The Earth is in a grip of the last Ice Age until around 13,000 years ago when something had began to warm up the planet once more.

Prior to the warming period, humans had already migrated to North America and made a home on the continent, living off quite contently on the large mammals such as Wolly Mammoths, bisons and the wild boar. In other parts of the world, most humans sheltered themselves from the cold or kept themselves close to the equator and probably near the oceans to get the warmth and food they need. But something was causing the Earth to warm up again.

Once possible theory is that burning of wood by humans and the methane from other animals had slowly raised world temperatures from around 13,000 or 14,000 years ago. But eventually a tipping point came when temperatures in the oceans reached a critical level and a certain amount of frozen methane known to scientists as methane hydrate ice beneath the oceans suddenly turned to gas and entered the atmosphere where a dramatic warming of the planet occurred. The result was the end of the Ice Age in North America around 11,500 to 11,000 years ago.

Then, almost as quickly as someone had turned on a switch, the Gulf Stream was activated where warm waters in the Carribbean sea and the Gulf of Mexico was transported across the Atlantic Ocean to northern Europe. Once this happened around 10,500 years ago, all it took was one unusually hot European summer with temperatures 6 to 8 degrees celsius higher than usual to begin melting a significant amount of solid ice from glaciers (1). In a matter of 5 to 50 years later (a blink of an eye in Earth's geological history), the Ice Age came to an abrupt end in Europe.

As a result, sea levels around the world rose significantly. For example, the Island of Tasmania is formed south of the Australian mainland as water rushes over to create Bass Strait. Whereas the great valley separating Europe from Africa suddenly fills up with the water from the Atlantic Ocean as it finally broke through a canyon lying between Spain and Africa. Scientists believe sea levels rose by at least 74 and probably as much as 120 metres in a matter of 50 years.

NOTE: The Black Sea later appeared around 7,000 years ago when the Mediterranean Sea rose high enough and eroded enough rock and soil to burst through and flood another great valley. It is believed this is the place were the fabled story of an old man named Noah, a great flood and messages from a God speaking to the man of the impending disaster as revealed in the Bible was thought to have taken place. Today, some scientists are questioning who or what is God?

Despite the alluring theory, not all scientists are in agreement with the cause for the rise in world temperatures leading to the end of the Ice Age. Was it entirely on methane and carbon dioxide emissions? The big problem with the theory, or so it seems, is that many large mammals of the megafauna era including the Wolly Mammoths died out after the end of the last Ice Age for no good reason. These are the same animals that survived many previous Ice Ages and interglacial periods. And yet incredibly, many would not survive the end of the last Ice Age. Why should this be so?

Some scientists have considered a range of possible explanations such as the melting of the ice sheets caused flooding and many marshy areas where the animals may have struggled to move around and find food, or simply that humans were too eager to hunt down the last remaining large animals to extinction. Now, according to a respected archaeologist Professor Ken Tankersley, he thinks there could be another explanation.

In a place called Sheridan Cave located in Ohio, USA, Tankersley has noticed a thin layer of distinctly reddish dirt known as the Clovis layer below 10 metres of soil dated to around the end of the last Ice Age, approximately 13,000 years ago. The same reddish layer has been observed in at least 20 other sites dotted around the continent suggesting whatever had deposited this material was a widespread event. After analysing the soil, he noticed unusually high concentrations of iron (up to 50 times above the expected level in the surrounding soil above and below the layer). The question is, "Where did the extra iron come from?"

One clue lies in outer space.

After realising some rocks in space can contain high amounts of iron, Tankersley has put forward a controversial theory that perhaps an asteroid may have impacted somewhere in North America causing the end of the last Ice Age. Where precisely he doesn't know for sure. Indeed, the biggest problem with his theory is the lack of a crater and one that is much bigger than the thing that hit Arizona nearly 50,000 years ago. However further studies by planetary geologist Professor Peter Shultz using a high speed gun in California developed by NASA suggests the great glacial ice sheets of North America up to a mile thick may have helped to reduce the size of the crater and erode much of the evidence of the impact site when the ice melted making it virtually impossible to locate.

As further evidence, Tankersley has discovered bones of mega mammals living on the continent that have suddenly stopped existing above the crucial iron-rich red layer. As Tankersley said:

'We're looking at the Clovis layer. It's a very distinct layer here in the case. Beneath it, we have mega mammals remains. Above the layer, there are no more mega mammals. This literally represents the extinction event.' (Quote from the BBC documentary film Catastrophe, 2010.)

On closer examination, the bones within the layer appear to have characteristic signs of flesh having been burned off the bone at temperatures above 300 degrees celsius which no ordinary cooking method by humans could achieve.

Furthermore the seemingly sudden nature of the extinction of the mega mammals in North America and the widespread nature of the iron-rich layer of soil is not suggesting to Tankersley of any possible human contribution to the extinction. As Tankersley stated:

'One of the things that intrigues me about this time period and about this site is we have no clear cut answer as to what caused the extinction of these mega mammals. Over hunting, people killing these animals just does not fit. And when we look at all the other Ice Ages which came to an end, these mega mammals did not go extinct. So why now? And why here? This is one of the most intriguing questions that I've ever faced.' (Quote from the BBC documentary film Catastrophe, 2010.)

It is most certainly intriguing by any account.

Yet we have a problem with using the asteroid theory as the sole explanation for the extinction of mega-mammals.

This single catastrophic event that presumably took place in North America was not sufficient to cause extinction of other mega-mammals in other parts of the world. A classic example is the fact that we know Wolly Mammoths existed in northern Europe and Russia during both the glacial and interglacial periods for literally hundreds of thousands of years. Even if the ice were to melt in a matter of a few months, the animals would have migrated to higher ground and in places where there is plenty of food. Yet these large animals of Europe and Russia would disappear from the face of the Earth just like those in North America.

To make matters worse, it isn't as if the impact was so catastrophic that it wiped out all the large animals. In fact, the impact wasn't even big enough to wipe out a large two-legged creature called humans on the North American continent. So why the extinction of these large mega-mammals outside of North America?

Something is telling us we can't totally discount any contribution by humans to the destruction of these great animals.

Perhaps there was some reduction in the numbers of mega-fauna at the time of the impact. However the final blow probably came when humans had to survive after the event by hunting the remaining large plant-eating animals to extinction. This might explain why humans did not become extinct in North America and in other parts of the world. Whereas in other parts of the world, an unusually cold period may have returned for a couple of years putting enormous pressure on the mega-fauna and humans to survive at this time. But it would be the humans that would dominate and survive the cold by pushing the animals to extinction.

It is a most interesting piece of research from Professor Ken Tankersley that will be highly debated for many years to come. Did an asteroid really hit North America and contribute to a sudden acceleration, or perhaps had began the march, towards higher world temperatures and thereby eventually ending the last Ice Age?

Whatever caused the warming of the planet, we do know the last Ice Age was coming to an end. So naturally we would expect places where great flooding would take place in some parts of the world.

Interestingly, a study of some great civilisations such as the Aztecs reveal stories of a great flood occurring at this time. Some civilisations were thought to have been destroyed and new ones formed as a result of the great flood. Whether this is true or not and if this is related to the end of the Ice Age or closer to the time when the Black Sea was created (perhaps it formed closer to the end of the last Ice Age), more scientific evidence is needed to confirm such stories. If there is any truth, it would seem as if some people were oblivious to the impending disaster and were not expecting sudden floods to take place at this time.

At any rate, prehistoric man at the end of the last Ice Age and surviving on safer higher ground continued to hunt and gather food and lived in groups of between 20 and 100 individuals, averaging about 40 people. On rare occasions, some groups in different parts of the world would swell to great numbers (approximately 10,000 people) forming what are crudely known as human civilisations. Human population throughout the world probably didn't exceed 5 million.

Michael S. Bisson from the Anthropology Department at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, said:

'At the end of the Pleistocene, there was a dramatic warming of the climate that had very important ecological consequences. First, the polar ice caps melted back significantly as well as the continental ice sheets. This raised ocean levels and isolated North America from east Asia, and also isolated Japan and parts of Indonesia from the Asian land mass. This allowed genetic drift to create new forms of new species in these different areas. At the same time, cold-adapted animals — particularly the large mammals such as the Mammoths — no longer had an environment in which they could survive and they became extinct, perhaps helped by human hunting. In other parts of the world, however, increases in temperature generated much bigger increases in biomass. Animal and plant productivity increased and this created important opportunities for humans.' (Quote from the French documentary film Homo Sapiens: He Domesticates Nature produced by France 3 Production Sud-Ouest, France 5 TSR RTBF, To Do Today Productions (Belgium), CAB Productions (Switzerland), Productions Pixcom (Canada), Ballistic Pictures (South Africa), Tang Media (China), Danit Rossner (Israel). 2004.)

 
A number of animal species became extinct such as Wolly Mammoths, Wolly Rhinos, Bisons, and the Sabre-Toothed cats. Perhaps it was caused by a natural change in world climate after the last Ice Age? Or more likely the reason may be to do with the presence of humans growing in numbers and finding more efficient and effective ways of hunting some animals for food and perhaps for pleasure. Once the main food supply was gone, it can easily bring down with it other species in the ecology.

## UPDATE ##
13 May 2006
A poorly reported study in The Canberra Times (forcing readers to check the Nature edition this week for names of scientists involved in the work and their official quotes) claims carbon-dating of more than 600 bones from bison, wapiti, moose, humans, wild horses and mammoths recovered from Alaska and the Yukon Territory suggest the timing for human habitation was either a little late (the fossils for humans in these regions seem to point to a figure of 12,300 years ago and not earlier) or left very little time for humans to cause the extinction of an animal such as the Wolly mammoths. Scientists are inclined to believe the extinction was probably due to natural climate change. In other words, 2,300 years is considered not enough for humans to cause the demise of a large animal such as the Wolly Mammoths. The scientists of this study, however, are putting the decline of the Wolly Mammoths at closer to 11,800 years ago, rather than 10,000 years ago. We assume this is from the fossil records. So we are left with a time frame of say 500 years for humans to do the damage.

Is it possible? Yes. But is it probable? Depends on how many humans were around.

In fact, the study doesn't entirely discount the possibility humans could have had an impact. It just suggests the available human bone fragments put them at a time where it seems there was little time for whatever number of humans were around at the time to have created the damage. But is it not possible for these humans to have been living in these areas at an earlier time? And could 500 years be enough to hunt some of the animals to extinction? It need not have to be for food. Perhaps some humans were trying to prove how much of a man they were by killing enough Wolly Mammoths and other animals? Or is it possible another smaller asteroid impact may have put an end to the Wolly mammoths as some scientists are suggesting as of August 2010?

As for the warming of the planet starting from 13,000 years ago, one would think this would have favoured the existence of these larger animals with extra grass.

Some scientists are not too sure, suggesting the muddy grasslands would be an impediment for larger animals trying to escape predators including humans.

So why not migrate to warmer and less muddy regions? Or travel closer to the poles? Animals would surely take an easier route so long as there is food beneath the snow. It would explain why these creatures had continued to survive during the previous Ice Ages and interglacial periods.

Now some scientists are thinking it might be due to humans after realising these larger animals were genetically predisposed to producing very few offsprings. If human populations expanded in the warmer interglacial period and hunted in greater numbers the remaining adult wolly mammoths (or even the offsprings), there may be little time for these animals to recover and produce enough surviving offsprings to maintain its own population.

But did this all occur between 12,300 and 11,800 years ago? Further work is taking place to find out.

 
For a couple of thousand years after the end of the last Ice Age (certainly by 9,800 years ago), food was considered in plentiful supply. Humans could walk a short distance to gather food across the countryside without too much difficulties. In the more seasonal temperate zones, perhaps humans would still migrate to warmer regions during the winter to continue the tradition of gathering food. However something happened around 8,000 years ago to minimise this extra work.

An increasing number of humans seem to no longer be interested in migrating all the time perhaps out of fear of losing their valuable territory to other humans roaming the countryside. Perhaps the origins of countries would begin from this moment on?

In what is classified as the Neolithic Age, either food supplies dwindled, became too unpredictable for some reason, or establishing territory for humans became the prime motivator. Whatever the cause, it forced humans to see the usefulness of cultivating specific plants and breeding certain types of animals to help maximise and stabilise the food supply for humans in a specific region. Among the foods being cultivated and bred extensively for humans around 8,000 years ago include wheat, rice, oats, barley, cattle, chickens and goats to name a few.

Humans were also learning to store grains to last the cold winters, thereby avoiding the need to migrate to warmer lands. Just so long as humans had access to wood from the forests to burn in order to keep warm, it should be no problems.

This kind of human activity would coincide with an anomalous rise in the levels of two greenhouse gases in the atmosphere — in particular, methane and carbon dioxide. These gases prevented what would have been, as the scientists are now considering, the next expected cooling of the planet and possibly another Ice Age starting around 5,000 years ago according to recent computer models of world climate over the past 400,000 years. Apparently something was increasing the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at this time. And what could that be?

Did humans suddenly evolve into a new species known as Homo Flaturectumus? Highly unlikely. Even if humans could have caused this abundance in greenhouse gases through massive flatulence, it would have required a massive surge in population growth and a massive consumption of food. Or were the cattle, chickens and other farm animals contributing significantly to the greenhouse gases? Certainly methane is 22 times more potent in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. And humans would have needed to produce more animals for food.

Or what about the cutting down of trees and the burning of wood by humans?

Evidence to support the increase in the two important greenhouse gases by around 5,000 years ago comes from precise measurements into the types and amount of gases found present in the ancient atmosphere through tiny ancient air bubbles trapped in the Antarctic ice. As Professor Bill Ruddiman of the University of Virginia said during a meeting of the American Geophysical Union on Tuesday 9 December 2003:

'[An analysis of the gases trapped in the ice shows] You have 395,000 years of history, which sets some rules, and 5000 years that break those rules.' (2)

So what was causing the increase in greenhouse gases? Ruddiman suggested humans were affecting the climate in a slow and steady rate over a period of 3,000 years because of the way they were organising their natural environment nearly 8,000 years ago. He believes it is possible the clearing of forests, planting crops and raising livestock were integral to explaining the rise in greenhouse gases.

So while things appeared to be warming up at this time, scientists are reasonably confident this would correspond to a greater number of humans organising their food supplies and making the environment more suitable for them to live.

To make life even easier for people, trade and travel had to be considered integral at this time. Trade is the means by which people can acquire, sell and buy foods, tools, clothing and other services from a central point (usually within easy distance from a major population centre where people want live and/or where the source of the materials to make the products are easy to obtain).

Among the new and valuable materials being discovered and sold for a successful trade at this time include a rare and one of the hardest substances on Earth called obsidian formed by lava cooling rapidly. Because of its hardness and durability, this glass-like material was fashioned into cutting implements considered more sharper and tougher than stone implements.

The world's first artifical and portable mirrors made of obsidian for humans to look at themselves were also developed (3). Not such a bad idea considering humans are having an increasing influence on the environment since the end of the last Ice Age.

 
World human populations reach around 50 million nearly 7,000 years ago (ie. 5,000 B.C.E).

At around this time, ancient people visiting the island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea were initially greeted with a natural environment abundant with vegetation and a reasonably fertile soil. Then around 5,000 years ago (ie. 3,000 B.C.E), the societies on the island effectively denuded the fragile landscape of its natural vegetation, allowing severe soil erosion to rob the land of its productivity.

The environmental degradation caused humans on the island to go through such high stresses as agricultural yields became unpredictable and costs to produce food went up that eventually they became more introverted, less educated and worked for a few powerful extraverted people had knowledge of the outside world and used whatever methods available to control the information in order to maintain power whereas other people would experience extreme poverty, relied less on imports from other countries, and turned to religious sculpture and art where the people began worshipping the gods, hoping the foods would be plentiful again.

As starvation and death became a common sight among the Maltese societies, the people showed a religious obsession with life and death.

Small stone statuettes from the island showing images of obese human figures as a sign of fertility were common. The large numbers of such stone artifacts gives an indication of the obsession these people had in religion when the environment was seriously damaged.

A cult society with a religious hierarchy consisting of priests at the top of this controlling structure appeared in the final stages of the societies' collapse around 4,500 years ago. People were made to feel compelled to honour the dead, placing the dead in burial chambers and caves, following many religious rites, making statuettes to link the dead with animals and human obesity, and expending immense energy to build temples at the request of the priests.

Soon the death toll rose and the need for people to remove the older bones to make room for the dead became paramount.

Not long after, all this temple building suddenly ceased, the priests lost power, and a new religious practice began. By around 4,000 years ago (ie. 2,000 B.C.E.), the old religious culture disappeared in favour of cremation burials. No more statuettes of fat women would be created from this moment on. It is as if the people finally saw the light.

Today, the people of Malta live on a hilly relatively treeless island with very little fresh water and a land seemingly inhospitable for farmers to grow anything. The people rely more on fishing, the tourism dollar, and food imports from its neighbouring countries to survive.

Whether the event had occurred closer to around the end of the last Ice Age or around this time, scientists do know a great flood had by this time filled a formerly freshwater lake as the Mediterranean Sea rose high enough to break through a canyon of several miles in width. It has been estimated that after 30 to 90 days, the lake turned into a large body of salt water. Today we now call this large body of water the Black Sea. Perhaps a rather appropriate name given the likely destruction the flood had caused to humans and other animals in the valley.

 
German amateur mountaineer Helmut Simon and his wife discovered in September 1991 the remains of what is now known to the scientists as "The Iceman" or Ötzi as many would prefer to call him. Believed to be of central-northern European origin through DNA analysis, the 159-centimetre tall iceman died in late spring or early summer while sheltering behind a rock in the treacherous Alps nearly 5,300 years ago (ie. the Neolithic, or New Stone Age period). So dangerous is this part of the world that Mr Simon fell to his own death in October 2004 near the spot where Ötzi was discovered just when the weather suddenly turned bad.

Other people were also caught in the storm and had to be rescued by helicopter. Such bad weather is believed to be how Ötzi came to his end.

Analysis of the body suggests he died at the ripe old age of 46 years. Some evidence of arthritis can be observed in the lower spine, right knee and ankle suggesting he did a lot of walking through the mountains. A look at the contents of his last meal suggests he may have been a shaman relying on medicinal mushrooms and grains for his sustenance. But he also ate red deer and alpine ibex (wild goat) to complement his diet.

Clothing consisted of a bearskin hat, three layers of clothing — consisting of leggings, loincloth and jacket made of deer hide and goat, and a cape made of grass and bast — and shoes made of bearskin soles, goat-skin uppers and grass to insulate his feet.

The man was involved in some fighting with x-ray images revealing an arrowhead in his shoulder blade according to Paul Gostner and Eduard Egarter Vigl of the Regional Hospital of Bolzano in Italy. There is also a deep cut between the index finger and the thumb on the right hand. Histological analysis of the cut suggests the injury happened between three and eight days before his death. And DNA tests confirmed traces of blood on his clothing from four different people according to Tom Loy of the University of Queensland.

So who was the iceman and what was he doing towards the end of his life?

Scientists have speculated on his life based on emerging evidence. The first explanation suggested by scientists nearly 10 years ago is that he was a shepherd preparing for a usual trip over the mountains in early alpine springtime. Except on this occasion the weather turned nastier than he expected and his health for such an old man was not as good as he thought. Maybe this is how he died.

