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This page makes a departure for Lost Worlds The Website. The webmaster and a few associates have decided that environmental questions have become so serious that an extra compilation of relevant information on this website could be helpful. So this webpage will treat futurist predictions on weather and environmental questions, the present, and delve into the past. We are becoming interested in world climate history and what historians, scientists and climatologists think about issues. Why are some items on jihadists placed on this page? Because we think that jihadists also are not sanely considering environmental questions, which they also will have to face now or in the future. - Ed

Year 2100: Sea levels to rise?: Sea levels may rise by 50cm during the next century, according to a report in Australia of 5 May, 2000. The prediction comes from ice dynamics researcher David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey, who has been examining Antarctic ice sheets. He says: 70 per cent of the world's fresh water is stored in the Antarctic ice sheet, the potential for rising sea levels is "massive", sea levels have risen by tens of metres in the past 10,000 years, modifying land masses. It is difficult to know if the Antarctic ice sheet is in a state of equilibrium, or not. It may still be reacting to events associated with the end of the last Ice Age.

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About Year 2100: By the end of the century up to two-fifths of the land surface of the Earth will have a hotter climate, unlike anything that now exists, a study of global warming predicts. At worst, the current climatic conditions on another 48 per cent of the land surface - including southeast Australia - would no longer exist on the planet. Some of the biggest losers regionally will probably be the tropical Andes, some parts of highland  Africa, south0east Australia, parts of the Himalayas and the Arctic. Biodiversity hotspots such as the Amazonian and Indonesian rainforests will be in severe trouble. Species will have pressure to adapt or become extinct. Perhaps one million species will be affected if not rendered extinct. In the interim, some species seem to be shifting to the poles at about six kilometres distance per year. (Sydney Morning Herald, 28 March 2007)

About Year 2090: Climatologists predict global warming of between 1.5C and 5.9C this century, with the effects most severe in Russia, where Moscow by late July 2001 was experiencing a heatwave involving the deaths of 1000 Russians and Ukrainians (many of them also drunk) trying to find comfort in pools, river and lakes.

