During the last ice age, warm interludes occurred when temperatures increased 10 to 18 degrees within 10 years. The chaotic weather variations resulted from shifting ocean currents and other unknown factors. Evidence suggests "strong changes in a system may not necessarily be triggered by strong external perturbation."
Thus, "pollution and ether environmental damage wrought by humans could spawn huge, unpredictable climate changes" (Discover, 5-2002)
New evidence suggests the contemporary idea of dinosaurs becoming extinct because of an asteroid impact is only partly true. Studies at the Hell Creek Formation show that a surprising number of environmentally sensitive species survived the six to twelve month period of cold, darkness and acid rain that followed the impact.
It seems some "environmental stress was acting disproportionately upon dinosaurs."
Evidence was found that 90 percent of both flowering plants and freshwater mussels went extinct prior to the asteroid impact. Dinosaurs were likely impacted by the widespread plant die-off.
"What we are seeing is major environmental destabilization before the planet got hammered with an extra-terrestrial object."
Environmental changes that impact habitat affect life by "altering the rules of the game." Add a "large, instantaneous ecological disturbance," to a struggling ecosystem, and weakened plants and animals will likely die off. The asteroid could have been the "knockout blew in a fight the dinosaurs had already lost."
Humans "could very well be in an interglacial period that's part of a larger pattern of climate fluctuation." Many species are now dying out.
Add human caused worldwide disturbances to this present "time of severe environmental stress," and we humans could be the "contemporary equivalent of the asteroid" that long age struck the earth (Discover, 5-2002).
Even Darwinian evolutionists cannot explain what compelled humans to change so quickly from primate ancestors. Behavior scientist William Calvin, in A Brain for All Seasons, blames the weather.
Scientists now know that climate can change drastically in just a few years, causing plunging temperatures and severe droughts. Ecological crises have occurred frequently during the ice ages of the last 117,000 years. Each climate shift "weeded out large parts of the population."
"Radical climate change could quickly do a number on us." Quite rapidly "we could go back to ice-age temperatures."
Warns Calvin, "The result would be a population crash that would take much of civilization with it, all within a decade (Discover, 5-2002).
"Others are engaging even in an ecotype of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes [and] volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves... So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon ether nations," said Secretary of Defense William Cohen at a 1997 counterterrorism conference: (Source unknown)
How do we know? Because the US has proceeded with the HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project) since 1993 which has (officially denied) potential for weather modification. It is partly based on the Tesla-inspired work of a Texas physicist named Eastlund whose patented “ionospheric heater" demonstrated weather altering possibilities (earthpulse.com).
This year Fayetteville High School senior art students chose for their public project the displaying of banners and flags bearing messages of hope and love. Patterned after similar practices in Tibetan culture, prayers and visual images are drawn on cloth and placed so the messages could be scattered in the wind. (The Morning News, 5-7-02)
Does the universe exist if we're not looking? Thus asks physicist John Wheeler, 90 year-old contemporary of Einstein and Niels Bohr, who suspects human consciousness shapes both the present and the past, that the universe is "constantly emerging from a haze of possibility" and that the cosmos is made real partly by our own observations.
Why does the universe exist? Quantum mechanics blurs the boundary between the objective "world out there" and our own subjective consciousness. The behavior of both light and the building blacks of atoms is determined by scientists' methods of observations, making the universe "an extremely interactive place.”
Wheeler has long maintained that the universe and its laws of physics are "fine-tuned to permit the existence of life." He also suggests our observations "actually contribute to the creation of physical reality." We are "shapers and creators living in a participatory universe."
Wheeler maintains the universe is "built like an enormous feedback loop in which we help create not only the present and future but also the past. The universe is "a work in progress; we are tiny patches of the universe looking at itself – and building itself."
Looking back in time, our present observations select but one of an infinite number of possible quantum histories for the universe, "The mystery of creation may lie not in the distant past but in the living present."
Another physicist and former Wheeler student comments that quantum mechanics dictates "severe limits on the certainty of our knowledge. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness. . . The universe and observer exist as a pair. . . In the absence of observers, our universe is dead."
"How come existence?" may not be answered at our level of intelligence, especially since, as one physicist puts it, “I doubt that we’re the last word in intelligence.”
But, we need to ask the questions. Even trickier is asking “Why?”
Wheeler thinks that one day we will have a clear understanding of the origin of the universe. (Discover, 5-2002)