The recently released film (Emmerich, R. / XX Cent. Fox) that motivates this article is an example of the blockbusters that Hollywood prepares for the avid masses of stunning stories that inhabit this miserable transition of both millennium and Era. Hardly credible? Well, a survey reflected that 78% of viewers though the film had a sound basis. The sad thing is that once again (here in holistic way) reality surpasses fiction.

The ludicrous 100 meter wave devastating New York which then freezes and is shown in the trailer is as far as I understand an obvious hallucination to sell the film. However, we know that events of this type actually happen and are called Tsunamis. The worst in recent history was that of Papua-New Guinea in 1998 when thousands died. This Tsunami coincided with the first effect in the western Pacific of "-ENSO", or superficial cooling off of the Pacific Ocean, event that could be matched with the melting of the Polar ice caps and the stop of the warm oceanic current that swirls towards the Northen Atlantic. Changes of pressure and temperature following the latter could release large tectonic vibrations which could break the local equilibriums at the time of producing seaquakes, these leading to waves of scores of meters of height moving at speeds of hundreds of kilometers per hour, fatally devastating cities, coastal villages, ships and ports. In this context of fragile equilibrium new lines of research are always developing such as that that concentrates on gravitational forces (or the effect that masses have on other masses, which are emphasized when the planets, satelites and sun are aligned) that affect the flows of magma of our planet.


Looking at the recent history in Europe of these cataclismic events, the happy public should know that in 1755 an earthquake-seaquake, with determining factors similar to those in the film, devastated the western coast of the Iberian Peninsula, at a cost of tens of thousands in lives (Lisbon had to be almost fully rebuilt); what is even less commnly known is that during the two centuries leading to 1750 the Northern Hemisphere suffered a Small Ice Age, period characterised by a general fall of temperature with cold winters. These facts analysed in tandem could lead to the following theory: the passage from a colder period to a warmer one on the Northern Hemisphere provoked the defrosting of the Polar ice cap and the cooling of the oceanic waters (as it is predicted to happen or may already be a reality) provoking the alteration of the fragile tectonic equilibrium of the mesoatlantic northern dorsal including the fault that goes from Azores to Gibraltar hence causing a Tsunami of 10-20 meters that moved at the incredible speed of 300 kilometers per hour.


But this is not the end of the story. Between 1730 and 1736 the island of Lanzarote (Canary Islands) saw the largest ever chain of volcanic eruptions observed on Earth, devastating and transforming the geography of the west side of the island, covering some 200 km² (Only bigger in landsurface was another in Iceland, North Atlantic!, in 1783!). The sismic episodes today in Canary Islands-Madeira area is happening simultaneously to similar events in Azores-Cape of San Vicente Ridge. Both are an indication that the thermal oceanic variations have many more consequences than the already serious of global climatic changes, like "El Nino-La Nina". For example we can name the foreseeable general ascent of the level of the sea in various meters and their coastal effects such as storms that could the first one damage, and second one destroy the very needed and expensive harbour infrastructures that both the developing and developed countries have built to enter into the global economy in a XXI century where autosuficiency is encouraged at both the economical and political levels, locally and regionally.


One of the large bio-climatic regulators of the planet, or Gaia, is the oceanic fitoplacton. Experts explain that it has a greater bio-regulating function than the tropical forests themselves: fitoplancton is key in the food chain of the seas, since it injects the water with O2 and absorbs the atmospheric CO2. However, it is in danger since a few years ago, on one hand due to the marine chemical contamination and on the other hand due to the over-fishing of large banks affecting the biological cycles. And we wonder why this fabulous greenness itself is not mentioned. What could be the reason? A case similar is that of the large coral reefs, which are dying en masse since many years and that already have received their death sentence from a variety of sources.



One of the recent theories, but for me the most interesting one and final cause of the rupture of the global bio-equilibrium, is the combination of the alteration of the terrestrial magnetism and its protective energy-electric aura, that provides a bio-physical stability seldomly mentioned, protects us by diverting fatal solar radiation (the lunar surface is to 150ºC), and diverting inter-stellar rays; its simple instability can be the cause of great damage to living entities at the time that can render useless the electrical equipment in which we rely on so much (research confirms that in the last few years its strength was reduced by 10%). The magnetosphere probably also deviates the meteorites-asteroids that cross our path, small certainly but very dangerous if their intensity increases, which would not only make collisions more frequent but would see larger items crashing into the Earth. Its effects are not only physical on the marine or terrestrial surface with more tsunamis, fires or added pollution (do not forget the crash occurred 65 million years ago and the dissapearence of the dinosaurs, sic), but also the combustion produced while traversing the atmosphere that would damage our already suffering ozone layer even more.



