It is not that scientists do not have any idea about the earth’s two versions. They do and in fact have named them glacial and interglacial. Where scientists are ignorant and have amplified their ignorance immensely is in dismissing the accounts of the ancient people that experienced both versions and reported on glacial earth’s features and the transition between the two. OK. So what? So scientists have missed on proper modeling of earth’s two versions. Moreover, YOU have little problem with admitting that you know little about them. Why should any of this matter in your busy daily life? Let me explain the relevance and make you quite uncomfortable.
The interglacial earth is the one we’re in today. It lasts about 15,000 years and then transitions into the glacial earth which lasts about 85,000 years. The two together create a 100,000-year cycle that repeats regularly. I don’t need to tell you about the interglacial earth as you experience it every day, so let me give you a tiny glimpse of one of the glacial earth’s features. It will be an instance at the backend of the last glacial earth, about 15,000 years ago, and specifically in Ohio.
The scientific data toward the end of the last glacial earth draw a picture of Ohio in which about three-fourth is under a mile-high ice sheet. That includes all of Ohio’s population centers. Imagine all big cities under a mile-high ice sheet. Can the 12 million currently living in Ohio manage their lives under those conditions? What kind of preparation and capabilities must they have in order to meet the challenge of such conditions?
From this simple observation comes an inevitable conclusion true for both glacial and interglacial earths. Humans can exist only if they are PREPARED to manage their lives in the glacial and interglacial earths. And for the glacial earth that is a very big IF. In fact the ancients whose societies experienced both versions have taken the position—are predicting—that humankind will not prepare for the transition between the earth’s two versions and as a result from the eight billion humans currently living on earth only a few hundred thousand will survive. And I warn, it is a stretch to call it survival. In comparison, the few hundred thousand that survive will only experience a slow death compared to 8 billion that go quickly as every societal and global structure around them collapses and disappears.
Have I gotten your attention?
Let me get out of the doom and gloom even though it is quite real and go back to the scientists and how they have become so ignorant of earth’s two versions? First they have stopped listening to the accounts of the ancient societies that experienced the earth’s two versions. Second they have assumed that the glacial earth is just like the interglacial earth with a few extra tweaks. Third they have assumed that the way today’s modern humans have altered the atmosphere and oceans, the transition between the two versions will take longer to happen and so the earth will spend a longer time in the interglacial—thus humans having a lot of time and don’t need to worry now about the preparation for the glacial earth. All these assumptions play into the ancient prediction that few humans will survive the transition. Here is the reality. We are currently at the backend of the interglacial earth’s 15,000-year time period and our time in the interglacial earth is running out. We don’t know whether the glacial earth shows up a year, twenty years, two hundred years or a thousand years from now. The timeline uncertainty tells us that if we are prudent we should assume that little time is left to prepare to act in balance with the societal and global needs when the transition arrives. The transition can happen anytime soon and at this moment nothing is done societally and globally to prepare humans for it.
Where do we get the knowledge of earth’s two versions? I have captured the ancient and modern knowledge of the earth’s two versions in two books. As ancients had expected and have predicted—no one is reading them. In The First Rung I give a scholarly account of the earth’s two versions and the need for societal and global preparation. In The Unexpected Unseen I introduce the ancient and modern views of earth’s glacial version in the guise of an action-packed thriller. I had really hoped many would read these books and set in motion the process of global preparation for the transition between the earth’s two versions. But I also know, the ancients were not dummies. They were wise and had a deep grasp of human behavior and psyche. They had an understanding of the humankind along the lines portrayed in the TV series The Magicians:
Humans’ least attractive qualities,
panic and paranoia.
…
Another human failings,
short memories.
Given the short memory, panic, and paranoia—especially for the unprepared masses, the ancient prediction of humankind’s annihilation and extinction seems a lot more real than I would like to admit. But then, as university professor, I know what happens to the unprepared—they always flunk the course.
Only this time
it is not a student failing
but the humankind.
Ouch!