Some scientists, notably Professor Walter Leitner of the University of Innsbruck, has suggested an alternative explanation as more forensic details emerged since 2003. The appearance of an arrowhead in the shoulder blade and the presence of a sharp axe the old man was carrying around suggests he may have been a travelling trader and blacksmith dealing in recycling copper for local communities. Being a stranger, it is possible he may have got himself into a fight with young rivals and tried to escape by foot over the mountains where he hoped the rivals would not pursue him. This he may have succeeded. But on this occasion, despite his experience with the mountains, he may have timed it badly when the weather suddenly turned nasty and a blizzard ensured he paid the ultimate price.

Either that or he was being pursued by his rivals who wanted him dead in the mountains knowing how quickly the weather was turning bad.

The latest forensic evidence suggests a third and final explanation. This explanation suggests he was not a stranger but a local. Trace isotope elements in the teeth composed of strontium 87/88 and oxygen suggests he didn't travel further than 60 kilometres from where he was born. Combined with the deep fresh cut in his hand which could be a defensive move against a sharp implement and the blood from four different individuals on his clothes and axe, it is possible the man was involved in a major fight between tribal groups near the end of his life.

Weakened by his wounds, he could have decided to make a desperate trip over the mountains to return to his homeland only to be caught in a severe blizzard.

The truth is, scientists don't really know for sure. We have tantalising glimpses into the life of the iceman. But not enough to give a firm answer as to what really happened to him. Stay tuned for further details.

 
The first known evidence of writing for recording events, how much of something was available, and various other things is thought to have began during this time. The record-keeping was primarily to mark how much or how many of something was available, who did what, and when is the best time to grow food and perform certain ceremonies (considered by some psychologists as a strongly L-brain activity).

As the development of writing was taking place, the Bronze Age also began at around this time (ie. 3,000 BC) in the city states of Mesopotamia. Prior to the invention of bronze, people were using stones, copper and obsidian as tools.

Apart from the L-brain skills needed to develop effective writing and communication, this was also an inventive time (ie. a R-brain skill) when the lands of Mesopotamia were sufficiently fertile enough to grow enough food for everyone where enough craftsmen would free up their time to experiment with different materials.

It was here that certain craftsmen learned to combine tin and copper in their smelting furnaces to create a new metal called bronze. Bronze had the benefit of being a much harder material than ordinary copper for making durable products.

At first bronze tools were made for the rich and powerful in society. After a while it slowly tricked down to the rest of society. For very low costs, pottery made from clay and heated in a furnace still remained the best option for most people.

However being rich can bring out the worse in other people as they fight for the riches. Therefore the need for a new metal such as bronze to protect the rich and the infrastructure eventually grabbed the attention of the military and soon bronze became the metal of choice for building more sophisticated weapons.

 
Humans had well and truly discovered the usefulness of metals for creating very sharp cutting implements considered vital for hunting, protection and fighting other humans and predators.

Early metals used by humans tended to be soft and easily damaged (eg. copper) after repeated blows to predators, trees, and later other humans. But soon the metals were carefully selected (eg. bronze at around 5,000 years ago and iron at around 3,300 years ago) for their hardness and durability and were fashioned using new technologies to help melt the metals and combine them in the right way as well as clever techniques to harden the metals such as rapid cooling and adding some impurities like carbon to the metals.

NOTE: Military wars remained common at this time as people enjoyed a sense of power and wanted to maintain territories containing valuable resources for their survival and wealth. Metals were considered a new and important part of the military at this time. Today, humans are no different except for the metals we use — now progressed to the use of titanium for jet fighters and missiles.

Horses are domesticated by humans as a form of transport and to overwhelm the enemy with shear size and speed together with the skills of the rider to wield a sword.

 
The world's oldest known human civilisations proven by archaeological finds have been dated to this time (although it is likely civilisations existed prior to this time).

Perhaps you might be asking, "Why create a civilisation?" This is a good question. Maybe the answer lies in the sorts of benefits people receive with the least amount of effort when getting into a group situation with other human beings.

With new and exciting products made with metals, mirrors, hallucinatory drugs from various plants, and other services (eg. sex) to meet the needs and wants of people at this time and so make life more bearable and enjoyable, trade had to exist. Where there was significant trade among one or more groups of people in a confined area, the propensity for humans to develop a large civilisation by building houses, roads and other infrastructure (since trade would mean people could stay in one spot for a very long time) to help support the trade would have been great.

Already we see the beginnings of a civilisation through trade.

Similarly, the art of warfare can lead to the development of a civilisation. Getting into a group situation is considered vital to improving the individual's chances of survival when fighting other groups. The only extra thing that is needed are other people to provide the food and various services to help maintain this type of military-based civilisation.

But for how long can any civilisation be maintained?

Would the people of a civilisation become so successful in surviving that there is plenty of time to develop many of the more R-brain activities such as the arts? Or does religion become increasingly more important as people used up the remaining resources and soon contemplate the issues of life and death, why we are here, and what happens to us when we die? Or do the L-brain skills continue to dominate a civilisation to brutally fight on and conquer regardless of the potential benefit of other people all for the sake of acquiring everything in the known world?

Or is there something else to maintain the civilisation?

Whatever maintains a civilisation, the people must have a belief. People have to believe in something and one which had to be in common with others in the civilisation in order for the civilisation to be maintained and supported for a long time.

Otherwise brute force must be used on ordinary citizens to work under the rulers to maintain a certain belief. We see this in ancient Egypt.

For the Egyptian civilisation that flourished nearly 2600 BC (or 4,600 years ago), great wealth, power and importance was thought to be the dominant theme for the leaders. Why? Certain rich individuals realised they could live longer by being rich and powerful. Hence a belief was born that perhaps they could live forever by somehow being the richest and most powerful leaders in the known world.

At first as certain people got richer through trade and had more time to think about things, the issue of death must have enter their minds many times. If people can get rich, why can't we forever enjoy the benefits of being rich? Why should people die?

After a while these rich people noticed one interesting observation: the more richer they were, the more it seemed they could live longer than the poorer members of the society.

This is how a civilisation is maintained by some rich people. By maintaining a civilisation, the quality and quantity of foods and other products being produced would improve to such an extent using the best available knowledge at the time that the leaders could see a direct correlation with long life and a reduction in the likelihood of experiencing death from disease, malnutrition and even slow down the onset of old age. Given enough time, a belief would be formed in the minds of these leaders based on this observation. It would be a belief that the more richer and powerful you became, the more likely you could live forever.

But there is still a problem here for the rich Egyptians. Despite all the wealth and access to quality materials, leaders still do die. How do we get around this issue?

At some point in the history of Egyptian pharaohs, a leader must have took it upon himself to believe that death is not much different than sleeping. Yet everyone knows at some point, people sleeping will have to wake up. Until that moment comes, how do we prevent the body from decaying too quickly so that the gods will have the power to bring them back to life or enter some kind of new afterlife?

The obsession into the secret to true immortality by the leaders has meant the belief was extended to not only include riches and wealth, but also a means of preserving their bodies when they do fall into the ultimate deep sleep. So they gave other people what they needed, and in return they asked the people to build the extravagant pyramids of Giza and other monuments and riches to help the dysfunctional leaders achieve their ultimate goal of travelling to the afterlife.

This is one belief we know about.

In other civilisations, sex may be seen as a way to achieve immortality (especially among women in the upper echelons of society) as it makes people believe they feel younger (4). In some cases, women in these civilisations may work their way to become matriarchies (or leaders where the inheritance is transferred down the female line from mother to daughters) within the civilisations. The men, however, are happy to perform work to produce the foods and have what they need and later provide the necessary sex to make the women think they will live forever young.

Or some people in other civilisations may simply see men and women as being equal with no need to create a hierarchy. They work together to achieve a common goal and perhaps become leaders in their own right in their particular area of expertise. And yet somehow manage to see each other as vital to each other's existence. An example of this is the group of Neolithic people living at the edge of a river on the plains of central Turkey nearly 9,000 years ago in a town now known as Catalhoyuk where men and women lived under the same roofs performing similar tasks on an equal level and were buried together under the floor at time of death.

In this ancient Turkish society, statuettes and paintings of a dominant woman with a wild seed lodged in its back and placing a hand on the heads of leopards together with statuettes of a dominant man or an animal with an erect penis or an association between a man with a wild animal such as a bull are quite common. Are these artifacts telling us women are important for agricultural activities and men in hunting animals or tending to livestock? Whatever the truth, it seems both men and women within this society saw each other as important from their elaborate artworks.

In other situations, temporary civilisations may suddenly appear around large stone temples and monuments marking important seasons in the yearly calendar of when to sow seeds for food, or keep a record of the animals in the local region at a time when the land was plentiful and green as a means of teaching the younger generation of humans to hunt for these foods when they arrived. A classic example of the latter type of stone monuments can be found in Gobekli Tepe in Turkey. Actually, these Turkish monuments are interesting in that these were carved out by humans more than 10,000 B.C., or around the end of the last Ice Age. The monuments are particularly well preserved raising questions among archaeologists as to how they were carved with such craftsmanship when no tools have been found. However, one thing that has helped with the preservation was the decision by the people at the time to bury the monuments in sand perhaps to avoid them being destroyed by other humans. And it may also suggest human civilisations may have an earlier origin. So the potential is there to say the oldest civilisations appeared around the end of the last Ice Age. More work is being carried out to determine how true this is.

In essence, no matter how we come together to create a civilisation, forming a group has to be seen as the beginnings of any civilisation. Groups form because there is a common belief (eg. the need to survive, feel secure, produce food, have sex or anything else to help make ourselves feel loved or taken care of) through the help of others in the group. Building roads, house and other infrastructure is a natural outcome when people provide services to one another in order to make life easier for others to achieve their goals for the good of the group.

It is clear groups can form for a variety of reasons. Fortunately the majority of the reasons can be roughly explained in terms of whether the people can come together from a R-brain approach such as creating and selling new and attractive products on popular trade routes, or whether groups can form from a more rational L-brain approach such as acquiring (or plundering) existing things and selling them at higher prices, or when there is regular warfare and people had to survive by being in a group to fend off other humans. It depends on the situation and place and how people have learned the easiest way to survive.

If a civilisation can survive long enough without destroying its food supply and can look after its environment and its people, a combination of L- and R-brain approaches will ensure all problems get solved and new ways of thinking are created by a broader range of people within the group and so maintain the civilisation forever.

But as we shall see, many civilisations have not survived the test of time by taking this balanced approach.

Will our modern civilisation end in the same way?

 
Around 2184 BC, the ancient "Old Kingdom" Egyptian civilisation plunged into chaos as a result of catastrophic climate change.

Initial analysis of satellite images for the Nile delta region made by Dr Sarah Parcak of the University of Alabama suggested something abruptly stopped pyramid building followed by a significant collapse in the number of "Old Kingdom" settlements soon after the death of the pharoah Pepi II Neferkare (reigned c.2278 BC - c.2184 BC). Why the collapse?

The key to explaining the collapse has to do with the Nile River, the weather conditions prevalent in Ethiopia and the temperature of the waters in the North Atlantic ocean.

Running along the shores of the Nile River stretching from Aswan to the Mediterranean coast including the delta region lies a thriving agricultural centre. All Egyptian people clung to the Nile River for their dependence on food (relying on freshly killed and clean fish and bread considered low in iron given the amount of exercise needed by the Egyptian people to build the pyramids and tombs) and water at this time. The rich and fertile soils created by silt deposited by the Nile River during annual floods helped to feed literally tens of thousands of people who worked for the pharoahs as tomb and pyramid builders, as well as the people supplying the food and various services needed by the builders. However the success of the Nile River to provide fertile soils depended crucially on annual floods to continue depositing rich and fertile silt to Egypt.

However something would affect the annual floods from depositing silt for a long time.

Thanks to the work of paleoclimatologist/oceanographer Dr Peter deMenocal from Columbia University and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, USA, scientists now believe the cause for this was a catastropihc change in climate. Dr deMenocal analysed drilled core samples taken from the Gulf of Oman downwind from Egypt and noticed a two to six times increase in the amount of dolomite (or sand/dust) deposited over the ocean to fall to the ocean floor as sediment at around 2200 BC give or take 100 years (dated by analysis of carbon-14). The only other time this had happened was during the last ice age until about 10,000 years ago. This told Dr deMenocal there had to be a rather severe and centuries long drought affecting all of Egypt and other neighbouring countries.

Similar drilled cores obtained from the "Old Kingdom" sites by Dr Fekri Hassan of the University College London would show a similar increase in the amount of sand present during the period of great drought corresponding to this time compared to the long periods of silt deposits during the more prosperous years.

The only explanation: the annual Nile floods for delivering the silt to the shores and delta region stretching from Aswan to the Mediterranean coast had significantly diminished for an extended period of time because of no rains higher up the river in the Ethiopian region. This was an extended and severe drought.

Scientists believe at least 80 per cent of the water in the Nile River had disappeared during the great drought. The severity of the drought would also coincide with the collapse of around half a dozen civilisations in Greece, Turkey and Iraq.

And in more recent analysis of drilled cores in the Great Lakes sediments of North America by Walter Dean of the US Geological Survey in Denver and a Peruvian mountain glacier by Lonnie G. Thompson of Ohio State University and his colleagues, there is indication the drought had a global impact at this time. But unlike the Egyptians, the native North and South Americans did have places to go to find or grow food.

Why was it so severe and widespread?

Dr deMenocal thinks he may have the answer. He believes the only way it can happen is for the natural conveyancing system of the North Atlantic for delivering warm water and with it a warmer and wetter climate to Europe had somehow stopped. The result was a mini-Ice Age in northern Europe and North America, and a severe drought in Egypt, northern Africa, Turkey and the Mediterranean coast.

The desertification of North Africa to form the Sahara desert is also thought to be the result of regular droughts made worse by humans extracting the last remaining vegetation for their survival. It is just that the drought of 2200 BC made the situation much worse.

A papyrus written centuries later after Egypt recovered (ie. the "Middle Kingdom") gave indications of how bad things got for the people of ancient Egypt. It stated people had to eat their own children in order to survive the drought.

Further details can be found in the 2008 documentary The Fall of Ancient Egypt (produced by IWC Media Productions for the Discovery Channel).

 
An incredible story handed down through the generations by the Hebrews, and later written down in a scripture and eventually combined with other scriptures by christians in what is now described as the Bible would have its origins at around this time thanks to some persistent archaeologists and efforts by Jewish Canadian filmmaker named Simcha Jacobovici in recent times searching for clues to support the story.

According to the Book of Exodus in the Bible and latest archaeological findings, it is claimed that sometime between 3,750 and 3,500 years ago (or 1,750 - 1,500 B.C), the Israelites known as the Hebrews led by a man named Jacob moved into a small fertile area in the Nile delta (possibly at Avaris, the capital for a group of mysterious foreigners called Hyksos arriving to the region, as discovered by Professor Manfred Bietak of the Austrian Archaeological Institute). It is not clear whether the land was leased to them by the Egyptians. Nevertheless, the land was fertile enough to grow an abundance of food for the people and develop trade with Egypt and Greece. When Jacob passed away, his son Joseph took over the reigns of leadership where he soon became a powerful leader.

Closer to around 3,500 years ago, Egyptian pharoahs of the "Middle Kingdom" became afraid of revolutions as it could undermine their power and authority in the land. Eventually the pharoahs instigated a policy of drowning every Israelite male infant in the area to prevent a possible uprising against the Egyptian rulers at some point in the future. When news reached the Israelites, there was little time except for Jacob's great, great grandson, a baby at the time, to be placed in a basket on the shores of the Nile river and left to nature to take its course.

Luckily the baby was found by the daughter of a rich and powerful Egyptian Pharoah. Not knowing who it was owned by, she looked at the innocent and handsome baby. Did she think it was a gift from the gods? Or did she know the baby was an Israelite? Whatever the truth, the Egyptian woman decided she would take care of it. Remarkably there were no signs of disagreement from the Egyptian Pharoah.

Not long after, the Egyptians rounded up the remaining Israelites and forced them to work as slaves.

Over the next 20 years, the baby was brought up as an Egyptian with the knowledge of how to read and write and all the etiquettes of upper class life while living a life of relative luxury.

Then one day, as the young man emerged into the real world and thought about his environment, he noticed how a group of foreigners consisting mostly of Hebrews were brought in as slaves and worked tirelessly for the Pharoah. More importantly, he saw how badly these slaves were treated by their Egyptian captor.

It is hard to tell at this point whether he realised this group of slaves was part of his own heritage and blood. Yet one thing was certain: he would witness the mistreatment and knew it was wrong. For a young man seeing these terrible acts of cruelty by one human to another, hatred must have welled up inside of him. Eventually he plucked up the courage and conviction to do something about it. Even if it meant destroying whatever promising future he may have had in his adopted Egyptian family, he believed he would not be one of those rich people who would ignore and pretend everything is okay and things should be the way it is in return for living a comfortable life while these oppressed Israelites were being mistreated.

One day, the young man confronted the Egyptian captor after seeing more evidence of brutality with the slaves under his rule. Somehow a fight took place, the Egyptian was killed, and the young man knew he could no longer remain in Egypt as such a crime was punishable by death. So he fled Egypt together with the people he saved to a place in the desert where the Egyptians couldn't find him.

Forty years would pass and the likelihood of any Egyptian remembering, let alone recognising, the old man was virtually gone. Yet something happened to the old man — now living a simpler and more frugal life — to make him come back to Egypt. Something drove him to complete one more task before he would be allowed to live his remaining part of his life in peace and happiness. This final task was to free the remaining Hebrews still working under the Pharoah's rule.

It is hard to tell whether this old man had outside help. The old man would later claim it was God who helped him.

Who is God?

Are we dealing with the world's first recorded encounter with an extraterrestrial civilisation visiting the Earth with a grandiose vision of influencing humanity towards a road of greater balance and equality (the positive approach to social development) by helping the old man to achieve this goal?

Certainly it would be far less frightening in our society for a human to be doing the task rather than an alien coming down from the sky and scaring the shit out of the Egyptian people simply by looking at a creature clearly different in appearance from any human. At any rate, the alien would probably be more in danger of its own life if the humans decided to solve their fear by killing it.

Nobody knows for sure exactly what happened. But it would appear the old man was shaken by an experience with what he called God and he knew he had to fulfil a promise.

On returning to Egypt, he approached the Pharoah (most likely to be Ahmose I of the XVIII Dynasty, son of Seqenenre Tao II). As he stood before the Egyptian leader, the old man demanded that the Pharoah release his people. The Pharoah looked at the old man who spoke well and probably wore shaggy looking clothes from another country and had a long walking stick and a white beard to show his wisdom. He probably looked more reminiscent of a wizard from the Harry Potter books if he wore a pointy black cone-shaped hat to complete the picture. But back then, this was an ordinary man.

The pharoah probably laughed at him as he listened. He couldn't see what the fuss was about. Clearly this old man wasn't a threat to the Pharoah as he could see the man was old and somewhat frail and didn't carry a weapon (except for a walking stick).

"It has always been like this, so why change now?" the Pharoah probably thought. And anyway, the Pharoah was enjoying a life of luxury and great comfort so why risk losing all this extravagance and richness in his life by letting the slaves go?

Furthermore, the Pharoah felt a little challenged by the old man when he spoke of a Lord God of Israel. The Pharoah must have thought, "Now who or what could have a higher authority than him and his gods?"