A sceptic's view of the Shit Happens outlook on life-in-general (recompiled by Lost Worlds) As SHIT HAPPENS in various world religions and other places in life Life lessons as shit happens for Domestic Animals Cat: (1) Why do I have to shit in this smelly pan? (2) Let me sleep, you pathetic shit. (3) Dogs are shit. (4) I do not do unelegant things like shit, I excrete. And never in the corner. If it's in the corner, it's the dog's. Dog: (1) All I do is eat, sleep and shit. (2) I did not chew the shit out of your bedroom slippers. (3) When I catch a car, it will shit! (3a) Oh shit, I caught it! Fish (in a bowl): (1) All I do is eat, swim and shit. (2) Always the same dried shit for dinner? Rat: (1) Hey, let's get out of this cage and shit somewhere ... Snake: (1) If I ever got out of this cage, you'd shit. AAA (and going global) Agnostic: (1) Shit might have happened; but then again, maybe not. How can we know? (2) It looks and smells like shit, but I haven't tasted it, so I'm not sure whether it's shit or not. (3) What is this shit?! I don't know shit! How can we know if shit happens? You can't really prove any of this shit! Amish (USA): Shit is good for the soil. This modern shit is worthless. We like the same old shit the best. Amish: Shit is good for the soil. This modern shit is worthless. Anabaptist: Shit only happens to adults. Apathism: I don't give a shit. Astrology (world-wide): Jupiter is being really shitty to me today. Agnostic (world-wide): It looks and smells like shit, but I haven't tasted it, so I'm not sure whether it's shit or not. What is this shit?! I don't know shit! How can we KNOW if shit happens? You can't prove any of this shit! Did someone shit here? Anarchism: We should be allowed to shit when we want, where we want, what we want, why we want. Anonymous - Alcohlics Anonymous - Twelve Step Programs (Common in Western World): (1) Shit happens - or fails to happen - one day at a time. (2) I am powerless to cut the shit. Atheist (world-wide): (1) I just don't believe this shit! (2) Shit doesn't happen. Shit is dead. No shit! It looks and smells like shit to me, so I'm damned if I'm going to taste it. I haven't smelt, seen, touched, or tasted it. But it's shit. AZTEC (Mexico): Cut out this shit! BBB Baha'i: (world-wide): (1) Why do you keep shitting on us? (2) Shit happens universally. (3) All shit is truly shit. It's all the same shit. Born Again Christian (Western World): Shit Happens, but Praise the Lord, I am saved. Branch Davidian (USA, and maybe in a disparate few sects): (1) May great shit happen to the FBI! (2) If shit happens, have a big barbecue. (3) David thinks he's hot shit and he sure has read a lot of Scripture! Buddhism: (1) Shit happens, but pay no mind. (2) Shit happens, but it isn't real. (3) If shit happens, it isn't really shit. (4) If shit happens, it isn't really happening TO anyone. (5) Shit will happen again to you next time. (6) Only he who totally gives up the desire for shit or its opposite will have salvation. Buddhism - Jainism (India, Indonesia): (1) Be more compassionate, don't step on that shit, it's alive! (2) When shit happens, don't step in it. CCC Cargo Cult: A barge will come, deliver good shit and take away all the bad shit. Celtic Paganism: Shit, go bragh! Christianity: Anglicanism: It's true, shit does happen -- but only to Lutherans. Christianity: Anglican USA - Episcopalianism: (1) If shit happens, hold a procession. (2) It's not so bad if shit happens, as long as you serve the right wine with it. (3) Fecal matter occurs. Christianity: Baptist: (1) You are shitting all wrong, and you'll be punished for it. (2) We'll soon wash the shit right off you. (3) Southern Baptist (USA): Shit will happen. Praise the Lord! Christianity: Calvinism: (1) Shit happens because you don't work hard enough. (2) If you're not saved, tough Shit. Christianity: Catholicism: (1) If shit happens, you probably deserved it. (2) You were born shit, you are shit, and you will die shit. (3) Christianity: Charismatic Catholicism: Shit is happening because you deserve it, but we love you anyway. Christianity: Catholicism: (1) If shit happens, you probably deserved it. (2) Shit happens because you are bad. (3) You were born shit, you are shit, and you will die shit. (4) Charismatic Catholicism: Shit is happening because you deserve it, but we love you anyway. (5) Dominicans (Catholic): Believe in shit, or we'll boil you in it. Christianity, Charismatic: This is not shit and it doesn't smell bad. Christianity: Christian Science: (1) Shit happening is all in your mind. (2) When shit happens, don't call a doctor – pray! (3) Shit doesn't happen and I am not up to my eyeballs in it. (4) Our shit will take care of itself. (5) If Shit happens, don't worry. It will go away on its own. Christianity: Congregationalist: (1) Shit that happens to one person is just as good as shit that happens to another. (2) And, versus the Unitarian view: Shit that happens to one person is just as bad as shit that happens to another. Christianity: Creationism [Intelligent Design Theory]: God made all shit in seven days. Creationism: ... And the Lord said "Let there be shit" ... and there came piles of it. After six days of this shit, He rested. Christianity: Fundamentalism: (1) If shit happens, you will go to hell, unless you are born again. (Amen!) (2) There's no shit in the Bible. (3) Shit happens, but don't publish it. (4) When shit happens, it's really the Wrath of God! Christianity: Fundamentalism: (5) If shit happens to a televangelist, it's okay. (5a) Televangelism: Your tax-deductible donation could help to make this shit stop happening ... (6) Read Scripture daily and shit your way to a better life. (7) Shit must be born again. Christianity: Greek Orthodox: Shit happens, usually in threes. Eastern Orthodox: Rome doesn't know shit. Christianity: Lutheranism: (1) Shit happens, but as long as you're sorry, it's OK. (2) Have faith that shit will happen. (3) If shit happens, don't talk about it. Christianity: Methodist: It's not so bad if shit happens, as long as you serve grape juice with it. Christianity: Mormonism: (1) If shit happens, shun it. (2) Excrement happens. (you can't say “shit” in Utah). (3) Hey, there's more shit happening over here! (4) Our shit is better than your shit. (5) Shit happens again & again & again ... (6) This shit is going to happen again. (7) Let the shit multiply. (8) God sent us this shit. Christianity: Presbyterian: (1) This shit was bound to happen. (2) If shit happens, praise the Lord for it. Christianity: Protestantism, (general): (1) If shit happens, it's best if it happens to someone else. (2) If shit happens, Praise the Lord for it! Christianity: Quakers: Let us not fight over this shit. Christianity: Seventh Day Adventism: No shit shall happen on Sabbath Day. Shit happens every day but Saturday. Christianity: Unitarianism: (1) Come let us reason together about this shit. (2) What is this shit? (3) We affirm the right for shit to happen. (4) Go ahead, shit anywhere you want. (5) It's not the shit that matters, it's the process. (6) Shit is basically all the same. (7) Unitarian Universalism: There is only one shit and it happens to all of us. Christianity: Unitarianism (USA): Maybe shit happens, let's have coffee Christianity: Utopianism: (1) This shit does not stink. (2) Dystopianism – Shit is very real and it really stinks! Creation Science (via Bishop Ussher of Ireland): Shit has really only been happening since October 23rd, 4004 BC. Computing under threat as Shit Happens Ada: It's a package of shit, and it's private shit. AI: ...wanna bet? alt.cascade: alt.flame: Emacs is such shit! I save .00001% keystrokes with vi! Assembler: 0x000000: 53 68 69 74 20 48 61 70 70 65 6E 73 21 BASIC: It's shit. C: It's shit, but it's efficient. C++: It's shit that's in a class by itself. Cobol: It's shit, but it's also job security. Compiler: I don't care if it's shit, as long as it has semicolons in the right places. Computer Science: There's a bug somewhere in this shit. Cray: If this code weren't such a piece of shit, they wouldn't NEED a supercomputer ... Database: Where did I put that shit? Developer: Shit happens on a daily basis, that's why we have maintenance programmers. DOS: It's shit, but at least it's compatible. Emacs: Hold down Control-Meta-Shit. Fortran: It's shit, but I don't know any better. IBM/DOS: It's shit, but it's compatible. Lisp: (defun Does_Shit_Happen(exp)(cond(t t))) Macintosh: ('nuff said) Murphy's Law-ism: Shit will happen, at the worst possible time, and in the worst possible way. Pascal: Hey! That shit's the wrong type! PDP-11: It used to be good shit ... rec.humor: Can someone send me some shit? I lost mine. Me too! I want shit too! Robotics: First-law-of-robotics-ism (Asimov): Robots cannot shit nor let shit come to happen. UNIX: Bowel fault. Shit dumped. VAX/VMS: No Privilege for attempted shit. Windows: It's the same shit as DOS, only GUIer. X/Motif: That's another client's shit. Confucianism (China): (1) Confucious say, "Shit happens." (2) Confucious say, "If shit has to happen, let it happen properly." Corporate shit - When SHIT HAPPENS to major corporations Apple: We don't want this shit unless it makes a profit. That shit looks and feels like our shit! Coca-Cola: It's the Real Shit. IBM: Big Blue Shit. McDonald's: You want fries with your McShit? Microsoft: NO! That shit looks and feels like our shit! Where do want to go shit today? Motorola: Our shit is Six Sigma. NASA: For a mere couple of billion dollars, we can make your shit disappear into space. Pepsi: The shit of a new generation. Sony: Everyone wants our shit. Volvo: Our shit is boxy but it's good. Wal-Mart: We sell our shit for less, always. Cultural –various and differing interpretations, since SHIT HAPPENS in a variety of ways Americanism (Or, US foreign policy): Who gives a shit? Aneurism: Shit, my head hurts! Anthropomorphism: Shit Happens to God, too. Assertiveness (training in): Don't give me any of that shit. Avoidanceism: With all this happening, I think I'll go shit. Cannibalism: Don't eat the shit. Capitalism: Shit happens, and it'll cost you! If you're gonna sell that shit, at least make a profit. That's MY shit. Communism: It's everybody's shit. Let's spread the shit out equally among every one. It's the Imperialists cause shit to happen, Comrade! Conservatism: (1) Shit Happens, but not yet awhile, if we can stave it off, and so what I had in mind with this legislation was ... (2) Individuals are responsible for most of the shit that happens, they should all be put in jail where they belong. Dadaism: Shit bzzt gim blim ba dum boop! Democracy: Everyone has the same opportunity to make shit happen in a more equitable and transparent fashion. Denialism: What shit? Dyslexia: Tihs happens. Egoism: I am the shit! Employer: Shit happens, and then it rolls downhill. You may only shit during coffee breaks. Employee: I've done my shit, so can I take the day off? This shit's not part of my contract. Environmentalism: Shit is biodegradable. Good shit only happens once; bad shit needs to be recycled. Humanity happens, unfortunately. EST: I am at cause that shit will not happen. You're responsible for all the shit that happens. Existentialism: Shit doesn't happen; shit IS. Shit happening is absurd. J. P. Sartre: Shit is meaningless! What is shit, anyway? Fatalism: Oh shit, it's going to happen! Feminism: This shit happened before, and this time we won't clean it up! Men are shit. Why does shit only happen to women!? Put the seat back down, you Shit! (Male Chauvinism: Ok, we may be shit, but you can't live without us ...) Fetishism: I just love it when shit happens! Don't you? Gertrude Stein: A shit is a shit is a shit. Hollywood: Robin (Hollywood): Holy shit, Batman! Yoda (Hollywood): Use the shit, Luke. Do not yield to the dark side of the shit. Oliver Stone (USA): The government's behind this shit. Hedonism: There's nothing quite like a good shit. Hooliganism: Hell-raise all the shit you can. Impressionism: Seen from a certain distance at certain times to day, shit looks like a beautiful garden. Abstract expressionism: Look at this shit I just took on the canvas! Irish - An Irish spelling – Shite (pron: as in “height”) Japanese: (see also, Cargo Cult): Americans will buy all our shit. Liberalism: Society's to blame for most shit happening. Libertarianism: Get your filthy hands off my shit. Marxism: The rich shit exploits the poor shit, but deep down all shit is alike. We espouse The Dictatorship of The Shit. The workers take all the shit, but they're gonna dish it back out again. Workers of the world, unite, you have nothing to lose but your shit! Materialism: Whoever dies with the most shit wins. Mesmerism: You are getting sleepy ... soon you will find that shit will not happen ... Nihilism: (1) Let's blow this shit up! (2) No shit. Paganism: Shit happens for a variety of reasons. Political Correctness: Heavily processed, nutritionally-deprived biological output happens. Post-modernism: All new shit is just a mix of old shit. Procrastinationism: I'll take care of this shit ... tomorrow. Purism: If shit has to happen, let ONLY shit happen. Rastafarianism: Let's smoke this shit! Hey, this is good shit, mon. Realism: I think I need to take a shit. Repressionism: I'll hold this shit in forever. Republic: We elect others to take care of all the shit for us while we go to enjoy the games in the Coloniseum.  