The hurricane-force occurrences are already worse and more frequent in the past 20 years (Caribbean and USA, France and the Mediterranean, South East Asian, Mozambique), within all planetary geography. Also waves of polar weather unexpectedly appear now and again in winter (North America, Western Europe, Japan). The special effects and the TV recordings inform us of the punctual force that Nature can free and in respect of which the modern and esteticist architecture, the public buildings, highways and infrastructures, ours highest technological development, are nothing but simple paper castles of high economic price.


Droughts (Sahel, Center America, India, Australia) have been provoking losses, famines and rural exoduses, and fires of global and local consequences since the 80's all over our planet, but with stronger effects in the impoverished countries where the simplest agrarian structures are scarce (without anything being done whether punctually or long term). We recall also that a few winters ago one of those waves of polar weather hit North America, neutralising with its icy strenght the electrical supplies of many areas of the country that lead to havoc within the cattle raisers since there was a massive loss of life in the industrial stockbreeding and crops.


It surprises in the film an ingenuous context of politicians and high hierarches with sincere control on the political reality, that if sensible would be able to change the course of the things, by articulating a new technological relation with the environment (CO2 emission) in little time, as if all the problem were the flammable fossils. It is simply a bad joke, having seen the evolution of directives of the developed countries since the end of the 80s, which ended with the grotesque photo of the Azores. In real life they would have been eaten by circunstances, because if something as punctual as the 11-S has happened, we can imagine a real global disaster, with corrupt and useless Bush, Aznars (Prestige), Putins or Berlusconis. The absurdly happy and heroic ending of the movie, specially created for silly families and empty of socio-political praxis caused me an almost disappointing impression, as it also did the call to plant young trees by the producers of the movie, cunning minds only thinking on ways of filling more and more their pockets. It is somewhat interesting the waves of inhabitants moving from the northern countries to the southern ones, an invasion of immigrants in the opposite direction to what is normally seen, that sounds remotely absurd and could only occur in a world full of sentimentalism.


The other key player in the history of our world are the military forces, both in their social and environmental aspects. Wars have always been present, but the availability of highly destructive armament at both simple and high technological level is a fact throughout the planet. Such devices are more often that not in the hands of despots, dictators and fragile and antidemocratic states or guerrillas warfares and have been developed following a great deal of research and also the creation of weapon factories by the rich countries. If today more than 70 latent, open conflicts fill the world map, what worse could happen in the event of a generalized environmental and economic chaos? (films of the Vietnam war, for instance) The nuclear weapons belonging to different states can destroy the planet, the life and its equilibrium, thirty or so times, with the consequent nuclear winter (do you remember the film from the 80s "The day after"?). The destructive global effects of an attack of this kind set at local level (India-Pakistan, China, Korea, Arabs-Israel axis, Cuba) would through gas and ionization affect the global weather and the protective capacity of the atmosphere, but also possibly the local tectonical equilibrium. All this it would happen before, during or after the scientifically known physical-climatic events already mentioned.


Having researched all these elements, models, studies and forecasts already well known and published by scientists since quite some time (together with the usual adláteres and henchmen of diverse multinationals that denie the worst), a new strategy is clearly glimpsed in which we say that to passed bull, to posteriori and in a media fashion rather than in an academic-institutional one, scientists have already established the certainty of the dangerous situation in which we find ourselves and in which great climatic-environmental consequences will derive from the antropisation of the industrialisation (process that since the middle of the XIX century is simply similar to a ball of snow moving downhill). Trying to slow down the perception of humankind of such great problems by saying that some variables decay a lot slower than calculated, that renewable and non-polluant energies (sic, nuclear) can stop the dynamics, that the plantation of young trees can be positive and key, that tropical forests can be saved and returned to their original state, that coral reefs will regenerate faster than expected, bla, bla, bla. .., is done many times with the only purpose to justify own projects by scientists and ecologists.


It would be more logical and better to discern and get ready for the largest Kaos ever existed and that will ever exist, to acknowledge current events and become conscient of the final sun rising. In the Mayan, Hindu and Jewish philosophies these prophecies are well known, but these days our post-industrial materialistic, or better, diabolic system that wants to wipe away from us the clear evidence.


A. Alejandro De Fez Laso
Canary Islands, June 2004
Agro-ecological Researcher