Maybe he wanted to entertain himself with the old man's ideas?

At any rate, the Pharoah listened carefully. However he wasn't entirely convinced of the old man's explanation. He stubbornly stuck by his beliefs and denied the old man's request. Even when shown some interesting tricks from the old man including his stick turning into a slithering creature reminiscent of a snake, the Pharoah wouldn't budge from his position.

Yet the old man was in an unusually confident position for some reason for it seemed he knew what the answer would be from the Pharoah and the impending disaster that was about to befall Egypt. Whatever it was he knew, he would then declare to the Pharoah that if his people would not be released, the Pharoah and his own people would experience a great plague, the Nile river in the delta region where the Pharoah lived would suddenly turn red, the Egyptian people relying on fish and water from the Nile would suffer health problems, a great darkness would fall at a time when the Sun should be shining, and lightning and hail would come and other frightening events, unless the Pharoah released the slaves.

The Pharoah's highly rational mind and set ways of doing things after so many generations didn't persuade him to do anything different thinking this story was from a rambling old man who probably was losing his marbles.

However, the events described by the old man actually did happen. Later, archaeologists in the late 20th and early 21st century would find scientific evidence of what could be the biggest explosion of the last 10,000 years occurring on a Greek island of Santorini less than 200 kilometres from Egypt. It is believed around 1,500 BC, a sudden movement of the African continental plate below the European plate caused a volcano to erupt (the equivalent to a pimple on the face of mother Earth which God has trying to pop open). It blew such a huge hole through the island that plumes of smoke, dust and ash were sent 40 kilometres high into the stratosphere. Coincidentally, the wind had just happened to be blowing the dust in a south-easterly direction straight for Egypt.

An earthquake of magnitude 4 to 5 on the Riechter scale was felt 200 kilometres away. It was enough to topple numerous Egyptian statues. Soon afterwards, darkness fell on the Nile delta, just as the old man predicted. It would be accompanied by intense lightning and volcanic hail (ash and water crystals).

An increase in the number of bugs and bacteria affected the health of the fish as well as the people who drank from the water and ate the fish. A red colour also appeared in the water due to a sudden release of carbon dioxide gas inside the Earth reacting with iron dissolved at the bottom of the water and the oxygen thereby producing a distinctly reddish iron oxide. Soon the fish died from a lack of oxygen in the water.

It this wasn't enough, an unusual number of insects and frogs were mobilised and, as they were trying to move away from the prolonged darkness, cold and lack of fresh water, came across the Nile delta to be witnessed by the Egyptian Pharoah.

Makes one wonder what kind of scientific instrument the old man had to help him predict this catastrophic event. Maybe he stuck his finger in the ground and pulled it out and saw the future for Egypt? Or maybe he smelt sulfur dioxide in the air on a mountain top? That's an enormous amount of rotten egg gas and yet no one else noticed it! Neither is it clear how the smell would have told him a volcano was about to erupt. An amazing instrument his finger or nose must have been. Certainly makes one proclaim the finger or nose is mightier than the sword or any sophisticated scientific instrument available to scientists in the 21st century.

Still the old man had one more trick up his sleeve. He returned to ask whether the Pharoah agreed with his request. Still he refused. So the old man said that his first born child would be affected by the recent catastrophic event.

Knowing that the Pharoah's first born is the most valuable to him as the child would help to take the reigns of power when he died, the old man somehow knew this was going to make the Pharoah change his mind. Naturally, without being aware of the old man's knowledge he acquired from an unknown source, the Egyptian ruler refused thinking his own gods were more powerful and would protect his first born.

However, that very night, all Egyptian first-born males sleeping on low-lying beds on the ground floor were axphyxiated by a sudden outburst of a large amount of carbon dioxide that emerged from the water. Again the old man knew how to protect his people by asking them to sleep in the upper floor. He listened to God very well indeed.

When the Pharoah's baby was fatally affected by the events, the Pharoah's intense grief saw him cave in to the old man's request.

The slaves were eventually released. But not without the Pharoah calming down and trying a trick of his own for the old man — as a form of revenge he would allegedly send 600 Egyptians on chariots to intercept the old man and his people and have them wiped out in a bloodbath. How's that for a magic trick according to the feeble-minded Pharoah. But fortunately the old man had yet another trick up his sleeve (he would have made any magician proud). And more importantly timing and a little outside help was on his side. This time his people had reached the marshy sea which, surprisingly, was about to dry up that very moment.

According to the Bible, the Hebrews allegedly witnessed the water parting on either side of the old man at the right time (maybe he received a visual and auditory sign from God?). They called the place Yam Suf (or Reed Sea and later renamed to Lake El Balah, which when translated from Hebrew means quite literally, "The lake where God devoured"). It would later be described by the people nearly 3,500 years ago in imaginative language as a wall of water being scooped up by God on either side of the old man and so allowing him and his people up to 3 hours to walk across an apparent land bridge previously hidden by the water.

What the Hebrews and the Egyptian soldiers pursuing them didn't realise is that a wall of water no less than 2 metres high was about to return and sweep across the valley. At first the water receded for a few hours because of the movement of the African continental plate allowing the Hebrews to walk across the valley. But once the old man and his people reached the other side and the African plate slipped back, the Egyptian soldiers decided to chase them across the land bridge. Not thinking and realising as to why the water had suddenly disappeared and whether it would return, the Egyptians continued on their merry way across the valley with only one thing on their minds: to destroy the Israelites under orders by their Pharoah. But the decision to cross the valley was the Egyptian soldiers downfall. When the waters did return, it would coincide remarkably well with the death of these Egyptian military men. The death and destruction would be witnessed by the people who stood safely on the other side of the valley.

But how could the old man have possibly known when to arrive and travel across the valley? It sounds too precise. Well, in fact, we find from the Bible how the timing to reach the Reed Sea was indeed not exactly precise. This makes the story seem a little more plausible. The Bible claims a mysterious cloud seemed to have guided the old man and his people during the day and later it shoned a light to help him and his people see where they were going at night. According to Exodus 13:21, it is claimed:

'By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.'

Apparently it was also witnessed by the Egyptians pursuing the old man and his people. When the Egyptians were close to reaching the marshy sea to do their dirty deed on the fleeing people, there was, incredibly enough, some hesitation on their part to continue on. Why? This cloud somehow moved back across the sky to a position where it made the Egyptians stop and wait. The hesitation by the Egyptian army not to pursue until the cloud moved away was enough for the old man to do his apparent trick of "dividing the waters" so to speak and walk across the marshy sea. According to the King James version of the Bible, it stated:

'And the angel of God [in the sky], which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them: {14:20} And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness [to them,] but it gave light by night [to these:] so that the one came not near the other all the night. {14:21}

And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, [even] all Pharaohs horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. {14:24} And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, {14:25} And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the LORD fighteth for them against the Egyptians.'

This is a interesting discovery. For a great story not to be exactly perfect by showing signs that something had to intervene in the events on the ground suggests a third party was almost certainly involved (ie. God?) making it look more plausible and likely to be based on real-life events. It is not entirely clear whether there is an extraterrestrial connection going on here (could our understanding of God be actually explained in terms of an advanced alien civilisation(s) guiding humanity along the right path of social development?). We can only guess and rely on the available archaeological evidence as it emerges.

Perhaps it is meant to be a classic example of the ramblings of an old man and his people?

Yet somehow the story would never be forgotten and was maintained over many generations to be included in the Bible. Today Christians, Jews and Hebrews believe this is among the best evidence available for the existence of God in the Universe.

Fortunately the 21st century has arrived and the latest scientific research into UFOs has shown evidence of a technology capable of supporting the observations seen in the mysterious glowing cloud. For example, it is possible for air pressure to be reduced near the surface of genuine electrically charged flying objects we call UFOs. Air pressure is reduced because the air is electrified and pushed away by the electric fields and electrons coming off the oscillating electrically charged metal surface of the UFOs. When air pressure is reduced in slightly humid air, clouds are formed. Observations of some modern UFOs have shown they do come masquerading as a cloud under certain circumstances. Hence descriptive words used to describe God in the Bible such as:

"God stretches out heaven over empty space, and hangs the earth upon nothing. He wraps the rain in his thick clouds and the clouds are not split by the weight. He shrouds his throne with his clouds." Job 26

Also, the glowing nature of UFOs can be attributed to the charged metal surface glowing like an electric light bulb. So when a heated glowing metal is surrounded by a cloud-like structure, it can give the appearance of a glowing cloud at night by observers on the ground.

The technology is common knowledge and has been patented by Dr Thomas T. Brown in the 1960s. It is based on the mathematical solution derived from the Abraham-Lorentz formula for emitting large-scale radiation from the surface of a charged object causing the object to recoil in the opposite direction. It is a poorly understood solution found in only a few advanced textbooks of electromagnetism. The power behind this solution lies within the exponential term, and so long as the radiation is emitted in one direction, the exponential term has the ability to cause tremendous and spontaneous acceleration of any charged object.

And it's the kind of electromagnetic technology and associated side effects that would probably never change over thousands of years and across different civilisations. It's all a question of how refined the technology is by an advanced civilisation in implementing the electromagnetic concept in order for these objects and their occupants to approach more closely the speed of light to reach the Earth.

So what we see today in the UFO reports could easily have existed 3,500 years ago.

Of course, the electromagnetic technology described above has not yet been put on a large-scale to carry humans. Why? Partly because it is felt the forces of electromagnetism are not strong enough (ie. no one has re-investigated the patent and done the experiment to prove the Abraham-Lorentz formula does work in reality), and there are some people in the US military and government who aren't too keen to see this technology become reality knowing the implications it would bring to humanity. Until the technology is tested and confirms the formula there will always be enough L-brain scientists who will deny it. So for now we may have to use a more natural explanation as scientists with virtually no knowledge of UFO technology would prefer. For example, the glowing cloud might be explained by the presence of glowing ionised gases in the atmosphere which lingered just at this precise moment for many hours (or days). Of course, we are talking about a cloud of ionised gases that can move forward and go backwards on its own as seen by the old man, his people and the Egyptian soldiers to affect human events on the ground. Quite a remarkable feat for any natural event in anyone's language.

The truth is, no one knows for sure. The quotes in the Bible are not quite detailed enough for scientific purposes to reveal precisely what it is the people saw in the sky. We just have to remain astonished by the story and keeping finding more evidence.

But ever since this remarkable event occurred, the old man would go down in the history books written by Jewish and Christian scholars as the legend of Moses (the name given to him by his Egyptian princess), in memory of the man who saved his people from oppression under the rule of an Egyptian dictator and who seemed to have the uncanny knowledge of knowing when a certain catastrophic event was about to beset Egypt and where to go to save his people from destruction.

The story doesn't quite end there. Three months later, the old man Moses would come down from what people would later describe as a holy mountain in the desert claiming he received a set of rules on two stone tablets from, you guessed it, none other than God of how people should live. Known as the Ten Commandments, Moses would reveal a series of practical rules on how to live socially with other people. In summary, the rules are based on the principle of love.

The knowledge is essentially a form of evolution of the mind so as to accelerate the learning of humans on how to interact with other human beings (although could be broadened to encompass all living things if so desired) in order to avoid hardship and conflict. The following commandments are important for a L-brain society that needs to see things and practice it in reality everyday:

1. I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods before me
2. You shall not make for yourself an idol
3. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God
4. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
5. Honor your Father and Mother
6. You shall not murder
7. You shall not commit adultery
8. You shall not steal
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor
10. You shall not covet your neighbor's house, and you shall not covet your neighbor's wife.

NOTE: Evolution is not just a physical thing involving the brain and body. It is also evolution of the mind in terms of the type of knowledge we acquire through education.

People would call this holy mountain where God allegedly revealed the laws to Moses as Mount Sinai. (5)

Thanks to some interesting investigations by Canadian filmmaker Jacobovici, the mountain may have been tracked down. Assuming a daily walking distance of 15 kilometres and using the Bible to give an indication of how many days it took to reach the mountain from three locations (one of which is Lake El Balah or 15 days to walk to the mountain and the other two known to the archaeologists as Timna where Moses tended to his flock and was allegedly no more than 45 kilometres from the mountain, and a 11-day walking trek south of a place called Kadesh Barnea) together with some interesting geological features considered extremely rare for this mountain (such as a former fresh water spring on top of the mountain) and a natural geological ampitheatre, it seems the filmmaker may have finally found the landmark. He claims the mountain is likely to be at Hashem El Tarif.

Now if only we could find the Ark of the Covenent containing the Ten Commandments to help complete the picture and provide the final proof of the story of Exodus. Then scientists can relax and say the story is definitely real. Interesting to see how we can no longer find the tablets as this might provide evidence of who or what created them — was it done by the hands of Moses or something more technological in nature and beyond the skill of any human at the time?

How convenient.

A compilation of all the latest evidence (not including the possibility of extraterrestrial intervention in human affairs) can be found in the 2006 film by two times Emmy award winner in investigative journalism named Simcha Jacobovici titled The Exodus Decoded. The film also contains new interpretations for some archaelogical artefacts which is likely to keep scholars busy debating for many years to come as to whether or not they have finally got the evidence for the Exodus, the most famous story lying at the heart of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

As for the latest in UFO research, please refer to the work being conducted by SUNRISE.

NOTE 1: Could aliens have again guided humanity nearly 1,500 years later through another individual who would crucify himself on the cross to show life was eternal? Is there any evidence this individual could have been given the medical help to survive the incredibly harsh crucification and be seen as resurrected in the eyes of his disciples, and so spur a new faith known as Christianity?

NOTE 2: Should scholars find universal agreement on the site for Mount Sinai as being at Hashem El Tarif, can there finally be agreement between Israeli and Palestinian people on how to live in peace? For example, why not give the Palestinian people a new state in this area? It will be far enough away to stop Hamas fighters sending rockets into Israel and so stop Israel bombing the Palestinian people. And at the same time it will give the Palestinian people responsibility to look after a Holy place. In return, Israel can share Jerusalem with the Palestinians and the Palestinians can give Israelis access to Hashem El Tarif. And if they still can't live in peace, perhaps God will make sure the sea levels rise high enough by the end of the 21st century to ensure there is no Israel and Palestine to live in. A very simple solution to what people claim is a complex problem.

 
The Iron Age is well and truly upon us when the Greeks developed their own formidable army and iron weaponry. This was the time when Greek legends were born such as Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior, who fought in the 10-year war against the Trojans at the city of Troy near the Dardenelles in Asia Minor in the 13th century BC.

The Greeks relied not just on a strong sense of social skills to stick together and fight the enemy but also in unusually intense and brutal male competitions at home (which later gave rise to the idea in the modern world of starting up the less violent Olympic Games). The competitions helped to physically bring out certain individual traits and skills (eg. throwing spears at seemingly impossible distances, showing signs of remarkable endurance and strength, and much more) that eventually saw certain Greek men reach almost God-like status among their own fellow country men and women and spawned amazing tales.

Some of these legendary skills may have been seen by those outside of Greece as "a gift from the gods".

 
World human population reaches 100 million.

 
Despite some people gaining important knowledge in the past of the principle of love and living a more balanced and simple life, the strong L-brain societies (probably arising after intense and regular warfare in certain parts of the world as resources dwindled or became a valuable commodity) would appear from time to time. These L-brain societies tended to be large, highly organised, specialised, communicative and usually brutal and conquering in nature in order to get what they need and want. One can therefore surmise that such a set of "rational" skills in creating a L-brain society is a trait well-suited to men as if the leaders of the societies were almost exclusively male-dominated. Of particular note in this regard were the Greeks in 231 B.C., and the Romans from Italy.

For example, the Greeks were coming to the end of their world domination. But before this would happen, the Greeks continued using the power of the spear, regular sporting events at home to maximise muscle strength, and shear numbers of fighting men and horses as the deciding factors in the outcome of most, if not all, battles with other nations for a long time. As a result of this knowledge, one man became particularly obssessed by the riches of the world and wanted the power to doiminate the known world, His name was Alexander the Great and he would use the technology of the spear as well as manpower and cunning war strategies to defeat Egyptian, Syrian and Persian military forces around 231 B.C.

Even the Romans found the Greek army to be a formidable military opponent.

In one extraordinary legend, 500 Greek soldiers allegedly managed to stop a Roman military ship from reaching the Greek shores. How? By turning their shields around and using the highly reflective and smooth concave surface to concentrate solar radiation on the ship to the point where it presumably caused the sails to catch fire above 400 degrees celsius. The idea for this originated from the Greek philosopher Archimedes.

Another nation to see the usefulness of spears as well as organise a vast and heavily-armoured army were the Romans in Italy. Here, the great "testosterone-smelling" military machine of the Roman civilisation saw men push their horses, soldiers and new and highly organised fighting techniques and weapons to the limits as they expanded and conquered much of the known Western world. Only those nations that held a powerful military force or provide something of value to the Romans succeeded in surviving and maintaining their own unique cultures.

The latter approach is one thing Cleopatra of Egypt understood all too well. During her reign as the Egyptian pharoah, she used her feminine beauty, the power of sex, and her position as ruler of Egypt, to influence the great Roman leader, Julius Ceasar, and the General of the Roman military machine called Anthony (also known as the Lord of the East) to spare Egypt from almost certain occupation and destruction by the Romans. Together with other Egyptian wealth, Cleopatra's ability to provide carnal pleasure to the two crucial virile masculine leaders of this strongly L-brain society from Italy made it possible for Egypt to survive for quite a long time.

It was only after the strongly L-brain Roman Octavian (who later changed his name to Augusta Ceasar) saw through Cleopatra's power did her great dream to become the new rulers of the world die with her and her lover Anthony.

After the death of Cleopatra and Anthony, Octavian became the emperor of Rome and the great city of Rome continued to flourish for another 400 years before eventually ending in the early centuries after the death of an unusually "balanced-thinking" man with an outstanding knowledge of the power of love just over 2000 years ago and how this man sparked the beginnings of Christianity throughout the Western world.

 
A more "balanced" individual appeared in the Middle East to bring ideas and ways of living based on the principle of love (considered the fundamental law of the universe for all living things wanting peace and harmony) to, yet again, an oppressed people in Israel (because of brutal Roman occupation of this country). This new religious leader from Bethleham was almost certainly born on 17 April in 6 BC based on latest astronomical analysis of the sky where scientists have noticed an unusual event consisting of a sudden appearance of a bright light in the northern morning sky under the constellation Aries by Jupiter as it past out of the lunar eclipse; no such unusual event existed in or around the 1 AD mark, as revealed in the BBC documentary Son of Man).

Why was he balanced? Did he get outside help? Or did he learn for himself the right way to do things? We may never know. But it seems he understood why people fought and accumulated wealth and power, and built pyramids in Egypt to solve the problem of what happens when humans die and realised there had to be a better way for people to live in peace and take on a long-term view of life and the universe.

Essentially he understood that if people learned to survive with what they need and not what they wanted and don't interfere and control others to achieve certain selfish needs and just simply treat people well, he realised there would be no need for war, no fighting and people would be genuinely happy. People would live peacefully for eternity so long as they understood death was not meant to be the end, but just the beginning to a new adventure while letting God provide everything the people need (ie. recycling and growing foods) in abundance in what is effectively a heaven if we so choose.

In other words, this man — known simply as Jesus Christ — understood the principle of love in its fundamental sense.

But he wasn't the only individual to emerge with more balanced thinking and an understanding of the power of love.