Republicanism: There's nothing quite like a good shit. Better flush the toilet now, do you think? Shirley MacClaine: Haven't I seen this shit before...? Socialism: The same shit happens to everyone. Soviet Union (Now defunct): None of that shit worked very well. Spoonerism: Hit shappens. Surrealism: Fish. Vandalism: Break all the shit you can as quickly as you can. Victorianism (English): Excrement occurs, but we do not discuss it at all in civilized society. When shit happens, dealing with it can be quite character building, you know. Vegetarianism: If it happens to shit, don't eat it. Yuppie Shit: It's my shit! All mine! Isn't it beautiful? DDD Darwinism: Survival of the shittiest. This apparent shit was once food for some life form or other. Deism: Shit just happens. Deism: God does not make shit happen. Denialism: What shit? Descartes: I shit, therefore I am. Determinism: Obviously, that shit was bound to happen to you. Dianetics: Your mother gave you shit before your were born. Discordianism: (1) Shit makes the flowers grow and that's just simply beautiful. (2) Some funny shit happened to me today. Druidism: Shit Happens. The Trees say so in verse. EEE Albert Einstein: God does not play shit with the universe. Shit is relative. Shit comes in a continuum like time and space. Empiricism: Prove that shit! Epiphenomenalism: Shit's in the air and falling down. Epistemology: How do you know that shit? Eschatology (End-time movement): You think shit happens now, you just wait ... you ain't seen nothin' yet! EST: If my shit bothers you, that's your fault. EST: I am at cause that shit will not happen. You're responsible for all the shit that happens. Evangelism: Shit Happens. (Pass it on) Evolutionism: The world is getting shittier all the time. Existentialism: Shit doesn't happen; shit IS. What is shit, anyway? FFF Fascism: Political shit that makes the trains run on time. Fatalism: Oh shit, it's going to happen. Forteanism: No shit?? GGG Graeco-Roman Mythology: The Gods will tell us when Shit happens. Genocidalism: Far less shit will happen if we kill everybody that's different. HHH Hare Krishna (via India): Shit Happens, Rama Rama Ding Ding. She-it happens, She-it happens, happens, happens, she-it, she-it ... (Repeat until you become one with she-it) Please take this flower and buy our shit. Heisenbergianism: Shit happened, we just don't know where or how much. Hinduism: This shit has happened before. Hinduism: I've seen this shit happening before. This shit is not a religion, it is the way of life. This shit happening IS you. Hinduism: I've seen this shit happening before. This shit is not a religion, it is the way of life. This shit happening is YOU. Holism - Holistic: There's more shit happening here than I initially figured on. HOPI Indian (USA): Corn fertilizer happens. HUMANISM – SECULAR: Shit evolves. III Idealism: I can deal with any shit. Idolism: Let's bronze this shit. Illuminism (The Illuminati): We make shit happen, we really can do that, but we do it in secret. International Red Cross / Red Crescent: Shit has happened - send money now. Issac Newton: So why did that shit fall on my head? Islam: (1) Shit happens if it is the will of Allah. (1a) (If shit happens, it is due to the will of Allah, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the wills or actions of individual Muslims or of any groups of Muslims.) (2) We don't take any shit. (3) If shit happens, it is the will of Allah. (4) Whatever happens, happens. Sunni Islam: (1) If it happens to be shit, it's Allah's will and you'd better submit! (2) Shi'ite happens. Shi'ite Islam: (1) WE WILL DESTROY YOUR SHIT! (2) If shit happens, take a hostage. Nation of Islam: (1) Don't take no shit! (2) Don't ever take no shit! (3) Also, singer Billy Joel at the end of his concerts these days, “Don't' take no shit!” Islam - other: (1) If this shit happens, it is the will of Allah. (2) If shit happens, take a hostage. (3) We don't take any shit. (4) If shit happens, kill the person responsible. (5) If shit happens, blame Israel. Islam - Nation of Islam (USA): Don't take no shit! (NB: US Singer Billy Joel feels this way also, not forgetting the movie line, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!") JJJ JJJ Jehovah's Witnesses: No shit happens until Armaggedon. There is only a limited amount of good shit. Knock Knock, "Shit Happens." Here, we insist you take our shit. Shit happens door to door. Good Morning, I have some shit here for you to read. Jehovah's Witnesses: No real shit happens until Armaggedon, and then you'll really see some shit happening! There is only a limited amount of good shit. The best shit happens in the Watchtower. Knock Knock, here we are again, "Shit Happens." Here, we insist you do take our shit. Our best shit happens door to door. Good morning, I have some interesting shit here for you to read. Want to buy a subscription to our shit? May we have a moment of your time to show you some of our shit? Shit has been prophesied and is imminent; only the righteous shall survive its happening. Jesuitism: If shit happens and when nobody is watching, is it really shit? Jesuitism (or in first-year philosophy courses at certain universities, to this very day): If shit happens and nobody sees or hears it fall, did it really make a plopping sound? Jim Jonesism: If shit happens, gather your children and drink poison Kool-Aid. Judaism: Why does shit always happen to US? Judaism - Hasidism: Shit never happens the same way twice. Lubavitcher Hassidism: Blessed are they upon whom He sends His most holy Shit to happen. Judaism: Why does shit always happen to US? Why does shit always happen just before closing the deal? Judaism: (Reform): Got any laxatives? Judaism: Why does shit always happen just before closing the deal? Conservative Judaism: Why does shit always happen to us? Orthodox Judaism: So shit happens, already! Judaism (Reform): Got any Kaopectate? Reform Judaism: Got any laxatives? Shit happens to whom it may concern. LLL Literary - Steel Magnolianism: "Honey chile, the shit that happens makes us stronger." Hitchhikerism of the Galaxyism: The answer to all shit is 42. James Tiberius Kirk: ... to boldly shit where no one has shit before! Shirley MacClaine (or, the experience of deja vu): Haven't I seen this shit before. Shakespeare: To shit or not to shit, that is the question. Edgar Allan Poe: The telltale shit. Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Shit. MMM Manichaeism (Re-read St. Augustine for a refutation): How can Shit be Happening? There's good shit, and bad shit, but it's all shit. Masocism: Do shit to me! Masonic: Shit happens, but we can't discuss it during Lodge meetings. Meliorism Shit is happening now, but soon it will cease to happen. Mennonite (USA): None of this modern shit now. Mithraism: (Ancient Iran, religion of Roman Army): Bullshit happens. Moonies: Only happy shit really happens. Mysticism: What really weird and very ineffable shit is this! NNN Native American Church: We want our Shit Back! Native Americans: Shit when it happens is sacred. New Age: Visualize shit not happening. That's not shit, it's feldspar. A firm shit does not happen to me. This isn't shit if I really believe it's chocolate. I create my own shit. If shit happens, honor it and share it. Sheeeeeeeeeeit! Were all part of the same shit. For $300, we can help you get in touch with your inner shit. Shit happens, and it happens to smell good. This isn't shit if I really believe it's chocolate. Crystal power counteracts Shit. NIHILISM: (1) Who needs this shit? (2) Suicide bombers: Let's blow this shit up! OOO Objectivism: (1) Our shit is good for you. (2) Shit is shit. Occupationally, just how does SHIT HAPPEN? ------------------------ Accountant: Why doesn't this shit add up? Acupuncturist: Hold still or it will hurt like shit. Let all that shit go. This will really get the energy shit moving. Artist: (1) Shit, I wish I had thought of that. (2) Anything you can buy for $2.99 isn't art, it's shit. (3) If Jessie Helms likes it, it's shit. Biologist: Is this shit alive? Botanist: What this daisy needs is some fresh shit. Bureauacrat: (1) I'm sorry, but we can't make this shit happen until you fill out form XJ-314159 to make an appointment with our Assistant Sub-Deputy Manager to obtain form ZN-271828. (2) Red tape is the shit we do. Chef: It needs some more of this green shit. Chemist: Gee, what'll happen if I mix this and ... SHIT!!!! Damn, this shit smells! ... Chemist: I hope this shit doesn't blow up on me. Computer software developer: Computer shit happens on a daily basis, that's why we have maintenance programmers. Computer Programmer: It's shit, but at least it compiles. Dean of faculty: Now, let's see how much shit the faculty'll take. Doctor: Take two shits and call me in the morning. Yes, it's definitely a case of shit happening. $90, please ... Economist: I hope no one figures out that I don't really understand this shit. Engineer: I hope this shit holds together. Farmer: (USA, EU): I get subsidies for my shit. (In novel Catch-22, one of the characters has a father who is the biggest non-producer of alfalfa in his entire state!) Historian: The same shit happens again and again. IRS Auditor (USA): I'll make 'em squirm for putting this shit on their tax forms. Lawyer: For a sufficient fee, I can get you out of ANY shit. Linguist: What I'm doing is a bunch of faeces tauri (Latin for excrement of a bull). Mafia boss: Rub the little shits out. Mathematician: Shit happening is just a special case ... Mechanic: Shit, this will cost a lot, mister ... Musician: This shit is out of tune. New York taxi driver: Damn, looks like I hit that shit. Philosophy SHIT HAPPENS - according to the Philosophers as follows: Thales: Earth, Air, Fire, and Shit. Epicurus: If shit happens, enjoy it. Socrates: What is shit? Why is shit? The truly wise do not claim to know shi t... Know thy shit. Plato (on how most people live): ... watching flickering images, living deep in shitty caves. Plato: There is an ideal shit, of which all the shit that happens is but an imperfect image. Aristotle: The essence of shittyness ... Archimedes: Hmmm... why doesn't this shit float? Give me a place to stand and I'll move any piece of shit. Descartes: I think, so why am I in this shit? I shit, therefore I am. Leibniz (as interpreted by Voltaire): The best of all possible shit in this world made for shit. Thoreau: I wanted to live deliberately ... to suck all the shit out of life. Freud: Shit is a phallic symbol. Jung: The Shitter is the most important Archetype. Jungianism: Shit is a fundamental archetype. Utilitarianism: Whatever does the most shit for the most people is best. Utopianism: This shit does not stink. Epicureanism: Shit happens, but best in moderation. Scientificism: We seem to think that Shit Happens, but it's just a theory. Poet: My childhood was shit, let me share ... Politicians: Taking shit from politicians: Iraqi Ba'aathist: Oh shit! Politician: It's shit, but it'll get me elected. If you elect me, shit will never happen again. Shit happening is bad for the economy. My Fellow Americans, Al I stand for is shit. Psychologist: Shit is in your mind. Everything that happens is shit; some of it is just you repressing its subconscious shittiness. Physicist (Theoretical): Shit SHOULD happen. Physicist (Experimental): To within experimental error, shit DID happen. Quality Control Inspector: This shit isn't good enough. Social Scientist: Let's pretend that shit doesn't happen ... Social Scientist: Let's pretend that shit doesn't happen ... (Political scientist: And so now we can be much clearer about the shit that went on when ... Statistician: There is an 83.7% chance that shit will happen. Maybe. Surgeon: Shit, where's this organ supposed to go? Teacher: Repeat after me: one shit + one shit =? Union Leader: Give us more shit or we'll strike. PPP Practicality/Pragmatisim: Deal with shit one day at a time. Popular Culture: Shit! KEEP SHOVELLING!! PSYCHOANALYSIS: Shit happens because of your toilet training. QQQ Quakers: Let us not fight over this shit. Be silent and wait for shit to happen, friend. RRR Rajhneesh: Give us your shit and put on this orange shit. Realism: I think I need to take a shit. Repressionism: I'll hold this shit in forever. SSS Sadism: I will shit on you! Satanism (Western World): (1) We hope bad shit happens to all of you. (2) We will make your shit happen. Satanism: We hope bad shit happens to all of you. We will make your shit happen. Shit doesn't just happen ... it's created by an asshole. What's wrong with shit happening? SNEPPAH TIHS. Shit rules! Scepticism: Nope, I will not necessarily be convinced that shit is necessarily happening, not at all! Scientology (USA): (1) All this happens to be shit. (2) If you leave us, bad shit will happen to you. (3) This shit has happened before, but we can clean it up if you pay us enough. (4) This Shit is expensive. Scientology: If shit happens, see "Dianetics", p. 157. SCIENTOLOGY: Shit happens if you're on our shit list. Shamanism: (1) Whoaa ... Holy Shit! (2) Only some can see the real shit. Shintoism: (1) You inherit the shit of your ancestors. (2) Shit is everywhere, so as long as you're stepping in it, show it some respect. (3) Everything except Japan is Shit. SHINTOISM: Shit is everywhere. Shit happens. Sikhism (India): Leave our shit alone. Solipsism: All this shit is just a creation of my own imagination. Stoicism: This shit happening is good for me. Stoicism: So shit happens, big deal, I can take it. TTT Taoism: (1) Shit happens. (2) If you can do shit, it isn't shit. (3) Shit happens, so flow with it. Taoism: (1) Shit happens. (2) If you can do shit, it isn't shit. (3) Shit happens, so flow with it. Theosophy: You don't know half of the shit that happens. VVV VOODOO: (1) Hey, that shit looks just like you! Voodoo: Shit doesn't just happen -- somebody dumped it on you. Let's stick some pins in this shit! This shit's gonna get you! WWW WICCA (English version of Witchcraft, etc): (1) Mix this shit together and make it happen! (2) And if it harm none, let shit happen. (3) If shit happened once, it will happen twice more. (4) The Goddess makes shit happen. ZZZ ZEN BUDDHISM (Western variety a la Alan Watts et al): (1) What is the sound of shit happening? (2) Shit is, and is not. (3) First, shit was shit, then it wasn't; now I'm one with Zen, and shit is shit again. ZOROASTRIANISM: (1) Bad shit happens, and good shit happens. (2) Shit happens half the time. (3) Christianity stole half its shit from us. (Ends the Shit Happens listings)

