coming crisis: April 2007 Archives

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue:

In its most detailed portrait of the effects of climate change driven by human activities, the panel predicted widening droughts in southern Europe and the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, the American Southwest and Mexico, and flooding that could imperil low-lying islands and the crowded river deltas of southern Asia. It stressed that many of the regions facing the greatest risks were among the world’s poorest.

And it said that while limits on smokestack and tailpipe emissions could lower the long-term risks, vulnerable regions must adjust promptly to shifting weather patterns, climatic and coastal hazards, and rising seas.

Without such adaptations, it said, a rise of 3 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century could lead to the inundation of coasts and islands inhabited by hundreds of millions of people. But if steady investments are made in seawalls and other coastal protections, vulnerability could be sharply reduced.

But wait, the truth is really so worse:

Science-fiction Science "fact" author Whitley Strieber says we're about to make first contact with aliens. Or not:

It is possible that the visitors are about to show up. I am not saying that this will happen, but only that this is a time when it could happen, and there are some indications that it may be about to happen.

In other news, it is possible that monkeys might fly out my butt in the near future. I'm not saying this is absolutely going to happen, but if it does, I totally called it, and if it doesn't, duh, I said it might not.

It's possible Strieber's prediction is merely a projection of his fear that James "Scotty" Doohan's ashes will fall back to Earth from orbit and bring fiery death from on high.

In other other news, Strieber predicts the end of the world, Mayan style.

So many ways to meet the doom of our civilization...