Is it the end of the world or just some fluke weather patterns? In the past month alone, almost 200,000 people have died due to weather related incidents. The ironic part of all of these disasters is that they are a global issue. Countries cannot blame each other for the tsunamis or for the volcano eruption. Granted, religious beliefs may say differently. But all that aside, scientifically we know that weather cannot be controlled by any human.
It is hard to understand why this is all happening. Most people who see all of these events happening on the news or even see them in person have to wonder what is going on with the earth. Is it really the end of the world or is the earth just going through a phase?
Since August 2004 disasters have been happening all over the world. In August, the Caribbean and the Southeastern parts of the United States encountered one hurricane after another. Africa experienced a swarm of locusts that destroyed much of their crops and villages. Algeria spent 170 million euros fighting the locust swarms.
China had a huge earthquake, killing nearly 600 people and leaving 125,000 people homeless. After this earthquake there was a typhoon that swept through the coast.
In September Mt. Egon erupted in Indonesia. We cannot forget our own Mt. Saint Helens, which suddenly awoke, but only puffed out a bit of smoke.
China, Panama, Costa Rica, and Albania, all had severe flooding problems. Japan, Costa Rica, and Indonesia all had huge hurricanes that have devastated thousands of people and communities.
In the United States we can see the weather patterns changing, and we can see how our own weather in Cincinnati is going crazy. We can also see the landslide in California and the hundreds of rivers, creeks, and lakes that all flood. We can see the huge boulder that fell in Malibu that had to have explosives placed inside it in order to break it apart and get it out of the middle of a busy highway.
What are we supposed to do with all of these natural disasters? Nothing. Can we stop them? No chance. But we cannot stop living our lives either. If we panic that will only get more people hurt. So we have to take these disasters as they come.
It does cost a lot of money to clean up, but there is always someone waiting out in the wings willing to help out. We all know that in the back of our minds it is not the end of the earth, maybe another ice age or maybe a huge heat wave. Who knows?
There were no aliens this year that took over at the turn of the New Year, and no big bang. So as we move on from one fear, we cannot stop our every day lives and we have to move forward.
We have to live.