By Year 2051, the population of Australia could be 28 million, it is predicted by 26 January 2002, when the population is currently 19,157,000.

Year 2050: Pakistan by 2050 will be world's third-most-populous nation, with about 350 million people.

Saving the earth can't be left up to God, the faithful are warned: A consortium of religious leaders in Australia has formed to issue a statement (named Common Belief) on spiritual duties and attitudes that the faithful should adopt in terms of environmental challenges. However, Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Dr George Pell, has refrained from comment, though he has earlier said that “pagan emptiness” and Western fears of the uncontrollable forces of nature were leading to “hysteric and extreme claims” about global warming. Anglican bishop of Canberra and Goulbourn, George Browning, said, “If Christians believe in Jesus they must recognise that concern for climate change is not an optional extra but a core matter of faith.” ... the church's commitment to eradicate poverty was an empty dream without address of questions of climate change. Bishop Browning added in the practical area, for less reliance on heating and air-conditioning, use of energy-saving lights, use of rain tanks and grey water systems. The more general message for Christians is that they should become responsible stewards of God's creation and quickly tackle relevant questions of environmental care. Almost by definition, Christians are answerable to God for the way their actions will affect future generations. The groups concerned are Australian Evangelical Alliance and Australian Christian Lobby in association with the Climate Institute, and are Anglican, Greek Orthodox, Baptist, Salvation Army, Lutheran, Catholic, Uniting Church, plus Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Jews. (Reported Sydney Morning Herald, 5 December 2006)

Year 2050? - On 19 May 2004: At a Sydney Futures Forum, Australian author Tim Flannery warns that Australia is to see "devastating environmental change" and "possibly ghost cities". Perth in Western Australia especially may face a lack of water. Flannery is the author of a book on the impact of humans on Australia, The Future Eaters.

Future?: The world is aging so fast that the elderly will soon outnumber the young for the first time by mid-century (2050?) with profound implications for financial and labour markets as well as politicians, says the UN Nations Population Division. (Reported 2 March 2002)

Year 2050: ....changes will affect a world population expected to increase from about 6 billion people today to about 9 to 10 billion by 2050. In spite of technological changes, most of the world's people will continue to be subsistence or small-scale market agriculturalists, who are similarly vulnerable to climatic fluctuations as were the late prehistoric/early historic societies. Furthermore, in an increasingly-crowded world, habitat-tracking as an adaptive response will not be an option.
(From a website reviewing book on climate change by H. H.(From a website reviewing book on climate change by H. H. Lamb, Climate History and the Modern World.):

Year 2050 Prediction: An Australian research station has been involved in research which suggests that the hole in the ozone layer might disappear by 2050. (Reported in The Australian newspaper, 5 December 2000)

2050: Australia's Great Barrier Reef at risk: By 2050, the Barrier Reef will lose most of its coral cover. Tourism and fishing industries will suffer greatly. The prediction comes from researchers on coral bleaching at Centre for Marine Studies, Queensland University, Professor Hoegh-Guldberg and his economist father, Hans. Loss of coral could cost the economy AUD$8 billion and more than 12,000 jobs even by 2020. Seafood will have to come from aquaculture, not fishing. (Sydney Morning Herald, 21-22 February, 2004)

UK by 2050: Blair unveils Britain's 2050 vision on climate change. The British government has proposed mandatory reductions in carbon emissions (by 60 per cent as comparing 1990 levels to 2050), taking the lead in Europe's efforts to slow the pace of global climate change. It is proposed to conduct five-year "carbon budgets" with their outcomes being reviewed annually. Blair and his government hope their Bill will become law by 2008. Wide topics discussed in related matters in Britain include more investment in renewable energy sources, encouragement of new fuel technologies, rafts of taxes, fines on polluting industries and new manufacturing standards (as for light bulbs, and more reduction of energy-use via better standby functions for electronic equipment). (Sydney Morning Herald, 15 March 2007)

By 2050, India will begin to overtake population of China, India to then have population of 1.5 billion. As predicted by 2000.

By 2050 - In July 1999, UN reaffirmed idea to bring world population growth to a halt by year 2050. On population generally, and while estimates vary, we find the following: Humanity arose about 100,000-50,000 years ago. When people were hunter-gatherers, the world population was possibly about 10 million. About the time of Jesus, world population was around 300 million. It took until about 1800 for world population to reach one billion, 1930 for two billion, 1960 for three billion, 1974 for four billion. By about 2000, population was 6.1 billion. Seven billion may be reached around 2012. It is estimated by Carl Haub, a demographer at Population Reference Bureau in Washington DC that to 2000, about 106 billion people have been born.

Projection on population of Australia for 2042 is 25 million. In 2002 the Australian population was 19.6 million.

2040: Arctic ice to be gone by 2040 say scientists: From San Francisco is a report that global warming will melt the Arctic's dutring summer by as early as 2040. This will have serious environmental, commercial and strategic outcomes, say scientists at US National Snow and Ice Data Centre at University of Colorado in Boulder. There may well be a slow but steady decline of Arctic ice (as measured September-to-September), with a “dramatic tipping point” arising about 2020-2025, after which ice will retreat four times faster than previously. Supercomputers have been used for modelling work on the problem. By about 2040, perennial ice would only be found on the north coasts of Greenland and Canada.. The mode of opening new shipping routes will benefit Canada and Russia, but wildlife will presumably suffer. (Sydney Morning Herald, 13 December 2006, see recent issue of journal, Geophysical Research Letters)

2030: Australia by March 2007 produces about 217,000 gigawatt hours of electricity per years. By 2030, Australia will need about 360,00-gigawatt hours annually, an increase of 67 per cent. The 2007 value of the Australian energy supply business is about $110 billion and about $100 billion in future extra investment will be required. Governments will be needing to apply a stable regulatory environment, is 2007 thinking, in terms of planning, building, development timing, locations, fuel-type and size of power-generation units. According to Energy Supply Association Australia, which wants to see a national policy pitched at 2050. (Weekend Australian, Special report on Climate Change, 24-25 March 2007)

2030, approx: Predictions by 2000 that in Australia, social life will be dominated by the older generation, Seniors. Seniors will control money and investments, marketing to Seniors will be a product of the baby-boomer generation for the baby-boomer generation. Younger generations, tremble.

2030: Population: Two billion more Third World People are predicted to present themselves by 2030. (Boston Globe, 4 August, 1994)

2030: Humanity will make contact with intelligent life on other planets by 2030. According to noted sci-fi writer, Arthur C. Clarke, reported on 30 December 2000.
(Incidentally, here is "Clarke's Law" on technology: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".)

Prediction for November 2026: End of the World scenario? In the 1960s, commentators on population projections (Heinz von Foerster and colleagues) in the journal Science predicted an end of the world scenario due to excess population, by, say November 2026. (Reported by The Sunday Telegraph, Sydney, on 30 June 2002 in Science column by Graham Phillips).

2025: Australian population is predicted in mid-2000 to reach 25 million, though the population might also be contracting.

2020: Alignment of the planets happens this year: prediction.

Sickness in 2020: By the year 2020, non-communicable diseases are expected to account for seven out of every ten deaths in the developing regions compared with less than half today. Source: The Global Burden of Disease, Harvard University Press, 1996. Some experts claim that "by 2010, 66 million fewer people [will be alive] in the 23 countries with the most severe [AIDS] epidemics. Source: Confronting AIDS: Evidence from the Developing World, a report of the European Commission and the World Bank.

Worry re New Millennium Message: What Does The Future Hold For You?
From the Jehovah's Witnesses at Lost Worlds' own front door, during December 2000. Yes, we are visited too by these God-botherers!
Gee, just consider here the immense scope of just a few of the problems we humans face.
Pollution: Industrialized lands are "causing environmental damage on a global scale and widespread pollution and disruption of ecosystems". If present trends continue, "the natural environment will be increasingly stressed". From Global Environment Outlook, 2000, UN Environment Program
Sickness: By the year 2020, non-communicable diseases are expected to account for seven out of every ten deaths in the developing regions compared with less than half today. Source: The Global Burden of Disease, Harvard University Press, 1996. Some experts claim that "by 2010, 66 million fewer people [will be alive] in the 23 countries with the most severe [AIDS] epidemics. Source: Confronting AIDS: Evidence from the Developing World, a report of the European Commission and the World Bank.
Poverty: "Nearly 1.3 billion people live on less than a dollar a day, and close to one billion cannot meet their basic consumption requirements". Source: Human Development Report 1999, United Nations Development Program
War: "Violence within [various lands] could reach unprecedented levels... generated by ethnic, tribal and religious [divisions]... such violence will form ... the most common type of conflict in the next quarter century... killing hundreds of thousands each year". Source: New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century, US Commission on National Security/21st Century.

By 2020: A billion people worldwide will be aged over 60. (From a magazine).

Wars by 2020?: "Violence within [various lands] could reach unprecedented levels... generated by ethnic, tribal and religious [divisions]... such violence will form ... the most common type of conflict in the next quarter century... killing hundreds of thousands each year". Source: New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century, US Commission on National Security/21st Century.

From New Millennium Message: What Does The Future Hold For You?
- from the Jehovah's Witnesses at Lost Worlds' own front door, December 2000:
(Ever noticed that Christian fundamentalists are always discussing wars and rumour of wars, as they fear from reading The Book of the Apocalypse, while the fact is, anyway, there are always, all the time, independent of one's preferred ideology, somewhere in the world, wars and rumours of wars... ? More fool, humanity? -Ed)

Prediction of April 2003: By 2015, the population of Tokyo will be 26.4 million.