On the other side of the world, another balanced individual also became disenchanted by the wealth accumulated in L-brain society and the suffering and warfare that would take place among ordinary people. Then one day, he decided to let go of his own material wealth (apparently enough for him to survive for the rest of his life within the L-brain society), walked through the forests of India and meditated. After about a couple of years, he reemerged from the forests. What he saw about life and the universe and the simple technique he developed to understand our purpose in life and reach a more balanced mental and spiritual state in a process known as enlightenment would see hundreds of people support him.

His name was Siddhartha Gautama (ca. 563-483 B.C.) and his ability to reach a more balanced state without the use of drugs (ie. through the power of meditation) as the key to breaking free from the shackles of human conditioning or pre-programmed patterns in the mind learned from other people in society (including human language itself) and so lead ultimately to the experience of true freedom from all suffering would quickly see him get tagged the name of the "Awakened One" or simply "the Buddha" by some of his slightly more L-brain followers.

The religion this ordinary man would create and eventually affect over 50 per cent of the Indian population 2000 years later (around 1500 AD) is called Buddhism.

Unfortunately not everyone agreed with the enlightened one. Some of the L-brain reliant people with power, lust and greed and their trust in the eyes to see what they think is the solution did try to destroy the early group of Buddhists. Fortunately a number of leaders and followers would escape from the warfare and live in various parts of India and later the rest of the Asian continent.

Such fascinating stories of men (and probably women) living a rich and comfortable lifestyle and then suddenly changing to a more frugal and simpler life after seeing the injustices and/or inequalities of modern society are not unusual.

Before the Western world was ever influenced by the ideas of one such man born to a humble carpenter and his young wife in a place where Palestine and Israel now exists (so what in the heck are the people in these countries fighting for today?), a man named Moses nearly 1,600 B.C. claimed to have given away all his wealth and power in Egyptian society after understanding the principle of love in an equitable and more fundamental sense. As a young man, Moses saw how slaves were mistreated under Egyptian rule. But in trying to stop the brutality, he inadvertently killed an Egyptian captor. And death of an Egyptian is punishable by death irrespective of who might be right under the circumstances.

Moses left Egypt together with the people he freed from slavery. Forty years passed as he learned how to be truly content and happy by living frugally knowing that a simpler lifestyle focussing on fundamental needs and not wants showed there was no need to fight and gain power and wealth just to survive and be happy. Everything was provided for so long as you helped in some way for the rest of the group.

Eventually, after performing an important duty for God of freeing the rest of his people from Egypt, Moses was able to encapsulate his knowledge of the principle of love for ordinary folks to understand and practice in their own everyday lives by delivering a set of simple rules on stone tablets for people to see, learn and be reminded of how to live in harmony with others known as the 10 commandments, or else face the fear of punishment by God (the essential psychology revealed in the Old Testament).

The ideas from Moses came well before Jesus would preach and practice the very same principle as he understood it from his more humble beginnings. His knowledge was presented in simple laymen's terms through a more compassionate approach using effective story-telling techniques. His approach is more a reward-based psychology as revealed in the New Testament where ideas such as living for eternity and how death is not seen as the end formed an integral part of his thinking. He also believed in the existence of a kingdom of heaven where we can all strive for and experience if we do the right thing under the principle of love.

Will we, yet again, need another person to teach humanity the principle of love as a way of approaching balance in the 21st century? Unfortunately it has been repeated many times over through different individuals, each having limited amounts of success in teaching others. But never a complete transformation of individuals across the world.

For example, in the mid-1800s, we had another male individual named Mikao Usui in Japan who decided to not only practice martial arts but later entered a Zen monastery to study the ancient texts of Buddhism known as the Sutras where he noticed the healing practices of an ancient religion called Reiki or Usui Shikiu Reiki Ryoho. At some point in his life, Usui made the climb to the sacred Mount Kurama to fast and meditate for 21 days.

As a way of counting the number of days, Usui collected 21 stones. Then, something unusual happened after he threw the last stone. It is claimed a "brilliant light" approached Usui as he was meditating. He felt an energy came over him and had intense feelings of well being. He then saw certain symbols and methods of Reiki which gave him confidence he was on the right track with Reiki before he lost consciousness. He eventually awakened and realised he had received the power to heal.

Today the religion of Reiki continues as a handful of Reiki leaders attempt to re-kindle the positive side of the ever-flowing light energy of the universe as a healing method (most probably electromagnetic radiation concentrated by our bodies and emitted usually through the hands to hopefully produce a sense of warmth and so help enhance the healing process within living tissue). It also teaches the importance of the principle of love as a powerful method of enhancing the healing process (perhaps by getting the body to emit the right hormones and other biochemicals for raising the immune system response to fighting infections).

Or merely exercising and massaging the tissues regularly can also help to generate the same level of warmth and extra blood flow to help with the healing process?

At any rate, given how few people today are listening to the wise men of the past and their knowledge of compassion and love and the positive healing powers of electromagnetic radiation, perhaps humanity needs a woman to do the job properly?

Unfortunately most men in the Middle East don't allow women to become leaders, so it seems there is a fat chance of that happening. And knowing that some men may claim to have listened to the words of wise men, are still continuing to misinterpret the knowledge to serve their own selfish power-struggle aims.

We only have to look at Islam today to see how leaders misinterpret the scriptures with the sole aim of getting poorer people to do the dirty work of harming foreigners (or so-called "non-muslims")

It is starting to look like only another and perhaps more direct intervention by an extraterrestrial civilisation with all of humanity will solve this problem if our brains don't get big enough to realise what we are doing.

Or why not throw down an asteroid on Earth and then maybe people will quickly get their priorities right?

 
The time of the Aztecs reigned supreme in central Mexico.

It began around 1150 AD when as many as 175,000 people came into the Valley of Mexico — a fertile valley containing a plentiful supply of water and rich fertile lands. Any wars that may have existed between feuding tribal groups prior to this time — probably over food and territory — had vanished as if by agreement, or the realisation that in a land filled with abundance there was no need to fight each other.

But as more people came to the area (either born into the increasingly larger families or migrated from surrounding districts in search of a better life), some of the original people owning the land decided to lease it to free up their time, enjoy more luxuries from society, increase their wealth, and develop greater power when making decisions for a greater number of people (does this remind you of any modern civilisation?). As the population swelled to around 1 million in the late Aztec period of 1350 to 1519 AD, people were placing considerable stress on the environment. By early 1500 AD, all available fertile land and surface water in the valley were virtually exhausted. Why? Because the land was being frivolously and carelessly cleared of the trees, rain washed the valuable nutrients away from the soil making it harder to grow food, and the swamp was drained of its waters to create raised fields and places for some of the inhabitants to live which in turn increased evaporation of the water to the hot Sun.

In an increasingly resource-limited and population-expanding society, a hierarchical system of powerful Aztec rulers, religious leaders and elite overlords began monopolising power in the city and owning the last pieces of fertile land where the people lived while leasing this resource back to the people to grow food (usually for the leaders). As the leaders got richer through the early abundance of food and other goods, a separate class of people called the commoners created their own markets free of state control. People could produce their own goods consisting of growing water-thirsty cotton crops and making cotton textiles, as well as pottery, statuettes and offering other kinds of services.

Yet no matter how much richer the rulers got, or how many people worked the land, the environment wasn't getting any better. The rains became increasingly infrequent and the crops were not as plentiful as they once were.

And perhaps as a result, the rich and powerful with their lack of environmental knowledge may have even passed laws into Aztec society to make the commoners work harder and for longer or pay the upper class more money as if the leaders thought too many commoners were bludgers and were not providing adequate contribution to society to help explain the low resource situation. The truth, however, was that some of the rich and powerful were probably locked away in their own world of luxury that made them oblivious to the environmental destruction, or thought things will return to normal some day. While others, namely the religious leaders of later generations immuned to life on the land, had no practical knowledge to give to the commoners and were increasingly resorting to religion for a solution.

But why did a civilisation had to rely on religion as the way out of their predicament? Weren't the commoners given practical (more scientific) knowledge of how to look after the environment and recycle everything they produced? Part of the reason was that giving too much knowledge to the commoners is a dangerous thing. It could undermine the power of those who were rich and supposedly leading society along the right path. The other reason could be to do with the way some rich and powerful Aztec rulers and overloads became obsessed with death.

Some of the questions that may have filled the minds of the rich and powerful at the time could have included, What's the purpose of life? Is there a greater meaning to our existence? Is it really to fill one's belly with food that the whole meaning of our existence and the purpose of life and the Universe can be understood? If it is was, why do people still die? Why is death so much a part of this Universe and life cannot escape from it? This fatally flawed obsession consumed the life of the Aztecs, especially among the rich and powerful and eventually the religious leaders that were supported to help find a solution to this great problem.

Well, some leaders may have realised it is possible to delay the inevitable if they accessed enough of the right resources. And certainly access to the initially abundant and high quality foods produced on the land taught some Aztecs how life can be extended by consuming this resource. Perhaps they may have also realised that building in stone instead of wooden huts and staying indoors longer can benefit from a cooler and reduced radiation environment thereby extending the lifespan of the powerful Aztecs. However, despite these measures, nothing can live forever.

Then people saw how the trade in certain other products seem to promote greater or prolonged youthfulness as if it may be possible defy the aging process and perhaps even delay death. Therefore it would seem quite feasible to consider the likelihood of some traders becoming rich and powerful in the Aztec system. Unfortunately using these products would still not be enough to stop people from dying.

Eventually human knowledge of the practical things like how to grow food would be supplemented or perhaps, after a period of time, replaced by religious knowledge. Once the Aztecs made religion the dominant feature of their lives, the scene was set for the destruction of a great civilisation.

Towards the end of the Aztec empire between 1500 and 1519 AD, there was considerably less rain and the land was not producing enough food for the amount of people in the area. The commoners became poorer by the year as they tried desperately to resort to non-food products such as cotton and increasing the production of textiles to sell to whoever could afford to buy it and so help them pay the elite overlords for the land and import food from towns and villages far away. Soon religious activities increased as a way for the people and the leaders to solve the food shortages. Soon a reason was created for the hardship: the gods were unhappy. To make the gods happy again, somehow they must be nourished and maintained in order for the people to be nourished and maintained with an abundance of food as well.

It seems the religious leaders found a way to appease the gods by observing how the dead buried in a plot of land after a period of time and receiving some water can suddenly grow a abundance of vegetation than in an area not containing the dead as if somehow the bodies were helping to restore the land and bring back fertility. So a religious idea was born: why not sacrifice some blood to the Earth as this may somehow nourish the gods? As crude as the idea may seem to us today, it does provide a primitive way of understanding why death exists in the Universe.

We know without death, life in the Universe would not exist. No one could survive in an infinite population of the living. Death is an inherent part of this Universe in order for life in the Universe to exist and with reasonable comfort (depending on the population levels). But only if the natural recycling systems of the Universe including our environment are allowed to work in order to restore balance. Thus one could create a story to help explain this inherent nature of the Universe by saying death is a way to make God happy and restore balance to the Universe for life to continue.

Unfortunately some religious leaders in Aztec society took the idea too far.

As first some blood letting performed in rituals under these leaders may have coincided with some periods of rain to help reinforce the idea. But when the rains stopped again and would not return for a longer period of time, the leaders thought it was necessary for more and more blood to be spilled to make the gods (ie. the environment) happy. Soon many people had to die in these sacrifices to help bring this sense of balance to the Universe and thus hopefully appease God, or the gods (whoever or whatever is responsible for controlling the production of food and water in the valley).

To further add to woes of the Aztecs, the constant war between the Aztecs and Tarascan people eventually saw enough weapons cross the border from Tarascan and into the hands of the commoners through the Aztec market system. The time was ripe for a major revolt.

Indeed, the tipping point came when certain religious leaders were asking too much from the commoners. And too many people from outside the Aztec community were being sacrificed (including babies because of how some religious leaders were developing a psychopathic view of blood and tears of the babies representing the rain in the eyes of the gods) in order to appease the gods. Soon the elites could no longer be paid properly and too many people were beginning to starve for food as society began to descend into self-destruction.

The rich and powerful sensed something terrible was about to happen. Yet the stupidity continued. Rather than meeting with the people and searching for alternative solutions in a more rational and practical way, the leaders hid themselves in their fortified and luxurious homes. They may have even tried to bring in loyal soldiers into specially-designed stone barracks built next to the leaders homes thinking the army would protect them. But they would not save the leaders.

Eventually the massive population of commoners saw through all the religious ceremonies and made the final decision on their own future and those of the rich and powerful that led society along the path to hell. The decision was to end the civilisation for good no matter what the military or Aztec leaders would do to stop it. No longer would they continue working for the leaders and supporting the outrageous religious rituals at the time if they could no longer eat and be free. The final act was really a bloody end, followed by looting and a great fire consuming all the resources and representations of deities and gods held by the rich and powerful. What could have been a prosperous and peaceful society if it took a balanced and more frugal approach to living and had understood the power of recycling everything including the biggest natural recycler of all — our environment — instead the civilisation took the road to self-destruction.

NOTE: Today, modern society has become obsessed with profit or economics and Western religion (perhaps to again defy death and rely on a God to save us). Will our neglect of the environment put an end to our economic and religious system once more?

 
Around the year 426 A.D., a young teenager living in a rich English family was taken away by pirates to be sold as a slave among a group of poorer Pagan people of Ireland. Many years of hardship through hunger, cold, rain and loneliness in a foreign country taught him to rely more strongly on his Christian faith for a sense of stability in a new world that seemed to lack love.

One day, as he tended to the sheep of his captors, he realised how the one true God in the things he observed in nature was sustaining him and keeping him alive despite all the suffering (the sunshine for warmth, the fresh water satisfying his thirst, the foods he found for additional sustenance etc). Then he heard a voice in his head suggesting he can return home in a ship if he followed his faith.

After 6 years being held against his wish in a foreign land, his creative and defiant spirit finally took over and he followed the voice in his head to see where it would lead him. The young man decided to escape on foot across Ireland despite the risk to his life if he was captured, relying simply on the water and food of the land for sustenance and his intelligence and creativity to avoid detection.

Miraculously he managed to reach the Eastern coast of Ireland where he found someone who was prepared to take him back to England after observing how this strange man was able to pray like a christian. Clearly this was no ordinary Irishman.

On his return to England, he was welcomed with open arms by his family and own township. Soon everyone learned of the man's incredible story of capture, living in Ireland, and how he escaped the land, the first person to ever do so as a slave.

It wasn't long before his remarkable story and strong christian faith would see English priests sufficiently impressed to allow the young man to become a priest himself and later a bishop. Yet his life's work had only just began.

The voice of God seemed to call once again saying the people of Ireland needed him. It would take him some time to resign himself to the fact that he had a task to perform in this foreign land. Understandable considering the hardship he went through. Yet somehow he must have realised the people of Ireland were missing something in their lives. The multiple gods in this ancient and brutal Pagan society was not helping the people to see a better way of living.

The lack of love in a nation yearning to be loved eventually brought the man back to Ireland.

Over the next few years he convinced an incredible number of Irish people to follow the one true loving God by using a simple language spoken in the native tongue of Ireland at the time which he learned. The ideas of God and love and in solving many social problems helped the people to understand life more clearly and to reach for yet another higher level of existence through the christian faith.

In return for this knowledge, a large number of people in Ireland gave him the love and the things he needed to survive and live peacefully.

Back in England the christian king and some of the bishops were jealous of the man's increasing fame and success. They wanted to pick on his weaknesses in a vain attempt to see him as a sinner. The man had to return to England to answer charges that he had sinned unto God.

The man tried to convince his fellow christians what he did was right. For example, he did not speak Latin to the people of Ireland and his methods were somewhat unorthodox. Yet this should not have made a difference when speaking the language of love.

Unfortunately the behaviour of his colleague priests and bishops still weren't in keeping with the christian faith and the principle of love as he understood it.

The man felt disillusioned by the christian leaders in England. So he left the place he once called home for the last time to return to Ireland where he felt the people could benefit more from his teachings than he could ever achieve from his so-called christians in England. He wrote letters explaining his strong convictions, how God spoke to him, and gave a clear account of his entire life story in vivid detail.

His courage and persistence in writing eventually saw him left alone by the authorities. Perhaps the man felt abandoned in Ireland by the English religious authorities. Yet the Irish people made him feel at home as he continued to help them until his death.

The man's incredible strength, sacrifice, determination to survive, conviction and support for his own understanding of the christian teachings, appreciating the simple life, realising how nature was supporting him, to allow his mind and body to acutely be sensitive to his natural environment, be an excellent problem solver, and his tremendous love for the Irish people, even those who the English christians thought could never be helped, had turned him into a Saint.

Today the Irish people remember the man as St Patrick, which is celebrated on 17 March every year.

 
The last of the big flightless wingless birds were hunted to extinction on the islands of New Zealand by the Maori. Known as the Moa, these birds stood up to 3.5 metres in height. Now scientists believe they know why they disappeared. After analysing the growth rings in the stored bones of extinct Moas, scientists discovered the two Moa species may have taken several years to reach reproductive maturity and up to a decade to have a strong enough skeletal frame to defend itself and run away from the humans as well as support their offsprings.

Stop making excuses. It is not just because the bird was slow to reproduce and grow. It is because human beings were such idiots when it comes to thinking about their stomachs and egos. Blame it on the males of the human species whose egos and food demands are suddenly inflated everytime they kill an animal much bigger than themselves.

For an animal having the largest brain in comparison to its body, we are acting like we have the smallest brain in comparison to our body.

 
The Industrial Revolution commences in Europe around the early 1800s. According to the United Nations InterGovernmental Report on Climate Climage, global warming increased when human's began burning wood and coal for energy, but accelerates as population increased and the demand for wood, oil and coal mounted.

Why so much energy? It is primarily to build products and deliver services more efficiently and to a greater number of people who choose to live in the cities and therefore need to find jobs to help pay for the products and services they need. If we could simplify it further, we would have to say the energy was being spent beyond merely surviving. Rather than "work to live", the motto for some people became closer to "live to work" as individuals realised materialism was the key to building untold wealth to those selling the manufactured or refined products.

Not surprisingly, and with increasing emphasis on rational L-brain thinking while developing new technologies, anything that seems to interfere with this process of manufacturing including accessing the raw materials could be seen as an act of war.

With more and more L-brain societies undergoing this revolution and living in close proximity to each other are likely to experience conflict if trade is not flourishing as it should to ensure the nations prosper. Again we should not be surprised to see many of these L-brain societies run by male leaders in Europe and North America. No guessing these leaders all want to become rich and powerful.

Could this strongly L-brain approach to life when combined with greed and power be the root cause for so much social, economic and political friction between nations?

As humans applied their supposedly rational L-brain skills of the Western European world to the rest of the world based on certain beliefs, the arrival of the first Europeans to Australia saw the introduction of many traditional "non-recycling" ways of farming the land, hunting for animals, and gathering other resources as needed not only to survive but also to become famous, powerful and rich. For example, the new settlers effectively stopped "patchy" burning by Aborigines. Eventually the fuel loads on the ground built-up and the appearance of massive broad-scale and intense fires have become the norm in modern Australian life.

As for the hunting techniques employed by white settlers in Australia, this has effectively wiped out 20 mammal species weighing between 35 and 5,500 grams in size. All we have remaining is a few small animals and only a very few large potentially "high breeding" mammals like kangaroos and emus to survive on the remaining tough, more fire-resistant vegetation on the Australian continent.

