frequency of earthquakes? We are only just begining to understand both phenomona...

As for 'god' having something to do with it - well, I don't think so. That's just a cop-out for people who don't really want to deal with the situation in my opinion.

J.

Your interpretation of the data is somewhat flawed,
The events in 2004 were nothing more than an example of things that happen several times a century, on average.
The numbers of casualties only seem to be bad in 2004 because, you are looking at an impossibly small sample of time.
The tangshan earthquake of 1976 has an offical death toll around 250,000
but those numbers were provided by a regime that had a history of under estimating the body count, when it suited their needs.
It would not surpise me that the toll was 600,000-800,000 people.
another quake in china 1920 had a death toll of 200k, 1923 japan 125k.
What about deaths due to hurricanes and typhoons or volcanoes, dont they count?

War is a natural disaster and unless something really really bad happens in the next 7 years we will be way behind the curve as compared to 1915.

reply to post by Clearskies

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Funny how that happens to describe the entire breadth of human history, even predating any group of people that would someday be the ancestors of a bunch of desert bandits calling themselves "Israelites"

Wars and earthquakes "in diverse places"? Talk about stretching.

I've been trying to get a handle on the 'are things getting worse' question.

Personally it does seem like everything is on the increase. But, you can go back just 100 and 200 years ago and find isolated disasters (like the sumatra tsunami) and say something like..'see these things happen randomly every century or so', so we are not really so far off from the 'norm'

But it seems like an easy win-win situation to be in by taking that stand.

IF nothing happens in the next 5 years..see nothing to worry about.

IF something big happens (Yellowstone goes poof for example), the same people will say..."Well, we said it could happen any time, we just didn't know when."

So the original question of, is 'something brewing' goes unanswered because imho few people will take a stand to say, "Hey, might want to take notice of 1,000 or so earthquakes in Nevada since the start of the year." Because they don't want to loose their credibility or stand out or who knows why

Of course, it could just be that no one really knows...Sorry for my 2cent rant, like many current events there are so many positions its easy to get frustrated trying to sift out the truth. Thank God for site like ATS (that was my plug lol)

In the end, for me, I think something is a-foot, I feel like most people that something is around the corner. Maybe all these events, the numerous eq's in the NW, the volcano in Chili that hasn't errupted in 10 thousand years, the Sumatra Tsunami (if I am spelling that right) is nothing out of the ordinary. But all together? In such a short time span??

I'm not holding my breath, but definitely keeping my eyes and ears open.

I know I usually have the 'doom and gloom' answers, but in this case, I really don't see a major trend. At most it's a minor trend upward in the number of quakes, with occasional high death tolls.

High death tolls could easily be the result of a rising population, and spikes have to be averaged in due to the randomness of disasters hitting populated areas. A slight increase in quakes could be at least partially attributed to a better system of recording geologic disturbances. At one time, a decent quake could hit in selected areas and so few people would feel it, it might never have been reported. Now we have seismographs positioned at every street corner (seems that way sometimes, anyway ) and every tiny shudder gets a spot on the evening news. Obviously, that results in more quakes being reported.

As to the concern about the Biblical prophesies, I believe in them, but I don't think this is it just yet. We've still got WWIII to get through before the second coming (IMO, anyway).

TheRedneck

We are just a speck in time to what has happened in the past on this wonderful and "UNPREDICTABLE" planet of ours. This planet has had thousands of volcano's explode, earthquakes that shifted continents, Asteroids that blocked out the sun for years, Ice ages, global warming, floods, tornado's, hurricanes and other changes that we have only experienced for a second in galactic time. There has been disasters in the past that would make today look easy. The black plaque, the great flood, mass distinctions of the dinosaurs and other animals, the three day fever that wiped out 50 million people, Holocaust etc... Those times would of been the end of days in my mind, but we are still here. There's cycles that we have no clue about and will have to endure for our species to survive and overcome the odds. It could be the end nearing, but it could be only the beginning of a very long cycle or a short cycle of earth activity. Let's hope we make it through either way.

I keep thinking about Pangea, that everything was all one continent, and some event caused it to split apart and create all the continents. Why, with so much space to spread out, why would they stop spreading? It makes perfect sense that something is pulling or pushing the continents further apart. The continental drift theory works, only it is not through, the continents are still drifting apart. I think we are about to witness that in our lifetime, the pulling apart of a continent, just like Edgar Cayce said would happen.

Speaking for florida and hurricanes, from what I've been seeing at musuems and on the History Channel indicates that they used to be worse probably. Ivan was pretty bad, but a hurricane that struck at the early part of the 1900s had a storm surge several feet igher. If you saw the special on the History Chaneel, you know that around the same time a hurricane hit New York, completly erasing Pig Island. There's evidence to shwo that even worse storms were hitting the Florida coast before the Europeans got here.
I'm willing to be that we are seeing more damage and deaths from natural disasters because there's so many of us, and because so many people slack when it comes to preparing for them.

[edit on 10-5-2008 by RuneSpider]

Are things getting worse? Yes. The facts are irrefutable.

Although our planet's climate have had dramatic changes since climate records started (i.e. the accelerated melting of the polar icecaps), science cannot predict what the end scenario will look like. Mainly, because, it knows too little. Like it has been point out in this thread there is not a computer simulated model of how volcanic, seismic, and meteorological events interact.

Each of the elements previously listed and some more that I am not taking in to account (solar flares) interact in creating and maintaining life in this planet. Individually they are directly linked to certain changes easily verifiable responsible I.e. (increase temperature in ocean waters gives rise to more powerful hurricanes). Together they can only be explained in science standards by The Gaia hypothesis.

Our disadvantage comes from climatologic records that are either not old enough or in the case of ice core samples to inexact to use in the formulation of a model that will explain or predict future climate changes. A panel should be put together with the best experts on each of these separate fields and what ever recourses they need to monitor and analyze as much data as possible from all sensors available. Perhaps we could develop a world wide system that could at least warn us from an impending natural disaster.

And the death toll climbs due to a earthquake in China. And we haven't even discussed hurricane/cyclones yet.

What is causing this increase in Earthquakes? A possible pole shift in our near future? A planet x messing with our electromagnetic field? Some type of government weapon black project? The Sun the Weather? Or is it just the natural cycle of things?

Is our civilization the way we know it threatened?

I tend to slightly agree with the OP however I wonder if the reason we are hearing so much about disasters is due to the fact that we can get more info with cable tv and the web.During my younger days we didnt hear that much about global disasters and we also didnt have the internet or 24 hour cable news as we do now.Something IS going on imo but we also have more access to the global community.Just my 2 cents.

CLimate change could very well have to do with earthquakes. When glacial ice melts that means there is less pressure on certain parts of tectonic plates meaning that the pressure on tectonic plates changes.

Examples: The alps are growing because there is less ice pushing down on them. The south of england is sinking because since glaciars in the north melted after the last ice age the north is rising.