2015: Prediction of October 2003 that cites Lagos and Cairo will be the first African cities to become megacities, that is, with a population of more than 10 million.

2015 predictions: A US study aimed at predicting global trends by 2015 had found that it is almost impossible to predict what kind of nation China will become. The study was conducted by US National Intelligence Council (NIC), titled, Global Trends 2015. (Reported 23 December 2000)

2014: Burma and drugs: Burma's Foreign Minister, Win Aung, claims lately that his country, which is a massive producer of heroin and amphetamine-type stimulants, could eliminate its narcotics problem by 2014 - one year inside the target date set by the Association of South-East Asian Nations to rid the region of drugs. Mr Win Aung devoted his entire speech at yesterday's ASEAN (13-nations including Australia) post-ministerial conference to a wide-scale defence of the Burmese Government's so-far much-criticised efforts to combat the drug trades within its borders. He has claimed that cultivation of opium has fallen from 151,200 acres in 1997-1998 to only 90,437 acres in 1999-2000. A 15-year plan is in place to totally eliminate the cultivation, production and abuse of narcotics by 2014. (Reported 29 July 2000)

2012: About 40 per cent of the world's coral reefs will be dead by about 2012. By 2030, another 20 per cent will die. According to Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (speaking in mid-2001). By 2001, some 27 per cent of coral reefs are already dead. There is an irrevocable loss of 11 per cent of coral reefs. The world-wide coral-bleaching phenomenon of 1998 was also destructive. The Indian Ocean is particularly at risk. See: Al Gore (former US vice-president), his Foreword to report, Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2000:
(From The Australian Magazine, 12-13 May 2001)

24 December, 2011: According to standard interpretations of the "Long Count" of the Mayan Calendar, the world will now end. (James/Thorpe, p. 491) (Bye bye)

Future by 2010?: HIV epidemic in China tipped to engulf 10 million. (Reported in Australia 21 September 2002)

2010+?: Prediction: From British physicist Stephen Hawking: The human race may be wiped out by a doomsday virus before the millennium (3000AD) is out, unless humanity sets up colonies in space: (Reported 17 October 2001).

2010: Starvation in Urban Asia: By 2010, when half of the population of Asia/South East Asia lives in cities, hunger in Asia is predicted to be mainly an urban phenomenon, according to UN analysts. Asian states will need to boost food production significantly, it's said. (Reported from Bangkok by 9 December 2000)

2010 and later: Prediction: From Dr Peter Adler, "There is no doubt that the big international disputes of the next 50 years, particularly in nations such as Africa, will be over increasingly depleted natural resources such as water. How we manage and distribute our natural resources will, in the future, determine our quality of life."
Dr Adler is an Hawaii-based expert in the field of environmental and natural resources dispute resolution. He is affiliate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at University of Hawaii.

2010 is the year set in China by forestry administration as target date for halting "the shifting sands of Longbaoshan". Some 70km north of Beijing, the area is in the path of advancing desert. (Reported 17 June 2000)

2010: NASA in the US is reported in early 2000 to have projected a more concerted SETI search in space - is there any entity out there?

2010: Predictions: The Aral Sea in Central Asia may dry up entirely by now. Due to a large irrigation scheme for cotton gone wrong; where pesticide residues for the cotton are let into the sea by water, and as the sea dries, the pesticides now poison part of the population. (The world's fourth largest inland sea. Australian TV news, 9 May 2001.

2008: Olympic Games held in Beijing, China.
SOME OTHER DATES FOR OLYMPICS: 1968 Mexico City Olympics, in 1972 Munich, Olympics in 1976 Montreal, Olympics in 1980 Moscow, Olympics in 1984 Los Angeles, Olympics in 1988 Seoul. in 1992 Barcelona, Olympics in 1996 Atlanta.

February 2008: The Australian newspaper publishes a special (commercially-oriented) report on Water. Any newspaper in the world could publish a like compilation for its own region. For the record, some of the themes notd were: water price rises to become fact of urban life, attitudes to irrigation will have to change, and farmers are told that unfettered irrigation has had its day, Australians need to rethink loss of water by evaporation, how to stop run-off from urbanized areas contaminating groundwater, how sweet a solution is desalination? Science predicts more heat and less rain, what about the ethics of international trade in water, as with the sale of fashionable bottled water? (The Australian (weekend)), 23-24 Feb 2008)

Useful books 2007 on related subjects:

David R. Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations. University of California Press, 2007, 285pp. (Historical perspective on problems arising from soil degradation)

Guy Pearse, High and Dry: John Howard, Climate Change and the selling of Australia's future. Viking, 2007, 496pp.

Jeremy Leggett, Half Gone: Oil Gas, Hot Air and the Global Energy Crisis. Portobello, 2007, 322pp. 

Meredith Hooper, The Ferocious Summer: Palmer's Penguins and the Warming of Antarctica. Profile, 2007, 300pp.

Expansion of nuclear power facilities?: US News:  Washington: "Nuclear power would curb clinate change only by expanding worldwide at the rate it grew from 1981 to 1990, its busiest decade, and keeping up that rate for half a century, a new US report says." This would require the addition of an extra 14 plants per year plus 7.4 plants per year to replaced retired plants, the report by environmental leaders, industry executives and academics has said. Implications? To "help curb" rather than curb? Would the US distribute the required plutonium? Where to put the waste material? (Weekend Australian, 16-17 June 2007)

Evidence of climate change is now seen from Everest: Mount Everest now presents a picture different to the one it presented about 1968. Then, the Middle Rongbuk Glacier flowed down from thickly-snowed peaks. Now the peaks are barer of snow and the glacier has near-vanished, or at least receded by about 2km. Greenpeace is concerned on matters as the Rongbuk glacier delivered water to rivers of China and India. As well, the Halong Glacier of the A'nyemaqen Mountains, a source for the Yellow River of China, has shrunk since 1981. The Yellow River is 5464km long and provides water to about 120 million people for agricultultural, industrial and electricity-generation purposes. (The Australian, 1 June 2007)

Age of fossil fuel is fast running out of steam: If [we can find cheap clean renewable energy sources] ... "The present fossil fuel giants will no longer be raking in the billions from their industries ..." and ... people will look back at the crisis of the early 21st century and wonder with dismay, why, instead of showing leadership and vision, our elected leaders chose instead to pretend it wasn't happening ... "  (Sydney Morning Herald, 28-29 April 2007, letters to editor from Adrian Bain, St Leonards, Sydney, in what seems to be a very widely-shared feeling - Ed)

More dire warnings: The Climate Wars: "Experts fear possibility of a total breakdown in society as climate change takes hold." If military resources are stretched a little lately (US, Australia), if the "war on terrorism" might last a long time, what if greater security threats arise from reactions to climate change? The world's top three security threats are terrorism, nuclear attack, climate change. Consequently, the military-intelligence communities in UK, USA and Australia have been looking into matters. Will the Russian fleet move closer to North America? Will climate change pose apocalyptic scenarios? Which nation states might be most prone to fight over resources? Now being taken more seriously is an old speaker on such international issues, Canadian Thomas Homer-Dixon, from University of Toronto. (See his book, The Upside of Down). Homer-Dixon explores scenarios of fertile land becoming unproductive, water shortages, massive displacement of population groups. States may become incapable of discharging their basic duties, giving rise to chaos and conflict, insurgencies, ethnic clashes, terrorism. ... But Homer-Dixon suggests that much civil distruption will be between groups within nations, not between nations. On the other hand, a 2003 report noted that: "Humans fight when they outstrip the carrying capacity of their natural environment. Every time there is a choice between starving and raiding, humans raid."  States that are poorly-equipped by current standards will be more easily overwhelmed if problems do start. Some populations (as in Asia) are already vulnerable to rising sea levels, while other populations face risks from either river flooding or drought. Nations enthusiastic about economic growth are also heavily reliant on energy. And in the past century, the energy consumed world-wide in producing and transporting food has risen 80-fold while population has quadrupled to six billion. Suggesting that if energy-supply problems set in, less food is produced or transported. On and on the dire warnings and scenarios go.        (Sydney Morning Herald, 14-15 April 2007, article by Tom Allard)

Murray Hogarth, The 3rd Degree: Frontline in Australia's Climate War. Pluto Press, 2007, 106pp.

David Strahan, The Last Oil Shock: A Survival Guide to the Imminent Extinction of Petroleum Man. John Murray, 2007, 292pp.