As a result, the Australian continent combined with increasing carbon dioxide emissions from the growing industrialised world would see the land dry up significantly.

By the time the 21st century would come around, the pressing issue on many Australians would be where to find enough fresh water and how to allocate the remaining resource in an efficient way to maintain their way of life based on current economic principles.

Sure humans may enjoy the occasional and rare climatic conditions known as the "El Nina" to bring back some of the rains and give a false sense of security to the Australian people as they say "She'll be right, mate!". But unfortunately it is all too short lived. Australia is just one of those countries where it will experience longer spells of more intense and extreme droughts conditions under global warming.

Perhaps the Australian people should concentrate more on rebuilding the environment, reestablishing the great inland sea, and focus more on developing fully recyclable products and services as the key to solving all the water issues including making this natural commodity more reliable and in plentiful supply over the long-term? Or will profit drive the ambitions of many towards self-destruction?

 
The possibility that something alien could be travelling around in the skies of Earth inside glowing symmetrical objects surrounded by a cloud on occasions especially during the time of Moses just before a great natural disaster may have returned. Are we encountering another similar scenario?

All we know so far is that humans have began to develop primitive balloons and airship technologies in the late 19th century to help lift people off the ground. Soon sightings of glowing disks started to emerge and get reported in some newspapers (around 1890s). These objects would reappear during World War II as foo-fighters (ball lightning or something else?) only to move away and reappear again in northern Europe where they would act like rockets coming down from the sky and occasionally more close up views. They would disappear, only to reappear in the lower southwestern corner of the United States where a lot of testing of new aircraft, the first atomic bomb and other military and scientific activities would take place.

Here the observations of the UFOs would be the most detailed ever seen or heard by scientists so far even though many remained sceptical of any possible alien visitation" scenario. Either secret US military experiments or natural phenomena would be the best explanation from highly rational authorities such as the US military in the early days, and later the scientific community that is unable to get the direct evidence they want.

Nevertheless, the rapid technological developments in the US would become a prime focus for a series of intense UFO waves between 1947 and 1964, including a remarkable event in New Mexico of something crashing near Roswell on 2-3 July 1947 and where the US military have decided to do everything to cover it up to this day. Yet more and more cracks in the cover up would emerge as the observations get more closely analysed and some scientists discover important discrepancies in the official explanation given by the United States Air Force ( the people responsible for recovering and analysing the original crashed disk materials).

Are humans misinterpreting natural phenomena? Or are we being watched?

If UFOs are meant to be natural phenomena, the US military have changed their attitude very quickly after the Roswell event and are acting odd by continuing to cover up the materials and object they had found to this day. It is hard to imagine a meteorite or some other natural phenomena could create such continued secrecy.

We will briefly look at this potentially momentous event later.

 
On 30 June 1908, an object was seen hurtling from space at approximately 7.15am. The object entered the Earth's atmosphere and turned into a bluish-white ball of fire as it raced across the summer sky, leaving behind it a trail of multicoloured smoke. Soon afterwards, at 7.17am (Siberian time), it exploded at an altitude of 16 kilometres above the ground with a blinding flash of light and releasing the energy of a thousand Hiroshima atomic bombs in a desolate region near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, in remote central Siberia.

As a result of the massive explosion, over 3000 square kilometres of pine forests ignited and continued burning for days, ferocious winds rattled doors and windows of people's homes and 600 kilometres from the epicentre, and tremors were recorded at Irkutsk's seismographic centre nearly 900 kilometres to the south. The explosion was of such tremendous proportions that almost all trees within a radius of 64 kilometres around the blast site (approximately 80 million trees) were flattened outwards like match sticks.

The accompanying thunderclaps could be heard up to a distance of 80 kilometres. Dirt and burnt debris was sucked-up and thrown 20 kilometres above the Tunguska region to fall as a shower of 'black rain' within 24 hours. Massive glowing silvery clouds suddenly appeared over northern Europe and Siberia, which became so bright during the next few nights that in some places it was possible to read a book at midnight without the aid of artificial lights . When Russian scientists finally investigated this remote and mostly uninhabited area notably Leonard Kulik, a mineralogist nearly 20 years later, no crater or meteor rock was found.

Further discussions with witnesses near the scene of the explosion reported a blinding flash, expanding shock waves, black rain of debris, and an apparently mushroom-shaped cloud formed immediately after the blast. This made some scientists think that perhaps it was a nuclear explosion of some sort. However measurements of radioactivity in the Tunguska soil using sensitive equipment were performed some fifty years after the incident. Scientists found little sign of radiation, but radioactive caesium-137 was traced in much higher quantities than normal in the inner rings of living trees that would coincide with the 1908 explosion. Consequently, some people have proposed that a nuclear-powered spaceship went out of control and crashed in this sparsely-populated area of swamps and forests .

Today scientists have opted for a natural explanation: that an icy comet fragment (or possibly a small asteroid covered with ice) previously lost in the glare of the Sun weighing between 100,000 to more than a million tons, and measuring up to 70 metres across, collided with the Earth at a speed of perhaps 100,000 kilometres per hour, leaving no trace of itself after impact. Or if it was a rocky asteroid, the size would be about 10 metres across.

Whichever the object it was, scientists are confident it is of natural causes. And either object — a comet or a meteorite — had the ability to generate the energy equivalent to one large nuclear bomb.

Imagine if an event of this magnitude were to occur again (as scientists believe it will every century or two)? If it occurs over a major city, how would we react?

Would we automatically assume we are under attack by some nation that we assume is our enemy to the point where a decision is made to trigger a nuclear war?

Perhaps we need to get our priorities right by making sure we know exactly what's out there and to solve all world conflicts so we can ensure the long-term survival of the human race.

 
Conflict between nations in Europe would reach a climax with the advent of World War I between 1915 and 1918. More than a million soldiers from up to a dozen countries would be sent to their deaths by their leaders to fight a war that could have been avoided in the first place if the knowledge from certain wise men in the past were heeded.

People would naively describe World War I as "the war to end all wars". But we know this is untrue. As if we have not learned anything about setting a brighter future for generations to come, World War II began in the 1930s among essentially the same nations (eg. Germany, France, the UK, Australia and Russia) with assistance from the United States over what was believed to be economic hardship placed on Germany by European nations after the previous world war and how a German leader emerged with delusional grandeurs that he could break free from these economic shackles to become the greatest nation on earth through an invasion of various nations.

Again this is an issue of so-called male leaders thinking they can become the most powerful and richest people on earth. And at what cost to achieve this stupid aim?

 
Another man emerges into the world with, yet again, the same realisation as some other male leaders in the past of how important the principle of love is and why we should focus more on the spiritual adventure. He was born in India. And over many years of personal experience and in watching his own people be repressed and controlled by British rule in India, as well as plenty of time to think about the issues of the day, he would develop the moral behaviours and discipline based on the principle of love which he believes would help his people to solve all their problems.

His name would be Mahatma Ghandi. A quietly-spokened eccentric individual with a unique way of dealing with the repressive and profit-focused British authorities in his time by making it as expensive and difficult to manage as possible when putting many Ghandi supporters as well as the man himself into prison, as well as showing to the media the worse side of the British authorities when they want to protect their position of power.

For some people, in particular those in Britain, it seems there was this view that the Earth contained a seemingly infinite amount of materials and how the power of economics as a means of getting rich in order to improve living standards and extend lifespan had allured many to its glory. And for a while it looked as though it would continue to march on as if there is no tomorrow no matter what could be happening to the environment. But it would take World War II to nearly bankrupt the British Government to entually force the authorities to let go of India and become independent and so fulfilling a lifelong dream Ghandi had for his homeland.

But then came the religious tensions between muslim and Hindu people. The separation of old India into a new India and Pakistan (the home for muslim people) was not to Ghandi'a liking. He continued to fight for equality, this time among the muslims living in India. But this ended up being too much for one man who felt strongly against the muslims and the dividing of old India to see Ghandi get assassinated.

People have a lot more learning to do.

 
Something interesting occurred in the deserts of New Mexico, USA, on 2-3 July 1947 which would forever change the attitude of the highly male-dominated and strongly L-brain US military. According to witnesses, a strange symmetrical and metallic glowing object allegedly crashed to Earth, presumably after being hit by lightning.

Apart from those witnesses who have described what appears to be a new shape memory technology in the allegedly titanium-based dark-greyish metallic foil found at the first crash site (the rest of the dark-greyish metallic disc-shaped crashed into the Plains of San Agustin nearly 200 kilomteres west) never before seen by scientists until the sudden invention of pure nitinol after 1947 by the US Air Force, as well as the appearance of rather unusual small bodies with large heads and all wearing smooth skin-tight metallic suits (at the second crash site), it would appear that the US military had quickly realised the importance of the find and have decided (initially for fear of creating a mass panic) to keep it a big secret.

No longer were the informed top US military brass in the USAF and Army at the time going to think UFOs were natural or man-made phenomena. The attitude would change and now UFOs had to be kept secret while convincing everyone else it can only be natural or man-made IFOs and nothing else. Not even the slightest chance that at least one UFO could advance science and reveal more about life in the Universe.

The Roswell materials were sent for analysis at Wright-Patterson AFB (the place where nitinol was first studied in pure form immediately after 1947) before the evidence was moved to a more secret location.

Ever since this momentous event, the US military generals, intelligence chiefs and US President Harry S. Truman were deciding behind closed doors whether or not to reveal the truth to the public as documents released under US FoI and discussions with retired top military brass have shown. But as soon as evidence of panic and social chaos emerged from events such as the CBS radio broadcast of Orson Welles War of the Worlds, Truman decided it was in the best interest of his people and the rest of the world to maintain the secrecy at all costs.

Following rumours of the reaction expressed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower after a possible one night viewing of the Roswell wreckage and bodies to him, the CIA may have chosen to go at it alone by not telling other US presidents of the discovery.

Only US President John F. Kennedy posed the biggest security risk for the CIA after Eisenhower with his official request to share all UFO secret intelligence files with the American space agency NASA and Russia at the time when he wanted to see the first man on the Moon and to try to achieve greater cooperation and peace with Russia when he asked in a formerly Top Secret memo dated 12 November 1963:

'SUBJECT: Classification review of all UFO intelligence files affecting National Security.

As I had discussed with you previously, I have initiated [unintelliigible] and have instructed James Webb to develop a program with the Soviet Union in joint space and lunar exploration. It would be very helpful if you would have the high threat cases reviewed with the purpose of identification of bona fide as opposed to classified CIA and USAF sources. It is important that we make a clear distinction between the knowns and unknowns in the event the Soviets try to mistake our extended cooperation as a cover for intelligence gathering of their defence and space programs.

When this date has been sorted out, I would like you to arrange a program of data sharing with NASA where Unknowns are a factor. This will help NASA mission directions in their defensive responsibilities.

I would like an interim report on the data review no later than February 1, 1964.

/S/ John F. Kennedy.' (Original copy is with Robert and Ryan Wood, investigators of UFO-related US Government documents (originally available from http://www.presidentialufo.com/kennedy&1.htm as of 9 July 2009. Has been moved since then, but a copy can be found at http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread691191/pg1 as of August 2011.)

President Kennedy's request for release of UFO information came at a time when he succeeded in getting broad agreement in top level dialogue with the former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to work together on all future space and lunar projects and to release classified UFO files held by the CIA to NASA to show UFOs were not examples of Cold War psychological warfare plans.

Unfortunately President Kennedy would never receive a response to his request, nor would his dream to share all UFO secrets with the world come true. At 12.31pm on the hot, sunny afternoon of 22 November 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Who assassinated the president has remained one of the most controversial in history as the man allegedly responsible for the shooting, Lee-Harvey Oswald, was very soon after killed by Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner with Mafia connections, before Oswald could reveal his knowledge to the public.

As history tells us, Mr Oswald was led vulnerably by two policemen from the county jail on Houston Street in Dealey Plaza through a crowd of 75 reporters and numerous policemen and civilians when somebody shouted "Do you have anything to say in your defence?" Oswald didn't have time to reply. Mr Ruby suddenly pushed himself through the crowd, pointed a handgun at Mr Oswald and shot him. Mr Oswald later died in hospital.

Was President Kennedy and later Mr Oswald taken out by the CIA to avoid sensitive UFO information getting through to the public? Or was it the crazy antics of a lone gunman as the CIA and FBI-backed Warren Commission on the assassination in September 1964 wanted to conclude?

A lot of questions remained unanswered. For example, an unidentified man in the crowd was observed opening up the only umbrella on a sunny, hot day and holding it high above his head just before the assassination began and then closing it after the shooting, together with several men seen carrying rifles in the crowd (all of which are possible suspects), how the bullets hitting the President seem to come from two different directions despite the Warran Commission supporting the single magic bullet theory of hitting the Kennedy and the driver by changing directions several times, and the missing autopsy report of the President's body all added to the conspiracy theory that Mr Oswald was not the lone gunman we were all led to believe. Someone else appeared to be involved.

The CIA?

All we know is that the CIA has used the Mafia to do its dirty work in the past. For example, the CIA hired the Mafia in a failed attempt to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro during the Bay of Pigs fiascoe. So any involvement by the Mafia in stopping Mr Oswald from revealing evidence to the media or the independent commission if paid enough money or other rewards could be linked back to the CIA.

And certainly the CIA would have the motive to take out Kennedy after his revealing memo on UFOs.

Perhaps we may never know.

Today, the secrecy behind UFOs is being maintained by some US intelligence and military people mainly on the basis of maintaining power and staying rich under the current economic system so long as other people are made to believe all UFOs are IFOs and can maintain the system or be preoccupied in areas that would force people to maintain the system and hence be kept in the dark about what was discovered.

The key is to keep people preoccupied with making money and surviving (or fighting the war on terror and other earthly issues). Never on understanding UFOs or anything of that nature. To the US military, it is just not pragmatic enough.

It is the only way these people in the know behind the UFO secrecy can maintain their facade and perhaps introduce certain technologies to help maximise their power and being rich.

A few cracks in the US policy of extreme UFO secrecy would emerge. For example, we find evidence in the old metallurgical journals of how the US Air Force was involved in nitinol research between 1948-49 and showed interest in other shape memory alloys (with properties corresponding remarkably well to observations of the shape memory metallic foil seen by witnesses near Roswell in July 1947) with the help of scientists at the Battelle Memorial Institute, which raises serious questions as to how the military created the alloy in 1947 at a time when the technology for making pure titanium in adequate quantities to reveal this perperty was not available to help explain the witnesses' observations. Another serious crack would occur after 1975 when citizens against UFO secrecy successfully forced the US Government to release a few thousand pages of UFO information under the US Freedom of Information Act (FoIA). Some of those documents would mention at least one crashed disk in New Mexico.

To counteract this situation, a decision was made to sanction the records of Project Blue Book (which closed down in 1969) for public scrutiny in the hope the public will be convinced that UFOs are IFOs, and through the release of anonymous and somewhat dubious US UFO government documents such as the Majestic 12 document, photographs and films of dead aliens, and fake employees from Area 51 to keep UFO investigators and researchers busy and away from critical areas of research while ensuring the scientific community would never be open-minded enough to study the subject.

In the meantime, certain well-paid individuals in the US either directly involved in the big secret or others who don't know the secret but were willing to do as they were told for enough money would infiltrate key positions of power in the US military, secret intelligence and a few civilian organisations (and politically through the US Administration in more recent times). These individuals would wield enormous power on the local, national and international scene by promoting many strong L-brain (ie. R-wing) ideas needed to keep the big secret going for as long as is possible.

Among the attempts to stop the public and the rest of the world from learning the great truth include:

1. debunking UFOs at every turn;
2. getting the skeptical scientific community to support the idea that there is nothing to be advanced from the study of UFOs;
3. paying government scientists in the 1950s to support a way of life that is unhealthy (eg. mainly to eat more carbohydrates to supposedly reduce fat and make us more healthy, when in fact there is no real scientific basis to support this idea and could well be making us more fatter and unhealthier), making people as lazy and uneducated as possible and/or too busy making money and therefore not curious enough to learn new ideas, while influencing as many people to participate in mainstream "uncreative" L-brain jobs considered generally "safe" in the eyes of the US military (eg. join the Army or support the current economy). (6)

During the creative public period when people considered the possibility of ETs being real and existing somewhere in the universe, these R-wing ideas would be accelerated after 1980 with the help of the US Government, with subtle influence from the US military and intelligence organisations. It is thought the war on terrorism is just one approach to stopping the truth from coming out.

The rest of the world, on seeing this superficial situation and in believing UFOs are nothing out of the ordinary, would merely follow the US lead in order to maintain their place and relevance on the world stage, enjoy the benefits of maintaining the system, and so be seen as though they are "part of the global team" (ie. non-terrorists).

We are certainly not a sufficiently creative bunch today to see through the US military and intelligence aims.

Today, the secrecy is being maintained even though most educated members of the public including many scientists are comfortable with the idea of ETs in the universe. Only a few are considering the possibility ETs could be visiting us. The secrecy is more to give benefit to those with the knowledge of the technology behind the crashed disk an opportunity to be rich and powerful by carefully introducing aspects of the technology through various private US research companies.

These people who must think in a more R-wing manner in order to keep the current economic system going will remain this way for as long as possible until a scientist or researcher decides to break the status quo and reveal the secret to the world.

Unfortunately the consequences of maintaining this kind of selfish "get rich and powerful" thinking using any ruthless means using the L-brain for the sake of hiding a big secret while everyone follows this approach like a bunch of sheep are greater social division, conflict in various nations, and destruction of the natural environment which is meant to provide all our free food, clean air and water.

This will have to change in the 21st century.

 
The idea of recycling our energy and waste products did have its origins around the mid-1950s. And, incredibly enough, in the US of all places. But again we find governments and business professionals would ignore it.

This is particularly important for the US military and intelligence communities as any emphasis on recycling concepts could reveal the secret to recycling electromagnetic energy via Albert Einstein's Unified Field Theory and the potential for a new technology (ie. the UFO). It is better to emphasise jobs and the current economy based around the use of oil as the key to maintaining the status quo. If you have a job in this economic system, then everything must be fine as they say. So why change it?

But there are consequences in taking this non-recycling approach.

For a start, human population is increasing rapidly. We are living on this planet quite literally in the billions. Combine this with a powerful technology considered more than capable of putting every other competing predator in its place (including other humans although it won't necessarily stop all humans from trying to hurt other humans if they are disadvantaged in some way) while transforming vast areas of land to suit the belief systems of so many L-brain people (eg. human greed is seen as acceptable) without giving back what we take and the impact humans are having on Earth's climate and the natural environment is starting to become overwhelming.

Without some form of significant recycling, the human population is heading towards an irreversible disaster.

It will be around the first half of the 21st century when many areas of the world will experience severe environmental degradation of the likes seen by the ancient people of Malta nearly 5,000 years ago as world temperatures increase and rainfall decreases creating what is known as desertification starting with Africa and moving onto Australia, parts of the Asian mainland, and North America.

Occasional storms of greater severity will arrive every now and then, but they will be few and far between.

Europe may be the exception. It is likely it will experience slightly higher than usual rainfalls, extremely cold conditions during the winter, followed by floods and high temperatures in the summer which may suit higher levels of food production.