Dust-bowl anxiety: Scientists tip return of US Depression-era dust bowl: The "dust-bowl", a Depression-era environemtnal diaster that drove 500,000 people from the southwestern states of the USA, may soon return, scientists have warned as they publish a new study. The area has recently suffered dought, and the study suggests that the area is expected to dry up and become as arid as it was in the 1930s. (See a recent issue of Science magazine.)  (7-8 April 2007, Weekend Australian)

Planet in peril, says UN. (Front page story.) Almost a third of the world's plants and animals face extinction, billions of people will suffer water shortages, and countries across Asia and Africa will suffer disease and starvation, according to alarming new global warming forecasts made by up to 2500 leading climate experts. The scientists help form the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. At-risk species could be displaying problems as early as 2030. There will be more heat waves, floods, storms, fires and droughts. Productivity of the world's oceans will fall. Farmers will find that traditional crops can no longer be grown in usual places. The disappearance of glaciers as sources of water will have knock-on effects in a variety of locations. Tourism in various parts of the world will also be affected. The report of four volumes issued by the scientists is entitled Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. It is to be followed by reports on synthesis and options for mitigation. Measures for mitigation tend to include cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, changes to technology infrastructure and  better land use planning. (Sydney Morning Herald and Weekend Australian, 7-8 April 2007)

Nay-saying on climate change: Maybe just trying to be witty, US writer Greg Easterbrook in The Atlantic Monthly has wondered what will climate change do to the world's distribution of wealth, money and power? He suggests, Greenlanders will cheer since retreating glaciers will make their large island more valuable. Russia (Siberia) will thaw and this will revitalize Russian affairs. There might however be new internatiional tensions as powers struggle for control of Antarctica "and other formerly uninhabitable regions". And bad luck, admittedly, Bangledeshis will have to move. Easterbrook argues, as if the USA has not been producing enough paradoxes lately, that the US ought to be doing everything possible to control greenhouse gases so as to be able to maintain its pre-eminence in the world order, a matter not to be second-guessed. Climate change, not a risk but just an unexpected opportunity for the good ole USA! (31 March-1 April, 2007, Weekend Australian)

Vegetable trade insanity: "At last the media are starting to highlight the insanity of air-freighting fresh vegetables around the world, when most countries are perfectly capable of growing their own." And going on to say, governments encourage this with absurd and hidden transport subsidies, Local productions of fresh foods for local consumptions should be re-encouraged. So, we all need to eat more seasonal foods. Writer of Letter-to-Editor, Les McDonald of Balmain, Sydney. (Sydney Morning Herald, 31 March 1 April 2007)

Global responsibilities: There are now 192 different countries on earth which are ultimately responsible for adding to greenhouse emissions, and for managing them more effectively, whilst still working for economic growth. For insurers around the world, some of the current issues requiring attention, include, improved building construction, stronger building standards, more research, increases in intensity and frequency of adverse weather events, in Australia, a demographic shift as more people choose to live near the coasts, increasing windspeeds, and computer solutions for economy-wide modelling. Geosequestration, carbon trading, recycling and use of wind power all need close attention. Use of “hot rocks” below the surface of Central and Eastern NSW (geo-thermal power) can be considered in terms of power generation. In the US, activist Al Gore asks pension funds and other major institutional investors to consider environmental issues when making long-term investment decisions. Really far out ideas for “climate management tools” include: man-made volcanoes to shoot “nuclear winter” material into the atmosphere to enhance cooling, a “sun-shade” or solar umbrella made of millions of light reflectors to slightly reduce our intake of sunlight, “air capture” by use of “artificial trees” or a filter system of some kind to handle carbon dioxide levels (an idea from professor at Columbia University, Klaus Lackner, from a small-scale idea by his daughter). (Weekend Australian, Special report on Climate Change, 24-25 March 2007)

Northern winter warmest recorded: US scientists (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) have recently announced that the just-ended northern winter was the warmest on record. The previous-highest record was for 2002. The latest December-February period globally was the hottest yet on record for land-surface temperatures, with January conspicuously hot. Such temperatures have been increasing at three times the rate they were before 1976. Temperatures have actually been increasing since the 1800s. Meantime, other US scientists predicted that by 2100, even by 2040, the Northern Polar Ice Cap will be greatly ice-reduced, meaning open sea lanes for shipping. And generally, erratic food production may cause losses worth about US$5 billion annually. (Weekend Australian, 17-18 March 2007)

EUROPE: DANUBE RIVER NEAR DEATH: THE river that once inspired Johann Strauss' most famous waltz, The Blue Danube, may soon be doing the Danse Macabre unless restoration efforts go up-tempo, Der Spiegel reported. According to a World Wildlife Fund report, alterations made to the Danube's natural flow to generate power, control floods and improve shipping have taken their toll. Altogether, some 80 per cent of the watershed's wetlands, flood plains and forests have been destroyed, said the German weekly. Pollution, invasive species and climate change were also cited as major threats to the river. The Danube River basin includes all or part of 19 countries in Europe. The WWF named the EU's plan to develop the Trans-European Networks for Transport along the Danube as the river's greatest threat. The project, which will iron out bottlenecks and create a transport link between the North Sea and the Black Sea, would require considerable alteration to more than 1000km of the Danube, including the last remaining, naturally-flowing, dam-free sections. (The Australian, March 2007)

Role of the Sun in global warming?: "The science of how global warming occurs has become crucial to our economy. So why are dissenting explanations of the sun's influence on our fate being pushed aside?" It's noticeable that a great many bloggers around the world are nay-sayers about scientific ally-and-human-derived reasons for global warming, and there are now two dissenting TV documentaris getting a lot of attention. One doco claims that spin - scepticism about climate change - is funded and promoted by oil and coal companies. Then there is the doco, The Great Global Warming Swindle, which blames increased sun-spot activity for global warming and asserts that there is now a multi-billion-dollar global warming industry. What is the truth, etc? Are reputations at stake for the wrong reasons? Who is right to try to discredit whom? Are scientists being gagged? Is science still unable for example to assess the role of clouds? Can climate historians properly assess rises and falls in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels across a suitable number of millions of years? On and on the questions go. (Article by Matthew Warren, environment writer, Weekend Australian, 17-18 March 2007)

Australian government disbelieves?: “A senior Federal Government minister (Finance Minister, Nick Minchin), has expressed serious doubts that global warming has been caused by humans, relying on non-scientific material and discredited sources to back his claim. His remarks come about a month after a UN panel of scientists has delivered its strongest warning yet, that human are causing global warming. Minchin for example, doubts the recently issued economic review of global warming by UK's Sir Nicholas Stern. (Sydney Morning Herald, 15 March 2007)

2007: Rethink on multiculturalism?: Thirty years ago or more, Australia adopted the Canadian model of multiculturalism, but it seems as though Islamic fervour of various kinds has prompted a rethink of what multiculturalism is all about,and can be all about. Canadians are now discussing “reasonable accommodation of minorities,” which an Australian might translate as “You've had a fair go already, mate, so stop asking for special favours.” (In Ontario, a judge had ordered the removal of a Christmas tree from the entrance to a Toronto court to “avoid offending non-Christian sensibilities.) There have been a gaggle of absurd official decisions made in Canada by persons of a variety of religious (non-Christian) viewpoints, a trend stopped in its tracks when Herouxville, a small town in Quebec, had had enough and issued a set of standards so that newcomers to the area could better understand “the social life and customs” of life in an adopted country. It is explained that in Herouxville, women drive cars, vote, sign cheques, speak for themselves, dance in public when they feel like it, dress as they see fit, walk alone in public places, undertake studies of their choice, and work at a job. (Women are not subjected to public beatings or being burned alive.) The people of Herouxville drink alcohol, listen to music of all kinds, decorate Christmas trees, and allow boys and girls to play together in many different settings. The mayor of Herouxville says that the statement reflects what a great many people are thinking but lack the courage to say in public. But Herouxville has now been lambasted in turn by Canada's left-leaning media, where commentators think Herouxville is a racist hicksville. Well, this webmaster thinks that a great many countries could learn much from Herouxville's attitude; Australia, Britain, Denmark, Netherlands, France Spain, Germany. This webmaster recalls being in Melbourne working in newspapers in 1990. In various north-eastern suburbs, social workers were becoming concerned about reports arising of five-six year old children from Muslim families turning up at school unsocialized and unable to speak English. They had not been allowed to mix and play with other children in their streets in mostly multi-cultural suburbs. Various action was taken, but the action was not what this webmaster thought was appropriate – hauling the parents into court on charges of child abuse, for offenses such as bringing a child to an English-speaking country and for years, preventing it from learning English. But there would have been community management problems if such action was taken, there were too many Muslim parents involved. Here, some Muslim parents at least are in a distinct bind. If they live in widely multi-culturalized areas, then children will be exposed to a wider set of cultural ways and outlooks than they would if they lived only in “Anglo” areas. In this sense, multi-culturalism does little for the over-fervent Muslim, so there is no point in wondering about, or doubting, the national policy on multiculturalism just because some Muslims become stroppy. To be naively idealistic, this website also observes that if Muslims arrive in say, post-1945 Britain, and take exception to the way Christmas is observed, the plain rudeness,arrogance and plain stupidity and intolerance of any complaints they make about the matter should be met with stony silence – and extra Christmas decorations, not less This website wonders what about all this from Herouxville is so hard to understand that it gives Muslim folk sets of angsty problems in Western countries. It seems to this website that Westerner-Muslims ought to make a reasonable choice between reasonable accommodation and no accommodation at all – after all, no one has a gun at their head making them stay in Western countries. Do they? When was the last time a confused and resentful Muslim was forced to stay in Australia? (Various from the views of columnist Janet Albrechtsen in The Australian, 21 February 2007)

Glacier may last five years only?: The principal glacier of the world's biggest tropical ice cap is glacier Qori Kalis, of the Quelccay,a 44km square ice cap of the Peruvian Andes, Cordillera Oriental region. The rate of melt of this ice area is increasing, scientists find, and Qori Kalis may be gone in five years. It has already lost 11km of length. Globally, and so far, scientists have mounted about 50 expeditions which find seven glacier-areas shrinking, and snowfall levels are mostly falling. The current rates of glacier retreat are greater than at any time in the past 50 centuries and could affect the water supplies of up to four billion people. (Weekend Australian, 17-18 February 2007)

Antarctic lakes found?: Scientists have detected a network of lakes and rivers of rapidly moving water under Antarctica, leading to revision on ideas of global sea levels as ice sheets change. The faster the water moves in such sub-glacial lakes, the faster any melting ice will reach open sea, causing water levels to rise, is the theory from British Antarctic Survey. But what is not explained is, where is “under”. (Sydney Morning Herald, Weekend of 17-18 February 2007)

Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia: Scientists warn of hysteria over state of Barrier Reef. Hysteria surrounding the impact of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef could lead to less bring done to protect it from immediate threats such as pollution and over-fishing, scientists have warned. (For those interested, an Australian named Terry Hughes is director of Coral Reef Research Centre.) (The Australian, 1 February 2007)

Glacier melts: Global warming is causing the world's glaciers to mel;t at three times the rate they did in the 1980s. A Swiss-based organisation, World Glacier Monitoring Service, has been commissioned by UN Environment Program to monitor many glaciers. Some 30 glaciers lost an average of 60-70cm of ice in 2005, 16 times the melting rate of the 1990s and three times that of the 1980s. Glaciers are an important water source for some of the world's most economically important rivers. (But one wonders if the loss of 65cm of ice was from the length of the glacier, or its depth, didn't anyone ask the researchers. We presume it makes a rather large differeence. - Ed) (The Australian, 1 February 2007)

2006: The year 2006 will see the first flights of new airliner, the A380, with advanced technology, double-deck layout, greater size and with a 555-seat capacity, even 800-seat capacity. (Predicted by 21 December 2000)

2007: Prediction of October 2003 that more than half of the world's population of 6 billion will live in towns and cities. For the first time, the number of urban-dwellers will exceed the number of rural-dwellers.