However, this trend for the European continent is expected to end and things will dry up after 2050. Only a few pockets of the world above the arctic circle will be left to remind humans of what it was like to live on this planet prior to the 21st century. Afterwards the rest of the world will be in serious trouble and technology will have to be applied significantly to grow everything we need inside massive glasshouses in the middle of large deserts. If not, wars and disease will eventually see humans become extinct before the end of the 21st century.

 
There is indirect evidence to suggest the work by the US military to understand the modus operandi of UFOs and the technology uncovered in the crashed disk from 1947 is going well.

On the late evening of 29 December 1980, fifty-one-year-old business woman, Betty Cash, was driving home in her car with two other occupants: fifty-seven-year-old Vickie Landrum, an employee of a restaurant owned by Betty Cash, and her seven-year-old grandson, Colby Landrum. They drove along Highway FM1485 - only used by people who live in this sparsely-populated area because of its isolation — to get to their home in Dayton, Texas, USA.

At around 9.00 p.m., Colby Landrum was the first to notice a brightly-lit UFO moving over treetops that bounded the highway on both sides. Betty and Vickie, who could not ignore Colby's state of jubilation and excitement, looked in the direction Colby's finger was pointing. The distance between them and the UFO at that time was about five kilometres. Then the object approached the witnesses, until it straddled the road ahead of them, forcing Betty to slam on the brakes. The object was described as diamond-shaped with blue lights centered around its outermost rim, and it glowed intensely. A large, intermittent flame could also be seen underneath the object, keeping it aloft. Despite the bright glow, it looked as if it were made of dull aluminium; and the object itself seemed to be devoid of sharp points and edges.

All three witnesses got out of the car in full view of the object hovering only fifty metres away: Vickie standing just behind the open door on the right-hand side with her left hand resting on the car roof; Colby next to Vickie for protection; and Betty walking around to the front of the car. For the next three minutes or so, Vickie and Betty stared intently at the brightly-lit object ahead of them while Colby pleaded with Vickie to get back inside the car. Seeing the object rising in the air, Vickie called out to Betty. She responded, but noticed when she got back to the door of her car just how painfully hot the handle was. Betty successfully opened the door with her leather jacket. As they entered the car, all three witnesses felt the intense heat of the interior; they were forced to turn on the air conditioner.

As they watched the UFO depart, a group of black helicopters suddenly arrived on the scene. 'They seemed to rush in from all directions,' Betty recalls, '...it seemed like they were trying to encircle the thing.'

The last they saw of the UFO was when they drove off and joined a larger highway, where they could just make out what looked like a small cylindrical object lighting up the surrounding area and the helicopters following it closely. From this new vantage point, they counted 23 helicopters — some of the double-rotor (CH-47 Chinooks) and others of the single-rotor types.

By the time the witnesses arrived home, they all noticed their skin turning red as if badly sunburnt (especially Vickie's left hand), and a collection of blisters had appeared (especially on Betty's face). Other medical symptoms included headaches, diarrhoea, swellings on the neck and eyes, feelings of tiredness, and all had experienced hair loss of varying degrees of severity, with Colby being the least affected. After examination by doctors, it was concluded that the witnesses had probably been exposed to radiation of some type.

'This is a very important case providing physical evidence of the existence of UFOs.' said John Schussler, a NASA aerospace engineer who investigated the case. 'A radiologist who examined the women's records said they were apparently suffering from the symptoms of radiation poisoning.'

As for proving whether or not the United States government was directly involved in the incident is extremely difficult, if not impossible. For as the New York Times reported on 20 January 1981: 'Finding out what goes on in the CIA [and other clandestine organisations] is like performing acupuncture on a rock.'

Unless, of course, one can apply the traditional blow torch of intimate scientific knowledge about how UFOs work right up the proverbial backsides of those in the know at various US intelligence and military agencies. Then the scientific wedge will widen the cracks in the secrecy and eventually force the truth out.

Until then, which isn't too far away, it would appear a small band of isolated US scientists forced under oath to maintain complete secrecy is being employed by the US military to reverse-engineer the crashed disk and all their knowledge gathered from UFO reports and have made a crude example of a UFO for themselves. The use of a chemical propulsion directly below the glowing diamond-shaped object suggests the force of gravity is still a major force to be reckoned with. But the fundamental principle of how to lift an object electromagnetically through the glowing effect on the surface seems to have been worked out.

Perhaps this was a further military test to see how the witnesses and later the media might react when the case is brought out and relate this to other UFO reports?

 
While UFOs might be seen as too controversial and in need of more direct evidence, there is one area that everyone is being forced to wake up to because of the mounting direct evidence. Indeed, there is excellent scientific evidence to support the view that humans are affecting the world like never before. Classic examples of this include the greenhouse effect (the trapping of heat from the Sun) caused by the release of carbon dioxide and other pollutants from the burning of natural forests from land clearing and coal-fired power stations, greater levels of pollution in fresh water supplies from chemical factories, natural fish in the oceans becoming increasingly decimated from overfishing and being slowly poisoned by chemicals, massive glaciers melting and sea levels rising, and so on.

Among the scientific evidence in support of the "greenhouse gas" problem, researchers at the University of Alaska have discovered an alarming increase in the rate of melting of ice after surveying 67 major glaciers. It has already been known since the mid-1950s that glaciers were melting. Now in the last five years (after 1997), the rate of melting has almost doubled to nearly 52 cubic kilometres a year (7). The consequences are clear: pure ice from the glaciers are being converted to liquid water which eventually flows to the sea and this in turn raises the world's sea levels, putting coastal cities at higher risk of being flooded.

The researchers came to this conclusion after measuring on an annual basis the changes occurring to the surface of glaciers using a laser system transported in an aircraft.

And now some scientists are claiming the greenhouse gases in the air is in greater concentrations than for the last 400,000 years and increasing at a rate more rapid than at any time in the history of life on Earth. The warning bells are ringing.

Are the brains of humans big enough to solve the environmental problems of our times? Or has greed and power taken over the most powerful leaders of the world? Or perhaps to maintain certain secrets?

Or is it that some people believe in the Bible so literally and think it relates to modern times so well when they read a passage in the Old Testament saying:

'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over every living thing that moves upon the earth.' (Genesis 1:28)

Sounds like certain people in the world will be reliving the Aztec experience very soon.

And destroy the Earth's environment and there will definitely be no religion for people to practice.

Maybe it is time we start practicing the principle of love in its most fundamental sense with all living things and not expect to always "multiply" at the expense of other living things.

The truest sense of the word "love" has yet to be understood and experienced by all.

## UPDATE ##
4 January 2003
The government-funded US scientists from the University of Washington, Seattle, have joined the debate on melting ice sheets and glaciers with a report stating a large Antarctic ice sheet is melting and will take 7,000 years to disappear, raising sea levels throughout the world by 4.8 metres, thereby easing the public's fear of a massive global catastrophe within a lifetime. As these US scientists are suggesting, we have plenty of time to do something about it and hence humanity can continue doing the same things as we have done for the last 50 years.

However, the method employed by the US scientists in measuring the rate of melting of the Antarctic ice sheet is still not accurate enough to tell us what is happening today with humankind's attempt at accelerating the process of global warming through its own activities. Also it doesn't take into account the melting in the Arctic regions.

The US scientists are relying on an "average results" technique whereby a machine would measure the amount of isotopes of certain elements in rocks. Since the Earth's magnetic field at the poles are at its weakest and more cosmic rays reach the Earth's surface, any exposure of certain rocks on the Antarctic mountains to the cosmic rays when ice has melted can change the number and type of atoms in the rocks forming what are known as isotopes.

Because the isotopes have a radioactive decay rate lasting literally thousands or even millions of years, it is possible for scientists to measure things like the number of such isotopes and how far the isotopes have decayed over time, giving an average indication of how much melting has probably occurred in the immediate area over say a thousand year period where the rocks were found.

Certainly a study such as this one is fine for getting an average long-term indication of global warming over the last few thousand years. And with the results in, it suggests melting of the Antarctic ice sheet has been steady and relatively slow, enough for humans to adapt to the eventual change in sea levels once the ice sheet has melted in 7,000 years time.

Unfortunately, this study cannot help with the immediate concerns of how much time we have now before sea levels rise to 4.8 metres and beyond given the fact that more recent and indirect scientific studies are indicating an exponential "runaway" increase in worldwide temperatures and only now are we at the brink of experiencing the warmest period of our times. Averaging results over thousands of years does not help.

In fact, if, as some scientists suggest, the trend towards global warming thanks to human intervention with nature continues it could take less than 75 years before sea levels rise to the unheard of level suggested by the US scientists at the University of Washington. And if the ice sitting over the warmer Arctic seas melt more quickly, sea levels could rise 30 metres or more in the next 75 years.

Studies are continuing in this area to this day. But how long will it take before action is taken to control global warming? Or are we happy with global warming? If so, who is going to plant enough trees to mop up the carbon dioxide in the air before the planet becomes a giant desert and is too hot and waterless on the continents to plant anything? And who will support these people when the time comes?

Does the US Government need to spend more time and money deciding whether another study on global warming would convince them of taking appropriate action to protect and improve our natural environment?

Or are there certain unnamed individuals in the US military and government more concerned at keeping the secret new "electromagnetic energy recycling" technology from emerging to the public so they can enjoy a life of total greed and power?

## UPDATE ##
May 2004
US scientists released more interesting scientific results at the same time as US Hollywood movie producers unveiled a science fiction (or more likely a science fantasy) movie called The Day After Tomorrow suggesting the Earth is probably getting cooler and, if we accept the scientific logic in the film, may result in a new Ice Age.

Ignoring the hype behind the Hollywood film for a moment, the latest scientific evidence from the researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology is now suggesting the Earth is reflecting more light into space from the Sun from 2001 to 2003 compared to the period from 1984 to 2001. And this appears to be because there is more cloud cover. This latter observation was determined after looking at satellite images of the amount of cloud cover on Earth since 1984; and the former observation when scientists on Earth measured the amount of earthshine reflected off the dark side of the Moon compared to the bright lunar crescent serving as a standard for the scientists. Because there appears to be more cloud cover than ever before since measurements of cloud cover by satellites began in 1984, the Earth must be getting cooler because less sunlight is able to reach the Earth's surface at ground level. Of course the researchers are not suggesting an Ice Age is going to hit the Earth any time soon as the Hollywood film would suggest. But any evidence suggesting a cooling of the planet would have to be good in the eyes of the current Bush Administration wanting to access stable supplies of oil in Iraq while maintaining the current "non-recycling" approaches to modern life. (7)

One cannot help wonder whether this is not another subtle R-wing attempt to calm the public of fears of global warming.

As for the film itself, a number of scientific flaws can be observed. For example, it is claimed for an Ice Age to occur, all the polar ice caps would have to melt causing a disruption in the flow of warm ocean currents from the equator in the Atlantic in reaching the northern latitudes. Well, if the polar ice caps have melted, how come Los Angeles and New York aren't flooded by at least 70 metres of oceanic water? Incredibly the film, with its regular images of the R-wing Fox News being flashed across people's television sets, claims these and other coastal US and European cities were untouched by the higher ocean levels. Surely there is a flaw here? Yet another serious anomaly is how the oceans don't retreat in the face of a severe Ice Age. Satellite images of Europe and the USA according to the film showed the boundaries between the oceans and land remained the same and countries can be observed. When ocean waters retreat in an Ice Age, the boundaries are never clear as the oceans retreat and ice extends over the surface of the oceans and reach closer to the equator.

And what of the effect of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? How does this affect air temperature? This and other scientific issues are not properly dealt with in the film.

## UPDATE ##
April 2007
A documentary aired on SBS television on 29 April 2007 titled Gulf Stream and the Next Ice Age attempts to give a slightly more realistic scientific basis for the Ice Age in terms of an interruption of the warm ocean currents in the Atlantic reaching western Europe (eg. UK, France, Netherlands etc) known as the Gulf Stream.

Written by Nicolas Koutsikas & Stephan Poulle, the film claims melting of the ice in Greenland under current global warming conditions could see large quantities of ice breaking off and drift as far south as Spain. Its presence would help to cool the northern ocean and dilute it with vast amounts of freshwater. It is the freshwater that could be of greatest concern because some scientists believe it may be enough to dilute the high salt concentrations in the warm Gulf Stream, making it harder for this normally salty, dense water to fall to the ocean floor where it can return to the warmer waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean sea. If this cooling and lower salt concentrations occur well before reaching Norway and Sweden, the Gulf stream could be halted resulting in cold air from the Arctic reaching Europe more easily and causing a drop in temperature sufficient to possibly start an Ice Age.

The collapse of this thermohaline circulation of the Gulf Stream may explain why the UK experienced a mini-Ice Age several hundred years ago. But as the name suggests, any drop in temperature will be temporary. Even more so under the current global warming conditions.

Towards the end of the last Ice Age nearly 10,000 years ago, periods of sporadic high temperatures in the summer would have sent large numbers of icebergs near the temperate latitudes corresponding to France and the UK where the ice sheets had originally extended. Extra icebergs in the Atlantic at this latitude may have assisted in maintaining the Ice Age in Europe for a few decades by disrupting the Gulf Stream.

Several hundred years ago, the mini-Ice Age of Britain lasted 2 or 3 years before conditions warmed up again.

In the next 50 to 100 years from now, global warming is likely to see any Ice Age last not much longer than say a few months, probably during winter and mainly confined to Europe and North America assuming of course that the Gulf Stream is interrupted by enough cold freshwater before it becomes diluted with the rest of the oceans.

In the summer, global warming would see any mini-Ice Age end, creating great floods in low-lying areas of Europe. As for the lower salt concentrations, the melting of most of the ice in the world would be sufficiently diluted throughout the oceans of the world. What is likely to happen is that because cold temperatures in the Arctic will not be as extreme as it was in the past 100 years to create trade winds, the Gulf Stream may not flow as strongly as it does now.

So between 2050 and 2100, it is likely we will see both north America and Europe having roughly the same weather conditions. In the winter, Europe will have snow like north America does today, but in summer the continents will experience the same hotter than average temperatures once the snow and ice has melted.

Hence the greater land mass of the northern hemisphere could see temperatures plummet in the winter by as much as 5 or 6 degrees Fahrenheit, but later reach above-average temperatures in the summer. Whereas the greater water mass of the southern hemisphere could see temperatures rise by up to 4 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the year, resulting in greater and more severe droughts on the western side of major mountain ranges in Australia and South America and potential flooding on the eastern side of the mountains. The temperature figures indicated here are considered a worse-case scenario according to a 20-page report written by Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall titled An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security (published in October 2003). The report was commissioned by the US Department of Defense.

But to claim the Ice Age will be so severe as to last for years, decades or even centuries under the current global warming conditions according to Hollywood movies will be pushing the boundaries of good science.

## UPDATE ##
May 2004
Not noted for their indepth analysis of environmental problems, the US Department of Defence at the Pentagon has somehow seen the need to study global warming. Perhaps all those ideas of intense and unabated "non-recycling" approaches to modern life by accessing oil in Iraq are not sustainable and could end up being counter-productive to their aims in maintaining supersecret Defence projects (eg. UFOs)?

Or maybe the US military is realising there could be more wars and terrorism when people get displaced by the rising sea levels?

We can imagine what the solution from the US military in a year from now will be. The clue will probably come from the soldiers themselves as they start singing and marching in the training camps to the tune: "We...know...how...to...keep...it...coooool; we...stick-a-cork...right...up...our...buuuums!"

And all that after probably spending a few billion dollars of taxpayers' money. How useful is this military study to society?

## UPDATE ##
August 2004
NASA has joined the ranks of the climate change debaters with slightly more useful scientific revelations about global warming. It concerns the amount of black asphalt being used on roads for US cities and how it is absorbing more heat and making Autumn leaves drop later and vegetation in the cities stay greener for a long period of time. Included in the list of culprits for elevated "island" temperatures in the cities according to NASA are such things as buildings, car exhausts and human activity in general.

NASA advises that the advantage in high temperatures in the city areas might be a slightly longer growing season for farmers located nearby and a reduction in snow during the winter months for city dwellers. However, the disadvantage will be a greater reliance on water to maintain the growth of agricultural plants during the summer months, more weeds and insects to control, and increased human stress to heat (a major issue for older residents).

In another sensible scientific study published on the National Academy of Sciences website, two scenarios of what will happen in the cities were put forward. In one scenario in which fossil fuels continue to be used at its present rate with no discernible increase in the use of renewable energy sources such as solar or radio wave-to-electricity converters, temperatures in the centre of some cities could rise by as much as 15 degrees, resulting in 90 per cent less snow staying on the surface and with it greater winter flooding, while cities in more drier areas such as San Francisco may receive less reliable water supplies from the mountains.

In the second scenario where renewable energy sources are used in significant quantities this century, the continued emission of some fossil fuel could still push average temperatures in the cities by four to six degrees unless there is something done to counteract the fossil fuel problem now such as somehow increasing the efficiency of photosynthesis in plants and growing more plants globally to absorb the greenhouse gases (basically the equivalent of a bloody miracle).

## UPDATE ##
June 2004
A highly useful scientific study in solving the global warming problems has taken place at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra recently. In a significant breakthrough for science, Professor Elmars Krausz, PhD student Joe Hughes and a team of researchers at the ANU have discovered the process of photosynthesis to produce oxygen (a non-global warming gas) is actually thwart with many barriers in the environment designed to make the process very inefficient. But now, with much tinkering and careful control of these external barriers, the scientists have found an easy way to greatly increase the speed of photosynthesis and hence the production of oxygen. For example, scientists have now found the wavelength of light needed for oxygen production to take place is actually much longer than previously thought and can be used to increase the production process.

As Professor Krausz said:

'Our entire existence is dependent on this critical process. It makes the air we breathe and the food we eat, yet we don't know how it works.

'We have discovered that the special reaction centres that power oxygen production have been misunderstood for decades.

'By encouraging and modifying natural systems or by mimicking their tricks, we can deliver a new range of sustainable, non-polluting, greenhouse positive energy production sources.' (9)

Now if only there is enough freshwater on land to keep the plants healthy for humans to tap onto this photosynthesis process, then maybe we can reverse the greenhouse effects. Let's hope this doesn't become the green light for the US government, military and business community to continue burning more coal and oil before we can counteract the effects.

Combine this with the idea of adding more acidophilus bacteria in yoghurt into our diet and the diets of farm animals and maybe the emissions of methane gas — another greenhouse gas — can be significantly reduced.

Who knows? The great farters of the world may soon be numbered!

## UPDATE ##
5 July 2004
Some government-funded scientists in Australia (under the control of the R-wing Howard Government) may be trying to play down global warming by emphasising the fact that over the last 2 million years, Earth has undergone a series of glacial and interglacial periods. The warm period we are experiencing now is a typical and natural interglacial period and as such there is nothing unusual about it. Yes, this is an interglacial period (although if current greenhouse gas emissions continue the way it is today, there may never be another ice age in the future). But are we experiencing a warmer period than previous interglacial periods? And if so, why? Are humans contributing to the global warming?

To bring balance to the situation, a group of independent scientists have come out of the woodworks outside the influence of governments and the military in favour of global warming. Known as the Climate Change Group, this group of well-respected scientists has strong evidence to show there is a definite "cause and effect" for the climate change we are experiencing today. And the cause is due to the impact of humans on the planet. The effect? Statistics on the temperature of the planet over the past 150 years show a definite trend towards global warming.

These opposing scientists are not predicting an Ice Age is coming any time soon. Quite the contrary, the scientists are strongly of the belief that the weather will get more extreme and hotter through higher wind speeds, more flooding, and very persistent droughts throughout the world. And all because the temperature of the atmosphere on Earth is rising thanks to human activity (ie. it is not natural).

## UPDATE ##
8 July 2004
The US scientists are having an extraordinarily hard time getting scientific facts accurate to the public through yet another R-wing government known as the Bush Administration. There is a feeling among the US scientists that the US Government is supressing good science to suit its own political aims according to a letter written and signed by the scientists to the Administration today. As the letter stated:

'Across a broad range of policy areas, the Administration has undermined the quality and independence of the scientific advisory system and the morale of the Government's outstanding scientific personnel...' (10)

The letter was signed by 4,000 scientists including 48 Nobel Prize winners and 127 members of the US National Academy of Sciences. We wonder how much of this interference by the Bush Administration has rubbed on the good US scientific work on global warming?

## UPDATE ##
June 2004
Scientists have determined how the oceans are rising at a rate of 2 millimetres per year based on current computer global climate models utilising information on just the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at this time with no other factors considered. By 2100, many of the highly-populated and/or economically-important low-lying coastal ports, coastal regions and islands will face the threat of flooding and economic hardship for the nations concerned far greater than the threat of any terrorism bombing coastal infrastructure.

NOTE: Should all the ice in the world suddenly melt, ocean levels will rise by 80 metres.

## UPDATE ##
17 July 2004
It is a well-known fact that the world oceans absorb carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Though exactly how much was anyone's guess. Now, according to research published in the journal Science this week, Oceanographer Christopher Sabine of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle, USA, and his colleagues has discovered around 48 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuel and cement manufacturing between 1800 and 1994 has been absorbed by the world oceans. This represents about 118 billion metric tonnes of carbon. The oceans will continue to absorb more carbon dioxide for thousands of years. But the rate of increase in carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere — expected to at least double by the end of the 21st century — will force the oceans to absorb more carbon dioxide very quickly and could see many marine life potentially affected sooner rather than later. Why? Carbon dioxide makes water slightly acidic. And acids have a bad habit of absorbing the carbonate ions needed to make shells and other hard parts for living things as well as dissolving the already existent hard calcium carbonate material of molluscs, corals and single-celled organisms. If the world oceans get any more acidic than it is today, it could see the early extinction of many hard-shelled marine life and those animals reliant on coral reefs for their survival.

How will this affect the food supplies for humans of fish and other marine life? And what happens with the remaining 52 per cent of carbon dioxide still in the atmosphere and increasing as we speak?

## UPDATE ##
27 November 2004
A well-respected non-government Brazilian environmental group known as Imazon has released satellite images of the Amazon rainforests. The latest images as of 2002 are rather disturbing for humankind to say the least as it suggests that about half of the rainforests have been deforested or used for industry since the country's political leaders encouraged humans to exploit the forests after 1978 for "economic reasons" (or more accurately to gain political power).

The results show a level of destruction far greater than the Brazilian government wants to admit in its own official figures.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that politicians want to maintain the current economic system, for this equates to maintaining political power as well as staying rich so long as everyone else performs the essential jobs needed to keep the system going. And for politicians, maintaining the system also requires them to find ways to solve the problem of poverty which in turn helps the leaders to improve their own chances of being re-elected. Creating jobs is part of the key solution to staying in power.

The other reason is because many people in Brazil are poor and are looking for and willing to do anything to maintain jobs. For example, logging firms and ranchers are willing to kill people who get in the way of progress and making money irrespective of other people trying to help the poor and protect the rainforests. A classic case of this is the recent death of a high profile activist and American nun named Dorothy Stang for her work to establish some land and a settlement for the poor with the approval of the Brazilian Government.

And yet another reason for the rainforest decimation is because after the recession of 2002, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided billions of dollars in loans to Brazil on the condition the country maintains strong economic growth to help repay the loans.

It seems the only creative solution to come out of the Brazilian politicians at this time in order to solve poverty and pay a foreign debt has been to get people to make money from the rainforests by cutting down trees en masse (the biggest source of export income for Brazil).

But clearly, as the satellite images are showing, this 'economic' solution is not sustainable. Because in another 20 years, given the current population levels (let alone increases in the rate of population growth in the country) and the rate of destruction by businesses without an equally concerted effort to recycle and replenish the resources, the rainforests will no longer exist. The great lungs of the Earth will disappear.

Then how will people survive? Sticking a tube up one's arse and start sucking down the contents?

Persist with this economic idea and clearly a time must come when real poverty will return with a vengeance for a majority of people in Brazil once the resources in the rainforests are gone. If the leaders and business people do not change their ways soon, Brazil will fight with other countries for territory and hence a greater share of the remaining resources. Either that, or we will have to go in the same way as the people of Easter Island who became extinct after cannibalising each other for food.

Still think this is a far-fetched possibility?

## UPDATE ##
21 March 2005
The latest information on global climate is revealing a battle going on in the Earth's atmosphere between pollutants creating global warming and pollutants creating global cooling.

More importantly, current global climate models are not taking into account the pollutants responsible for global cooling (a phenomenon called by some scientists as global dimming) and what happens if this pollution is removed while pollutants for global warming increases unabated.

Some scientists believe global warming could suddenly increase at least twice as fast as present day computer models predict.

The pollutants responsible for global dimming has been determined to originate from soot, ash and sulfur dioxide from burning wood, coal, gas and oil. Scientists estimate that just 3 kilometres of this kind of pollution can reduce solar radiation by 10 per cent depending on its concentration.

But what happens if we don't have pollution in the atmosphere?

Europe is cutting pollution in the air. However scientists believe this is the pollution responsible for global dimming. So as the pollution goes down, there is a slight reduction in global dimming. Now European temperatures are suddenly rising because sunlight is reaching the ground more easily.

And it isn't a normal increase in temperature.

The global warming effect of pollutants from carbon dioxide and methane continues to increase unabated. Scientists are predicting a more dramatic increase in temperature.

Scientists believe current climate models are not predicting this sudden and accelerated temperature rise as pollution for cooling the planet goes down. The models should predict a temperature range difference of at least twice as much than currently published.

If this is true, it is possible for ice in Greenland to completely melt by 2030 (not 2080), rainforests may dry up sufficiently, more rainforest trees will become stressed in the drier conditions and become less able to absorb the greenhouse gases quickly enough to counteract the global warming pollutants from man-made sources, the rainforests become a greater fire hazard, and should a fire rip through the rainforests, will accelerate global warming even more dramatically.

Earth will eventually experience a runaway global warming effect with insufficient plant cover on the Earth's surface in a healthy enough state to absorb the greenhouse gases. Soon more countries will turn into deserts and become inhospitable for humans to live while others become flooded by rising sea levels.

Droughts and famine will be a far more severe and common sight in places such as Africa and India.

Does this mean we should continue to maintain the present levels of pollution emanating from burning coal, gas and oil? World governments and business professionals would love it. People needing jobs to pay for mortgages would say "Yes!"

Some scientists, on the other hand, would say "No!"

Again it depends if scientists are working for the government or not.

Independent scientists predict the atmosphere will be choked with enough soot, ash and sulfur dioxide that eventually human health will deteriorate to the point where our lifespan is shortened.

The only way to solve the problem of global climate change is to tackle all pollutants simultaneously. And the only way we can do this is to get at the root problem: the burning of wood, coal, gas and oil and how important getting rich and powerful is to our survival. If we want to be rich, humanity must find alternative and cleaner energy sources. Or humans must reduce their demand for cars, electricity and natural gas.

Nothing less than a major transformation of our current economy is needed, or we have no profit-driven economy at all.

Otherwise human population levels will be forced to go down because of health problems from poor air pollution, starvation and so much more. And it won't be just obesity that will kill the human population sooner rather than later in the developed nations.

## UPDATE ##
14 April 2005
The original idea that humans could be heading towards an Ice Age has returned with a vengeance, but this time with more credible scientific information (from the US no doubt). However it would take one hell of a natural disaster of global proportions for this to occur. In fact, the disaster being talked about is considered by scientists to be so rare in human experience that we may not have to worry about it for many thousands or tens of thousands of years (although it is feasible such an event could happen tomorrow or if the US military decides to throw a nuclear bomb to activate the natural disaster being talked about).

To be on the safe side, it would be prudent if world governments and scientists start decentralising and focussing on alternative technology for supplying the world with electricity from people's own homes in the event such a natural disaster does occur. At the moment, humans are extremely vulnerable in the current economic system and could die by the billions because of our reliance on energy from businesses, especially those utilising non-renewable energy sources.

The natural disaster being talked about at this time is a thing called supervolcanoes.

Supervolcanoes do occur in reality.

Supervolcanoes have occurred in the past on numerous occasions and will continue to pose a threat to humanity for as long as we remain stuck on this planet and we are not sufficiently resourceful and independent enough to find free-energy generating technologies to help us survive on our own and grow our own food.

The place likely to be of greatest threat to humanity is in Yellowstone National Park in the US. Within this park is a huge 70 kilometre caldera formed by the last supervolcano eruption nearly 74,000 years ago.

Underneath this massive caldera lies an 80 kilometre wide and 11 kilometre thick bubble of hot molten lava inside the Earth's crust. Scientists aren't too sure what the bubble is doing or how it will react if a big enough earthquake ruptures the crust just enough to let the lava escape, but the bubble is either itching to find an opening to the Earth's surface or is being pushed to the surface from deeper in the great reservoir of molten rock.

Whatever the situation, should the lava ever get released, it can either create a huge passive sea of lava in the caldera or, more likely, explode with such force that it would make the 3 Hiroshima bombs per second explosion at the Mount St Helens volcano look like Mother Nature was trying to pop a pimple on the Earth's skin compared to this mother of all volcanoes considered equivalent to over a thousand Hiroshima nuclear bombs going off every second. We are talking about the mother of all volcanoes.

This supervolcano will leave behind a serious scar on the Earth's surface when it finally subsides.

If, as some scientists predict, the supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park is going to be of the more violent type, computer models suggest the volcanic ash will be sent high up in the stratosphere and cover nearly three quarters of the United States plunging the citizens in total darkness for several months.

The rest of the world won't escape the debris. Apart from the spectacular red sunsets and sunrises the world will see in the weeks following the explosion, enough sulfur dioxide will cover the planet and remain there for up to 2 years thereby cooling the planet by at least 15 degrees celsius.

Actually, in places like Australia, temperatures can plummet during the winter day to minus 10 to 20 degrees celsius (even colder at night), effectively creating a mini and extremely severe Ice Age for the continent.

Things will return to normal after a natural disaster such as this one. But the world will never be the same again. Why? Because people will realise how vulnerable they were from the way they relied on companies to supply them with nearly everything. And all the money in the world will not save the people in the event of this disaster.

It is all because the infrastructure to supply electricity will collapse (eg. heavy ice forming on electricity lines and poles until they break).

When the supervolcano blows its top off, at least one million will die from the massive explosion and volcanic fallout in the first few days. Hundreds of millions more will perish in the intense cold and lack of food within the US for many months. Another couple of billion people could die outside the US from starvation and cold in places such as Africa, South and central America, the lands lying in the equatorial region and Australia because of the subsequent mini-Ice Age.

Humanity will eventually survive. But many people will come out of it being wiser and realising they should have listened to other people with knowledge of new technologies which the governments don't want to support. Instead of maintaining the current economic system as supported by the US government and military, society should have been more self-reliant, learning to recycle things, generate their own free power, and find means to protect humans in the event of such a natural disaster.

When people realise they should have done more, no US Government or military will ever be able to restart the current economic system as we know it today. People will reject the current system in favour of a new world order where profit will not be the prime motivator for survival. Quite the contrary, it will be looking after the environment and developing new free energy sources such as wireless transmission of power and building highly energy-efficient devices that can be run on solar power and the energy of radio waves from the Sun and stars of the Universe.

Growing your own food and having your own independent free energy sources will be considered crucial to the future survival of the human race.

And if the US Government and military is hoping such a disaster will stop anyone from working out the big secret concerning UFOs and the events in Roswell, then they are seriously mistaken. Knowledge will be retained in enough people and on storage mediums to be later re-discovered. In the end, the people will face the inevitable truth of such a scientific discovery. The world will never be the same again.

## UPDATE ##
23 April 2005
We have yet another warning from scientists. This time, scientists can confirm 87 per cent of the 244 marine glaciers draining land ice on the Antarctic peninsula to the sea have retreated over the past 50 years. Whether or not global dimming is happening in some developed nations from burning wood, fossil fuel and emitting sulfur dioxide, global warming is definitely happening in the more pristine areas such as Antarctica.

After studying 2,000 aerial photos of glaciers on the southernmost continent dating back to the late 1940s and 100 satellite pictures, scientists noticed clear evidence of glacier-ice shelves — where glaciers float on the shoreline while still connected to the land glaciers — breaking off into the ocean, while a number of land-based glaciers were reversing direction and getting smaller.

According to results published in the 22 April 2005 US edition of Science, scientists believe glaciers were advancing until the mid-1950s, then became stationary for the next decade, and for the next 40 years to the present a number of glaciers began to retreat by as much as 600 metres on average. The worst is Sjogren Glacier at the northernmost tip of the Antarctic peninsula. This glacier has retreated 8 kilometres since 1993. At Widdowson Glacier on the west coast of the peninsula, the glacier is retreating on average 1.1 kilometres per year between 2000 and 2005.

The ice is retreating quicker near the northernmost tip of the Antarctic peninsula. The warm conditions are heading south and accelerating as the ice in the colder south start to experience higher temperatures.

The scientists are being careful not to blame the global warming on humans. Until more information is gathered about local ocean currents and temperatures as well as the topography of the Antarctic continent and its effect on the air temperature through its massive ice sheets and microclimate areas to help explain why another 300 other glaciers have grown by an average of 300 metres, it is better not to make a rash statement until all the data is in and fully evaluated.

But the observations are unmistakable: The ice in the northernmost parts of Antarctica is already melting.

## UPDATE ##
August 2008
In a rare show of good science from the US Army, Dr Don Perovich from the US Army Cold Regions Research and his colleagues have discovered the Arctic ice is accelerating its melting through a feedback mechanism. The mechanism involves how the ocean is darker in colour compared to the ice and therefore able to absorb more solar radiation, which in turn heats up the ocean and causes more rapid melting of the ice.

After viewing the greatest amount of Arctic ice melting in September 2007 for several thousand years, Dr Perovich said:

'Where does the feedback come in? Well, we look here; we see the sea ice reflects around 85 per cent of the light, but as that ice melts back it exposes the open ocean and the open ocean only reflects seven per cent of the light. It absorbs 93 per cent.

'So you can see there's this incredible contrast between snow covered sea ice and the ocean. Indeed if we looked at every material on earth, snow is the best reflector and the ocean is the worst, so as we melt this ice back, we're taking the best reflector and replacing it with the worst and that can be a feedback because as you melt back, you get more heat put in and you get more melting and more heat.

'And these feedbacks are really interesting from a climate perspective because there are ways where you can take the climate system, give it a little nudge and have that be amplified into a big shove.' (Wilkinson, Marian (Reporter). The Tipping Point: ABC current affairs program Four Corners. 4 August 2008. Download Transcript.)

And where is all the global warming comeing from? Does the US Army think global warming is due to natural causes? Dr Perovich counters this argument by saying:

'First observe then try to understand, and the observations are quite clear cut: We're losing ice; it's a consequence of warming. Now when we try to delineate how much of that warming is perhaps due to natural variability, how much of it is due to, you know, an anthropogenic - a human induced - change, the best way to do that is through models. And there have been numerous model runs that have looked at that and basically, they can't reproduce the ice loss we've had with natural variability. You have to add a carbon dioxide warming component to it.' (Wilkinson, Marian (Reporter). The Tipping Point: ABC current affairs program Four Corners. 4 August 2008. Download Transcript.)

A remarkable conclusion from a department you would not have expected it. So is there any chance we can avoid wars then?

It is official. The state of world affairs is looking pretty grim. Already a large number of scientists around the world are acknowledging that humankind is eating (12) its way to extinction (if wars and diseases don't get to us).

And when the resources go down sufficiently or gets hogged by a few powerful people to be sold for a very high price to people who can afford it, wars begin. And all for the sake of being filthy rich and powerful, and in maintaining the big secret.

Scientists are now observing the following disturbing trends:

• massive deforestation of the remaining natural rainforests in Brazil and Indonesia and very little replanting to replenish tree stocks;
• fresh water rivers and lakes getting increasingly more exposed to the sun and wind and so risk becoming dried up or at least turn muddy and salty;
• the air becoming hazy, dusty (13) and increasingly poisonous partly due to deserts and drought-affected areas having their top soil blown in the air and partly due to man-made bushfires, wood burning in heaters and industrial areas emitting gaseous pollutants;
• world temperatures rising as carbon dioxide and methane production from farm animals, humans and chemical factories fill the atmosphere with these heat-trapping gases;
• there is less and less rain as surface water in temperate and semi tropical areas evaporate (or get used or by humans) more than is replenished;
• rainforest trees are showing signs of stress as rain levels are reduced leading to a greater emission of carbon dioxide (instead of absorbing the gas by the trees). The trees are able to do this by letting microbes in the soil break down the dead or dying tropical plant material (14); and
• the air pollution is starting to create severe droughts in Africa and other parts of the world.
• More people are starving in drought-affected countries.
• Sea levels are rising. Scientists expect to see massive displacement of people from islands and coastal regions, placing greater pressure on remaining resources.
• Greater terrorism and wars as people fight for the remaining resources.

And in return for all of this, some humans are getting extremely rich and many others are struggling to survive.

The whole planet is starting to look like a giant dust bowl for holding all our waste products - that is, the proverbial toilet for humankind! And this is before we have touched upon the social problems such as poverty, crime and AIDS within towns and cities which are all interrelated with the large-scale world problems scientists are observing.

The evidence
The UN-backed US$20 million scientific Millenium Ecosystem Assessment reports have finally confirmed what many scientists have long been suspecting and observing for some time. The agonising truth is that all the global ecosystems humans need to survive known as the basics of life — water, clean air, food, timber and a predictable climate — are being destroyed. More concerning is the fact that these ecosystems are at critical levels given our current levels of human population and rate of consumption on this planet.

The report — written by over 1,350 authors from 95 countries to work in four technical expert groups to prepare the global assessment and another few hundred more to conduct more than 30 assessments at the local level — found that:

(i) Most of the world's ecosystems are already on the path of unsustainability.

(ii) 60 per cent of the world's natural resources are at critical levels. The resources at risk of total destruction involve all the basics of life — water, clean air, food, timber and a predictable climate.

(iii) Much of the damaged or near total destruction of the natural resources are largely an irreversible loss to the world's biological diversity.

(iv) Between 10 and 30 per cent of the mammal, bird and amphibian species are at risk of extinction.

(ii) The responsibility for the destruction of the natural resources lies squarely at humans.

Of all the ecosystem services, only crop, livestock and aquaculture production, and carbon sequestration for global climate control has increased to the benefit of a better environment. But far too many other services are creating problems for the environment. The worse ones of all are presently fisheries and fresh water, which are said to be so poorly managed that it can no longer sustain current, let alone future, demands.