2007: Japan: Unless the Japanese reproduce more, the nation's population will start falling by 2007, according to Health Minister Chikara Sakaguchi as reported by 22 May 2002.

Global hell of limited nuclear conflict. If you thought that nuclear warfare was impractical, not really a useful option, you were probably right. Scientists have recently looked at probabilities and feel that even a small, limited nuclear war would have disastrous environmental and societal consequences, and after say, a few dozen Hiroshima-sized bombs had been exchanged, a pall of smoke would encircle the earth, causing temperatures to fall worldwide, and disrupting the food supply of millions of people. The new research has been conducted by scientists, some of whom originated the phrase, “nuclear winter”, in the 1980s, such as Dr. Owen Toon of University of Colorado, who researchers atmospherics. Part of research has been with reviewing the aftermath of the 1815 eruption of 1815, Tambora volcano, Indonesia, following which was “the year without a summer”, as crops failed in the northern hemisphere, such crop failures even being mentioned as such in the British Parliament. Famine occurred in Europe. Dust in the stratosphere can remain there for about ten years. (Sydney Morning Herald, 13 December 2006 and see recent issue of online journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions.)

Profit and loss: how climate change is likely to tip balance sheets: “The profit and assets of many of Australia's biggest companies will be hard hit by climate change, with coalminers and oil companies among those most at risk, according to an analysis published yesterday in Australia, the first report of its kind issued in Australia, issued by the stockbrokers, Citigroup. Sydney Morning Herald, 12 December 2006)

George Monbiot, Heat: How To Stop The Planet Burning. Michael Joseph, 2006. (Dire warnings on greenouse gas emissions, etc)

Jeremy Leggett, Half-Gone: Oil, Gas, Hot Air and the Global Energy Crisis. Porobello Books, 2006, 320pp. Noting that since 2000, there's been a stream of reports, books and articles warning that oil supplies are dwindling. Historically, recessions tend to follow "oil shocks". In 1956, the US geophysicist M. King Hubbert predicted that American domestic oil production would peak in 1971. [It peaked in 1970.] World oil reserves are lately over-estimated. Decline in oil supplies will coincide with impacts of global warming. Early corrective action is needed. (See other books such as Matthew R. Simmons, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy. Richard Heinberg, The Party's Over:  Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies.)

Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth. Bloomsbury, 2006. (On urgent needs to solve world environmental problems)

Environment: A few impressions: Year 2006 has been the world's sixth hottest year on record. Earth's ten hottest years have all occurred since 1994. The average extent of Arctic sea ice in September was 5.9 million square kilometres, the second lowest on record. Britain's Stern Review stated that “Australia exports $61.5 billion worth of climate change damage each year in the form of coal shipments.” If dams for Sydney's water supply were not topped up by water from the Shoalhaven River, the dams would be less than 20 per cent full. Air-conditioners are now using about 10 per cent of the NSW capacity to generate electricity. (Sydney Morning Herald, 16-17 December 2006, and on the same weekend, the Australian reported that Australia has now had ten years of below-average rainfall, plus a recent El Nino, all of which adds to bushfire risks. Australian also reported a paradox for greenie activists, “The green movement is struggling to maintain its relevance as the issues it has promoted for many years become central to mainstream party politics”, story by Matthew Warren)

Some of best news in several millennia: When 20 per cent or more of a population have mobile phones, and use them, research already indicates that dictators and tyrants can no longer function. (Noted by Bob Geldof in his documentary on Africa as screened in Australia on ABC TV on 7-11-2006).

The 700-page Stern Warning is issued: October 2006: Sir Nicholas Stern is a British Treasury official who normally looks into externalities, risk assessments and mitigation studies. He began his working life as a mathematician. In 1967 on a visit to Ethiopia he was unforgettably impressed by poverty there, and has since cared about the less-developed world. In 2000 he became chief economist at the World Bank. In 2005, Stern helped Bob Geldof produce the Blair Government's Commission for Africa report. Now he has achieved world fame, or notoriety, for his study of the likely effects of climate change, The Stern Report. His conclusion is that doing nothing to try to stop global climate change will be more costly to the global economy than trying to stem changesand damage. He has become regarded as "the international rock star of climate change", though this hardly strikes this website as a sensible way to look at matters. Stern visited Australia to issue warnings in March 2007. He is paticularly keen to see what Australians do with clean coal and solar power. (From article by James Button on Sir Nicholas Stern, Sydney Morning Herald, 24-25 March 2007)

The problem of "oil peaking" and oil supply depletion - worry now

2006++: The below item, rather serious, comes from a trusted friend of this website who wishes for the time being to remain anonymous. His concerned views on oil supply problems for the world future have been supplied to this website many times in recent years, but never before has he been so cogent/concise as here. He e-mails:

Yes, I watched the 4 Corners program [screened ABC TV Australia, Four Corners program, night of 10 July 2006] And yes I believe that oil production has peaked. This was predicted two decades ago.
The facts have been well understood and the bullshit from oil companies has been deliberate and carefully crafted. Many of the bullshit artists who continue to talk down the possibility of demand [for oil] exceeding supply are doing so because they stand to gain from high prices. They have driven the hapless economy to the brink and now they will drive it over the brink for the sake of another few years of profits. The fact that most politicians are going along for the ride, indicates just how corrupt the political process is in the USA. In Australia it is not much better. Profits for the oil companies and their associates seem to be one of the most important political considerations today.
So just who are our elected representatives representing?
And while it is obvious that we will run out of fossil fuels, thankfully before we run out of oxygen, it should be equally obvious that the energy of the future is hydrogen. The reasons are:
1. We have oceans of it (hydrogen oxide = H2O)
2. In joules per gram it is the most powerful chemical fuel in the universe.
3. When we burn it, all that remains is water.
It is true that there are will be many technical problems with a hydrogen economy. But there are none that could not be solved with a commitment from government and corporate interests. It must be lead by government however, since it will require considerable incentives to invest and develop the infrastructure and reticulation systems for any new fuel. Our motor vehicle fleet will need to be replaced and our air fleet will also need to be replaced with lighter than air or heavy as air aircraft. The conversion should have started a decade ago.
It would be one of the most massive projects undertaken in modern times. And I don't think we have the right people in power to embark on such a project.
If we don't start soon, it may have to wait another couple of hundred years, because the economy will be so disrupted it won't be capable of converting its way out of wet paper bag.
If it is correct, and I fear it is, that the USA is no longer a CAN-DO nation ... If the USA is now a CAN'T-DO nation, then I don't think they will be able to manage it. In which case, things could deteriorate considerably as various people squabble over dwindling oil reserves. Not in a punk-rock fashion, disaster-like, as in the movie, Mad Max, but more along the lines of many serious recessions.
In which case, certain people will be doing their damndest to distract the public sufficiently from asking: who caused this??? Who allowed it to happen?
Cheers, Anonymous
(See Matthew R. Simmons, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy. John Wiley, in July 2006, 428pp.)

China is now a leader in the fight against climate change, This week, Australia and the US can join in, writes Don Henry, executive director of Australian Conservation Foundation. “When Australia, China, India Japan, South Korea and the United States close the first meeting of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate on Thursday, will the world be any different? After all, technology development agreements between developed and developing countries are not new. Late last year, under the Kyoto Protocol, two private Chinese chemical firms and the World Bank launched the single biggest project to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and the European Union and China have already signed an agreement to develop new and existing clean energy technologies. (Sydney Morning Herald, 10 January 2006).

2005: Pamela Bone: An Australian writer complains about a lack of good news: In 2005, the University of British Columbia published a report funded by five nations named Human Security Report, but the contents were given little media attention. Some good news was that since 1992 the world had seen a decrease of 40 per cent in armed conflicts. The period since WWI is the longest interval for hundreds of years without a war occurring between the major powers. During the C20th, and bearing in mind two world wars, the number of men dying violent deaths was one per cent, while about 30 per cent of men in hunter-gatherer societies died violent deaths. In the past 50 years or so, millions of people in Asia have been lifted out of poverty. Just maybe, world population is starting to decline. Just maybe, the hole in the ozone layer has largely closed. We do need to be warned that we are on an environmentally unsustainable course. (And Pamela Bone wish es to complain that it is obscene that while children in the world are dying of hunger, in Western countries, cattle can be fed beer to make their meat more palatable.) The UN had making more preventive-type diplomatic missions, but UN failures, not successes, tended to be reported in the world media. News reports are just maybe, too realistic, leading to depression in children. Bone wants to know why while there is so much killing in Sudan, (Darfur), as much or more than in Iraq, why does Sudan seem so under-reported? (Melbourne writer Pamela Bone in The Australian, 21 February 2007)

2005: New book for now and for the future: Jared Diamond, Collapse. Allen lane, 2005. (Intended partly as a warning for the present/future; on why some societies collapse and others fail) - Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive. 2004. (Argues that Australia and China may soon be at risk of "eco-suicide". Examines the role of environmental abuse and other factors ["bad decisions"] in the demise of the Vikings, the Mayans and the people of Easter Island)

2005: Expected date (in 2000) for eradication of polio world-wide.

2005: By November 2001, China Daily had reported that China is moving ahead to send a man to the moon after earlier work on manned space flights.

Prediction for 2005?: Pandas face extinction?: By February 2001, it is widely reported that China now has only about 1000 specimens surviving of its magnificent black-and-white giant Pandas, as economic development helps destroy its habitats and supply of bamboo for food. How are their numbers coming along by now?

2004: Australia: Environmentalist Tim Flannery warns that Australia is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Cities might become “ghost metropolises”. Environments will be severely diminished. There will be “conditions not seen in 40 million years”. (Flannery enthusiastically continues such warnings to mid-2006.)

2004 Olympic Games, Athens, Greece: By 21 August 2001, Greece appeals again to Britain for return of the Elgin Marbles, with an idea to display them at the 2004 Olympics.

2004: US government will be working on a space-based missile-interception capability sited in Alaska. Possibly at Fort Greely, Alaska. Also, a facility at Kodiak Island will be in use. (Predicted by July 2001 in world news)

2004: "More data will be created in the next three years than in the whole of human history", according to researchers at University of California. (Reported 9 January 2001)

2004 in Athens, Greece: Calls from 2000 for the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece from Britain, in time for the 2004 Olympics set for Athens. Greeks in Australia support this call, which by March 2000 had been given added voice by former Australian prime minister, Gough Whitlam.

June 2004: National Geographic magazine devotes its June 2004 cover to the coming oil-supply crisis, providing an article titled, The End of Cheap Oil.

Predictions of August 1999: A new book warns that globalisation will rob us all of our cultural individuality. A single marketplace to deal in? Cultural homogenisation? Environments devoured? Less ecological diversity? Beware the "electronic herd" using the technology that brings you this very website, in fact! Not just globalisation, but Americanised-globalisation. Should the problem be called glocalism? What about act-local-think global? See Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Published August 1999 by Harper/Collins.

Trend of the Future?
Promoting a culture of non-violence and peace for the world's children

"For the first time in the history of humanity, all the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates - without exception - have signed an appeal to the heads of all the member states of the United Nations. Their appeal has been heard. The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the first decade of the 21st Century (from 2001-2010) The International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Non-violence and Peace for the Children of the World. This historic decision was unanimously passed. Check Website: http://www.nobel.org/
From the Catholic journal Madonna, January-February, 2000.

Update 2002: From Prof Croucher's column in Good Weekend (Sydney): Number of the world's children who are malnourished, 150 million, who receive no schooling, 20 million, who are killed or maimed by land mines each year, is 10,000.

Future?: Amazon Rain Forests and oxygen: The Amazon rain forests occupy an area just a little less than the size of Australia. The world's areas of rain forest are being reduced by about 5 per cent per year; and they account for about 90 per cent of the world's bio-diversity. But the Amazon forests are not "the lungs of the world" as far as oxygen-creation is concerned, they are about neutral in terms of oxygen creation versus oxygen depletion, as rotting matter uses up oxygen. The oxygen we need comes from tiny plants in oceans called phyloplankton.
(From a column Dr. Karl S. Kruszlnicki, who writes weekly in Good Weekend, the Saturday colour magazine of The Sydney Morning Herald, sometime in 2002.)

Internet Misused in the Future?: Advertisement for suicide bombers, promotion of violence and shoot-em-up games have risen on the Internet since 9/11, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Centre now based in Los Angeles. Extremist groups are putting in more online effort, the Centre says in its latest report, Digital Hate 2002. The Centre checked 25,000 websites and found 3300 to be "problematic". Offensive games are about "concentration camps", massacre victims, white supremacists shooting minority group people (ethnic cleansing), while images of the burning World Trade Centre are used on some websites to foment discontent about some specific groups, Jews or Moslems. (Reported 15 October 2002)

The Dangers of Prediction: Sometimes, worriers about the future get it wrong. Follows a list of cases. In 1948, George Orwell wrote 1984, which remains a worrying set of metaphors for measuring any current trend but has not come completely true. By 1955, chairman of Radio Corporation of America, David Sarnoff, said that ships, aircraft and locomotives would become "atomically fuelled" and that by 1980, "atomic batteries" will be commonly used. By 1966, Time Magazine had predicted that by 2000, machines would be doing so much work, that humans would have enforced leisure, and cited one futurist talking about the rise of a pleasure-oriented society "full of wholesome degeneracy". (Horses for courses, quite true of the US, certainly not true of African countries!) By 1966, Rand Corporation scientist Olaf Helmer predicted that by 2000, the widespread use of easily-available mood-control drugs by family members displeased with one member's mood. Time in 1966 also printed predictions eg: "only 10 per cent of the population will be working" and many people would have to be paid to not work.
By 1967, sociologist David Riesman had said in Time, "If anything remains more or less unchanged, it will be the role of women."
By 1970, Alvin Toffler in Future Shock was predicting people en masse would be experiencing psychological meltdown due to high rates of social and technological change. Australian prime minister Bob Hawke said by 1987, "By 1990, no Australian child will be living in poverty." (Ludicrous!)
Ravi Batra wrote The Great Depression of 1990, which would be the greatest depression in human history and continue disastrous to 1996, none of which happened. About 1998, Dr. Robert White, a professor of neurosurgery at Case University in Cleveland, Ohio, said, "I have no doubt that within the next 50 years, head transplants will be as common as kidney transplants are today." (From an article by Tony Stephens in Sydney Morning Herald, 15 January 2000)

Now return to the Lost Worlds Index Page

The Environment ... you have a problem with that?

From Dan Byrnes/Lost Worlds website

Introduction: This article is not sole-written, it is a collaborative presentation developed by a few like-minded people who are (November 2006) becoming increasingly concerned about world problems due, seemingly, to problems of climate change, or, climate in increasingly dramatic variation.

We consider, that we may as well regard the issuing in late 2006 of The Stern Report (by Sir Nicholas Stern, UK) as a watershed worth more than mere comment.

We rather suspect that as coming decades pass, weather and climate problems are going to stress, and restress, a great many of the ideas regarded as important by humanity, including, a good many religious ideas.

We rather suspect that if environmental problems worsen, that around the world, large sections of populations are going to find disappointingly less comfort in religious ideas that they and their forebears have traditionally cherished. If so, this is will probably cause more, not less, social stress.

We feel that around the world, neither religious leaders, nor politicians, not scientific advisors, are ready for the challenges which may well arise. For ourselves, we feel we could be most helpful if we simply provided a few website pages which provide a forum for registration, for discussion, of various issues.

And so, from the webpage you are currently visiting, this presentation will grow and change, more so if the page attracts useful responses from e-mailers.

Thinking thus, we felt that the quickest, easiest and most convenient way to give a netsurfer a quick Cook's Tour of many (often conflicting) ideas, outlooks and attitudes held by people around the world, would be to recompile, and re-edit, the already-well-known propositions of the Shit Happens lists. (Reductionism to the absurd, see below, where we have re-edited in order to make a few extra points of relevance to growing problems.)

Whether you find the Shit Happens jokes to actually be funny is your own business. We suspect that you'll find them less funny if you live near a coast which might become subject to a tsunami. Or, if/when you can no longer afford petrol for your car for the pursuit of pleasure.

We've re-edited the Shit Happens lists to try to juggle the reader into a re-consideration of the world's ideas on religion, fate, destiny, our various views on humanity's various and sometimes conflicting views on what life is for, and about; on where, if anywhere, we might be coming from or going to. (Remember The Blues Brothers? They also were on a mission from God!)

We are sorry about the crudity entailed by the lists, but we'd feel even sorrier if we didn't somehow communicate something useful to you. When you next feel busy, considering "the environment", consider also: what is the meaning of life? If you don't care, there are millions of people who do care. What if they happen to decide that they care more than you do?

We suspect that in coming decades, some of the meaning of life is going to appear to change, to change, or, it will be changed. Everyone should be as well-prepared as possible. Sir Nicholas Stern seems to think so, at least. We happen to be old enough to remember the varied and often contemptuous responses to The Club of Rome Report issued in the early 1970s. We lately think, that economist Sir Nicholas Stern is a brave man - Ed.

26 January 1700: New research by 2007 indicates that on or about 26 January 1700, occurred (about 8.1 on the Richter scale) a major mega-thrust earthquake in the Cascadia subduction zone of the North America Pacific North-West Coast / Washington coast area. This set up a tsunami much like the one afflicting Indonesia on 26 December 2004. This tsunami left tree-ring evidence on the American coast, and written records still available in Japan indicate the date was 26 January 1700 when the tsunami arrived to Japan. There it was called “an orphan tsunami”, which was the name the Japanese gave to any tsunami not otherwise connected to an earthquake they happen to have known about. (According to a documentary screened on ABC TV Australia on 8 March 2007.)

View these domain stats begun 18 December 2005