Director of the MA study Mr Walter Reid summarised the reports to the media in London on 30 March 2005 in the following way:

'These [ecosystem] changes have resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss to the biological diversity of the planet.

'Over the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable time in human history, largely to meet rapidly growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fiber and fuel. This has resulted in substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth.'

The only hope humans have so far of easing the strain on the environment and their own long-term survival is to make significant changes in consumption habits, better education, introduce new and radical technologies (especially of the renewable type), and raise the price of those services and products that aren't recyclable or is not sustainable at certain times of the year (eg. introducing an environmental tax to reflect their true cost to the human population).

If humans don't change their attitude and behaviour towards the environment immediately, environmental degradation will be so great that:

(i) humans dying in third world countries because of starvation will be in unprecedented numbers;

(ii) the rest of the human population will experience new and more devastating diseases;

(iii) fresh water supplies and clean air will be polluted creating massive health problems for humans such as lung cancer;

(iv) the commercial fisheries industry will collapse; and

(v) there will be dramatic changes in local climates.

Since the release of the reports, no Australian commercial television station (Channel 9, 7 and 10) or major newspaper (except The Age) would give them a mention. Only The Age in Melbourne made the reports on the State of the World front page, and the ABC radio stations and the ABC 7.00pm news in Canberra discussed the results of the report as a minor story (definitely not the first item of news) on Thursday 31 March 2005 (a day after the reports were officially released to the media in London).

The titanic of the current economic system must continue to sail on at full speed ahead.

Clearly humans don't have their priorities right.

The Australian Federal (Howard) Government was not entirely immuned to the reports. On hearing the results, the Government essentially overlooked the reports' importance saying it is not significant enough to require changes in the Australian economy, in a nation where the biggest carbon dioxide emissions from coal burning occur.

In other words, it is unlikely people will change their behaviour by putting the environment first. Jobs, and therefore the economy, are more important. Why? Because too many people are in massive debt with banks for purchasing homes and taking out mortgages with a rising interest rate. They will only change if their own survival is affected through a massive hike in the price of food in the supermarkets.

(L-brain) humans living in the cities really don't know how much serious trouble they are in at the moment. While people continue to be complacent and focussed on immediate local and specific issues such as making money, what they will eat, wear and have sex with tonight, making babies, supporting a family, and paying off a mortgage, the truth is a massive environmental crisis is looming closer and closer to the people living in the cities. People may not notice it while they have easy access to various services and products at the moment. But they will begin to notice when prices for common, everyday items increase.

Add to this the strain of owning a home and all it takes is for a sufficiently high interest rate in loans and higher petrol prices to break the system.

Farmers are already feeling the pinch through droughts, insect plagues and diseases to name a few. Soon every other human being will be affected. Already the aggressive competition in the cities of the world is intense as resources are becoming limited (ie. getting costly)

It is a pity (L-brain) people have a habit of changing their ways only at the last minute. But would it be too late then?

What's happening in Australia?
In Australia, the human population levels and the need to accumulate wealth are believed to be way too excessive for what is really a continent with poor quality soils and limited natural fresh water resources available to consume. Combine this with bio-terrorism where some people are deliberately introducing pests to new areas such as the foxes to Tasmania, and the increasing greediness of a few individuals and multinational companies with their large-scale "non-recycling" (or heavily L-brain in psychological terms) production methods of clearing trees, growing one type of crop (sometimes of the poorly-tested "genetically-modified" variety) in mass quantities and on a constant basis in areas that are not suited to the land, taking control of remaining natural resources for their own business aims, spraying toxic artificial pesticides and other poor farming practices, and we have an environmental disaster on our hands.

For example, the poor irrigation methods being employed today on a large-scale by a few business-oriented humans are reducing river flows and turning once fresh water into non-drinkable salty water as the ancient ocean salt from beneath the ground is brought to the surface.

As the environment becomes increasingly decimated in a process known as desertification, the old business principle of supply and demand combined with human greed and population growth is slowly but surely raising the price of food and water in the Australian supermarkets, electricity from hydroelectric dams, and other vital products and services. The only way to keep the prices down while continuing with this dangerous trend is for people to become more reliant on international companies to supply them with cheaper food, water and electricity (until those countries in which the companies reside experience their own environmental and high population problems).

Or alternatively, some local businesses may have to use new technologies like genetic engineering in the hope of solving this food shortage (and/or high food price) problem using the same type of crops. (15)

Unfortunately, as people in Australia and around the world are slowly finding out about our current food and water supply, the basic foods we all take for granted are starting to lose their quality, health benefits and natural taste in the supermarkets because of the heavy use of poorly-regulated antibiotics, growth hormones and other chemicals being injected into them, as well as poor testing of genetically-modified products.

John Humphrys, a leading BBC 4 presenter and commentator and now the author of a disturbing new book called The Great Food Gamble, said on ABC's The Science Show on Radio National on 13 October 2001:

'[People] should eat decent food, good food, not necessarily fancy food, but good, nutritious, and above all else, wholesome food. And I do not believe that what we are producing or what we have been producing for the last 40 or 50 years has filled any of those criteria. I think we've just been messing up our agriculture over the last 40 or 50 years, it's about time it stopped.'

In support of his argument, Humphrys has spoken to various farmers and can now safely say that many of our foods in the supermarket are tainted in some way with a variety of chemical concoctions of which little is known about their health effects on humans. Take for instance the salmon farm industry. As Humphrys stated on Radio National:

'...salmon are packed into cages, 100 thousand or more. In a relatively small cage, each salmon has the equivalent of half a bath tub full of water. Now you...feed them in a way that they must be fed [in these farms], very intensively with oily based foods. Then you image the amount that they defecate, you image what comes out of them. They live in their own waste....Now, in order to stop them getting wretched diseases, which of course they do..., you have to dose the salmon in all sorts of chemicals....

'Yes, of course, it has meant that we've now got cheaper salmon than we've ever had before. But look at the quality of the food we are eating, look at a piece of salmon, look at those big thick stripes of white - that's fat.

'A proper salmon, a salmon that has left it's spawning ground and has gone off into the Atlantic or whatever it happens to be, and has swarm back again, hasn't got all that muck inside it. It tastes of something, its flesh is a light pink. It tastes, wow, what can I say the difference between farm salmon and [natural salmon].'

Maybe it is time for people to leave the economy in droves to grow their own food on the land and manage the remaining natural resources better than the business corporations.

Better still, make it a job for the people to rebuild the environment and pay them for the effort. And make sure the available products and services for sale are fully recyclable.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
According to a recent report from ABS on the state of the environment in Australia, people are getting wealthier and at the same time creating more problems for the environment by using more of the precious natural resources and polluting the environment.

Over a period of 20 years to 2001, water consumption by humans on the Australian continent increased from 14,600 gigalitres in 1983-84 to 23,300 gigalitres annually in 1996-97 and increasing dramatically to this day (although this is now being forceably restricted due to the drought).

Energy consumption rose by 23 per cent during the 1990s with only a 10 per cent increase in the Australian population.

Greenhouse gases from transport is expected to be high in Australia because of the population's reliance on cars to cover vast distances. However, greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow in Australia, reaching 4.5 times higher than the world average. The major pollutor for greenhouse gas emissions is the nation's 12.2 million cars. The humble family car has managed to produce 56.3 per cent of total transport emissions.

Australian rivers are slowly getting polluted from agriculture and introduced pests (eg. carp) with higher than natural levels of sediment and nutrients in the water. And in some areas, agriculture has had a devastating effect on river water quality and quantity.

Since European settlement in the late 18th century, wildlife extinctions accelerated after humans cleared 100 million hectares of forest (which does not include the clearing caused by the massive bushfires in New South Wales and Victoria in January 2003).

The clearing of the forests in Australia have been primarily for agriculture and human settlement. In order to irrigate the crops to feed a nation and expand the economy through exports, irrigation increased by 30 per cent with Queensland taking the unenviable position of becoming the leader in the most water consumed for this purpose.

With all this clearing, burning, building, eating and driving around in cars without much recycling, there has to be a certain amount of waste returned to the environment.

On the solid waste front, Australia has succeeded in getting among the top 10 countries in the world for generating the most solid waste according to the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with more than 95 per cent of the solid waste coming from household bins. Most of this is due to business packaging, building material waste etc.

The Australian population's reliance on non-renewable fuels is increasing in Australia. But at least the production of renewable energy sources such as solar energy and wind generation remained stable between 1973 to 1998. And there is a growth in wind power of around 25 per cent a year and will continue at this rate until 2020.

Other positive trends include the fact that more farmers are becoming aware of their impact on the land with better irrigation and learning to keep the salt levels below the surface of the ground. And Australian households are recycling more in 2001 than a decade ago with 97 per cent doing some recycling instead of 85 per cent.

Finally, people who showed a concern for the environment fell from 75 per cent in 1992 to 62 per cent in 2001. Those people who expressed the least concern for the environment and where the biggest drop was made are people aged 18-24, possibly because they were more concerned about finding employment than worrying about the environment.

Will they have a roof over their heads and food on the table?

In summary, the report card on the environment for Australia is not good. Some positive improvements with more people recycling the things they can for the things they acquire from businesses. But overall, Australians were affecting the environment in a more detrimental way than ever before and all for the shear quest of finding employment, creating a business and eventually generating wealth.

Are world governments doing anything to solve these problems?
Well yes and no. It depends on the type of government and what their priorities are (eg. winning elections, maintaining secrets etc). But if there are world governments not worried about staying in power at election times and are open-minded to new ideas and can concentrate on fixing the needy problems, it is either not enough government are thinking this way or the improvements are eventually counteracted by the aims of business professionals and other interested individuals and groups through their own survival-based and/or profit-motivated activities.

It is only those world governments whose priority is to focus on any business and creating jobs to maintain power where the problem for the environment begins. Once the focus is on business and jobs of any type, the priority on looking after the environment usually sits at the bottom in the minds of these governments.

Even if such governments do try to look like they are interested in fixing the environmental problem, they believe the only solution is "To make more money so we can afford to tackle these problems; or if the problems are too hard, we can at least afford to buy what's left (even for things that might be on the verge of extinction)!"

The problem with money as the solution to world problems
There are governments who believe all environmental and social problems will disappear with a flick of the economic magic wand.

In other words, the solution is simple according to the government: let's make more money and get people into any jobs. And that means creating an ever-increasing number of businesses of any kind (just so long as a profit can be made); pay scientists more money to find any reasonable and quick fix solution for our problems; export more products to other countries no matter what it is, even the "dirty" ones like petroleum and uranium; entice more and more people in developed countries to make babies and start a new family just to support the businesses and the whole economic system; find an extra job or two or consider working overtime to help pay our way through life; and the list goes on.

If money is meant to be the panacea for all our world problems, then what do we do with it? As supposedly intelligent human beings, we are apparently choosing to apply more intensively and with the help of our technology the old "non-recycling" ways of growing food, extracting resources from the natural environment, and wasting valuable resources through our poor work practices. And even if some people do try to recycle waste products, too many other people are not. Furthermore, the increasing size of the human population is seeing more and more resources being consumed instead of reducing the consumption, especially when recycling is not one-hundred per cent effective as a healthy environment requires.

But this will cost us even more to survive (let alone live comfortably) in the future!

What are businesses doing about it?
Not a hell of a lot more than what world governments are doing (especially the ones focussed on the economy and nothing else). In other words, for those businesses who are trying to do the right thing, not enough of them exist to have a sufficient impact on the world stage. While those businesses that consider profit as the sole motivating factor for surviving tend to see the environment as a secondary issue or is basically someone elses problem and not theirs.

It is in the latter, the host of environmentally-unfriendly businesses, which is of concern to scientists around the world. Unless responsible governments can legislate businesses to do the right thing and make the right products, part of the problem for this is the way business professionals see money as the only solution to everything. It gets worse when the companies are owned by shareholders such as the average mums and dads who are expecting a return on their financial investment.

The other part of the problem has to do with the idea of change which is so inherent in the business world if it is likely to make money, yet paradoxically will not change themselves and their products for the sake of looking after the environment.

For example, in order to make money, all a business entrepreneur has to do is change the packaging of something, add one or two extra features (if necessary), make a product last for about 12 months or less (if they can get away with it), and any other constant changes. Any old products are quickly sold or discarded. Business entrepreneurs do this because they know substantial and quick profits come when L-brain people observing things think they can see a change in appearance. And the people interpret this change to mean a new and better product and therefore feel the need to constantly buy and consume it.

Unfortunately, not all the products are one-hundred per cent recyclable. There is extra waste each time business professionals implement the concept of change in their products. Even if the products are made smaller and more environmentally-friendly, the fact that not all the components making up the product are fully recycled or lasts an extremely long time and when those components are multiplied by the thousands or even millions, the waste generated by the change (let alone what comes out of the products during their lifespan) is enough to send shivers down anyone's spine!

At the same time, changes to a product do not necessarily translate into anything by way of significant improvements. The changes appear nothing more than superficial.

If profit-motivated (ie. no triple bottom-line thinking) business professionals want to continue with this "unbalanced" idea of making money through change, creating non-recyclable products, and getting people to constantly consume as much of these products as possible, a point must come when the environment is so far down the toilet that they will be forced to make their products completely safe to the environment and to the people and make sure there is enough of the raw materials to make the products for everyone for all times.

Products must at some point reach one-hundred percent recyclable status during the lifespan of the product while we are stuck on this planet for resources. And this can only happen when business professionals start to reevaluate the purpose of money and what we are all trying to achieve with it when living on this planet.

What about the rest of society?
With so many people working for government and businesss, the beliefs are remarkably similar. It is only those minority groups and individuals who don't work for anyone except for themselves or who are forward-thinking when running their own businesses are more likely to see the bigger picture of what's happening in the world.

Yes, there are many average working citizens on the street who believe the government and business is doing alright and money really is the answer. How else are we going to pay for various things? People need money to pay for food on the table and support their families. That's why world governments are endlessly talking about getting people to save money in superannuation, in cutting back vital social services, in creating more business growth and exporting more products to the world, in using draconian and punitive methods of forcing people to do what the government wants, and in raising taxes (especially during non-election years). All this is considered a normal part of human life today.

The social consequences for humanity?!
And what are the social consequences of taking this "let's make more money" approach to life?

If this trend continues, most people in the cities will probably be forced to communicate more often, more quickly (as time costs money) and in a sophisticated and cunning ways and with all sorts of technologies as they politely (for the moment until something drastic happens later) fight for what they need to survive and perhaps get rich. While other people who cannot afford the technology or the "gift of the gab" are already fighting in society in quiet ways for their share of the remaining resources (eg. populating the world, creating crime etc).

In the extreme situation where population is so high and resources are so pitifully low, it is likely world governments will probably have to raise huge amounts of money through the tax system just to fund law enforcement agencies and the defence department in order to protect themselves and all the rich and powerful people in the world from others who are just trying to survive and be like everyone else.

The kind of new tax system many world governments will have to introduce to raise enough money is one that will probably target human consumption (eg. the Goods and Services Tax, or GST) in all areas of our lives.

A change to this kind of taxation system in the 21st century will certainly force low-income people and many middle-income families to consume less and choose carefully what they really need to buy (17). Or raise more taxes for the government.

And if consumers consume less, increased job insecurity is the outcome for people working in non-essential service and product areas of the business and government employment sectors.

As for those families living well off in the high-income bracket, they will probably have to spend more money on security systems and spend extra time staying in the confines of their luxurious and self-contained (with its own childcare centres, swimming pools and supermarkets) mansions, government departments, or the parliament like a self-imposed luxury prison system just to protect themselves from other people in society who can't get what they need or want.

Then every election year, world governments spend a hefty amount of the taxes on advertisements to vote them into office and using fear tactics (eg. world security) to keep them in power.

Unless world governments can rethink its "money solution" approach and start to concentrate on something more substantial and relevant with respect to our "long-term" survival, there will be a massive social backlash on the present economic system in the near future. It is either that, or a time will come when every human being will be forced to experience a new deadly world war if famine and disease does not kill off enough humans. In fact, the threat of human extinction could be close at hand.

Are these consequences really occuring right now?
The horrifying trend described above is occurring right across the planet as we speak. In other words, it isn't confined to Australia or the United States. Even our major food bowls of the world are slowly being decimated. And we are all paying for it.

For example, in June 2001, the Asia Development Bank warned in a report of a major environmental catastrophe looming over Asia because of rapid population growth putting stress on the land to grow adequate amounts of food. Already it is claimed in the report that about 30 per cent of the Asian continent has suffered some form of degradation. (18)

Perhaps many of the businesspeople and those living well off may not see this, or would choose not to see it. So long as they earn enough money, it doesn't matter. But there are other people who are realising this fact as the following excerpt from the Australian Science Festival in Canberra 2001 magazine reveals on page 3:

'Are We At War Against Nature?

'The human species is defined by its ability to transform the world around it, but have we gone too far? Are we, in fact, at war with nature? Within the next 50 years we face the repercussions of global warming, unsustainable land practice, pollution of waterways and unchecked urban growth. What can be done?'

No matter how we want to look at the situation, one fact is clear today: we are transforming the world like never before. The United Nations can see it in their scientific reports.

Already we have the technological power to move whole mountains and affect the entire Earth's climate, soil and water supply. And such changes are causing many animal and plant species to rapidly decline in population numbers once again.

There is no doubt who is responsible for these changes. It is definitely the work of humans contributing to the mass extinction of plants and animals (and eventually ourselves as well if we are not too careful). This is not due to any natural change in climate. This is the work of humans affecting the climate and ultimately changing everything else on this planet on a grand scale.

If humans do not change their ways soon, our very own survival will be jeopardised. Either that, or we will have to rely entirely on our technology (eg. genetic engineering to grow our food, and chemical industries to supply our air and give us fresh water) to keep ourselves alive. And then we will definitely know what it means to live in a world where businesspeople would say: "There is no such thing as a free lunch!"

Now that would be a very sad world to live in for all of us! (19)

If things continue the way it is going today, scientists are certain that up to half the animal and plant species on this planet will be extinct in the next 100 years. Or perhaps much sooner, like say the next 5 or 10 years, if another great world war should commence and we start using atomic bombs, cluster bombs and biological warfare agents in a negative attempt to solve all our problems; and all because people won't change.

In fact, one of the sad facts about our society is how certain governments continue to hinder efforts by people to ban the development of bombs for the military.

We see this in the current Australian Federal Rudd Government as of May 2008.

As one person said:

'Whatever the Australian government is doing to frustrate the process of banning cluster bombs, it must end now.

In fact, ultimately it is time we end all wars on this planet as this naturally leads to the development of these kinds of bombs. And we are paying for it through taxes to the scientists who must survive by doing this work.

There are far more pressing issues such as climate change and looking after the environment we need to attend to. Because if we don't, a lot more people will starve and be displaced by droughts and rising sea levels and that would be the catalyst for more wars and with it more bombs.

It's a vicious and endless cycle that must be broken now.

Only people power can really change the attitude of governments and only if we are not preoccupied with mortgages and getting rich.'

So what is humanity going to do about it?
What's our choice? How are we going to solve world problems? Simple. By applying the principle of love with all people as we should have been taught after thousands of years, and the power of recycling in our environment and everything we make.

We can either turn planet Earth into a giant garden of Eden, a kind of free "recycling" food paradise for all living things and where all life is treated well; or a giant "non-recycling" toilet where even the tiniest fresh food will cost the Earth.

What's your choice?