Source: CVDaily Feed
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“The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn’t going anywhere. We are!”

—George Carlin

We’re not that important. Humans, I mean to say, just are not that big of a deal. And we humans, alive and well in 2015, are living in no more spectacular times than any other era since World War II.

Yet, there are those that believe that after 3 1/2 billion years of thriving, raging life, that Mother Earth is in her death throe…and some people think we are the cause of Her destruction. Us! We are the ones that will see–and possible cause–the end of everything. A generation of humans that retweets stories about the Kardashians, downloads Macklemore songs and enters 62 fantasy football leagues every year is going to witness this mammoth blue orb cease and desist.

We have made this world more stupid, but we will not kill it off. And I doubt that all we know will end anytime soon. We just are not that special. Maybe an apocalypse is coming, but not today, tomorrow or anytime in the life of any human alive right now. It’s just not happening. There just is nothing remarkable about this era in time. You still have to pay your iPhone bill. Accept that and get on with your day.

Still, I cannot pick up a purportedly legitimate newspaper without reading a story about “preppers” who are stocking up with supplies for what they believe is the End of Days.

Slow news day, Trib?

This article gave the reasoning behind many “preppers” belief that [BLEEP] is about to get real. A hodgepodge of Jewish lore, a rotation of the full moon, financial instability in the world and seismologists’ belief that an earthquake could hit Utah soon makes for a cacophony of cataclysmic catastrophes.

It seems this expected extinction event also allows astute alliteration from cheeky columnists.

Regardless of the reason why everything we hold dear and take for granted will be shaken from its bedrock foundation, “preppers” are well, umm, prepped. Because when the world ends, having 60 cases of canned tuna fish will be the margin by which some live whilst nearly everyone else perishes.

No tuna = certain death. Sorry, Charlie!

Most of these people believe the structure of the world is going to collapse because Ron Paul said so in a “for profit” video infomercial. Paul, a darling of the Libertarians, has stated that we are headed for an economic armageddon; and the best way his whackadoo followers think they can prepare for this monumental shift in the world’s economies is to build modern-day fallout shelter with an arsenal of guns, bottled water and an army’s supply of Quaker Oats. This is why Libertarians never win elections. No one wants to vote for a guy who has a bunker in his backyard.

On Tuesday, I walked by a supermarket in downtown Logan, Utah. Right there, outside the front door, was a string of 55 gallon drums for sale. Also, large water containers were available. I paused a moment trying to figure out why these items were so prominently displayed. Nothing made sense as I went about my business trying to put the puzzle together. Then it came to me. Nutjob doomsdayers shop at that store.

Nuts is now normal. And nothing found in the Book of Revelation is beyond a supermarket’s ability to make a profit out of a prophecy. 55 gallon drums. Madness.

The history of the world is filled with failed oracles regarding the end of the world. Natural events have caused uneducated and unenlightened people from the earliest days of language to write dire predictions about how we are all doomed. None of which have come true. Not one. In baseball terms, those who emphatically said the Day of Reckoning was at hand are batting .000. Every single soothsayer on this subject has been completely wrong.

Y2K? Came and went.

Barack Obama? Lousy president, but so was Rutherford B. Hayes and we survived him.

The Mayan calendar? Yeah, that was a thing. Do you know why the Mayan calendar stopped at December 21st, 2012? The guy writing the thing grew bored. He wrote it 5,000 years ago! Back then, the average life expectancy was 30 years old. Whoever drew up the calendar figured someone else would add on time later, if necessary.

Ever go to a baseball game? Most scoreboards only list ten innings. If a game is tied after they have played 10 innings, does the world end? They just erase the previous statistics and put the runs scored in the 11th inning in the 1st inning slot. If the Mayans were around in 2012, they would have just gone to Wal-mart and bought a 2013 One Direction calendar. Problem solved, crisis averted.

Nostradamus? He was an apothecary. He took his own drugs and wrote what was the 16th Century equivalent of a Pink Floyd album.

Does anyone in my age group or older remember that Nostradamus documentary hosted by Orson Welles that appeared on ABC in the early ‘80’s? The one that said we all would be dead within a decade? That scared the ever-loving Jesus into my soul. But still, we lived. Not even Orson Welles with his magnificent rotundity could bring about The Last Days.

Sadly, and frighteningly, it is not just the ignorant and illiterate who are convinced that the Earth is in peril. Let us not forget the whackadoo fringe known as the environmentalists! Yes, they too have a book of dire prophecies that they espouse. It’s called the Book of Climate Change.

Have you ever listened to climatologists give a speech of hyperbolic forecasts? Or do you just believe in Climate Change because Hillary Clinton said it is real in a tweet? Does any logical human being believe that Florida can be submerged…and that Nevada can be beachfront property if we do not allow the environmental lobby to have unfettered control of our everyday lives?

Small example:

In Seattle, there are tax-funded city employees whose sole job is to go around and sift through the trash containers of Seattleites. If they find that a resident has placed a water bottle in the regular trash, or that they have not composted waste to the copiously detailed regulations mandated by the city, then a fine is imposed. You cannot object to the fine.

I really want you to think about that. A major U.S. city can go through your trash so as to ensure you are doing your part to save the world from destruction via recycling negligence.

That is fanaticism! There is no difference between the preacher standing at a pulpit in a Tennessee megachurch telling his followers that God’s Wrath is days away and a Seattle city worker who feels a swell of duty scouring your trash to ensure that your Burger King wrapper does not kill off over 3 billion years of the Earth’s progress.

Nostradamus was no more a kook than Bill “The End Is” Nye when he tries to convince the world that ONLY the environmental lobby can save us from certain, imminent death.

Cynicism in the name of rationality is not a vice. All predictions about the world ending have failed. No current events, political or geological, is so extreme that any of us should worry that we cannot make it to Starbucks in the morning for a latte. When wildly amplified prognostications of what the future–or lack of one–will entail are spouted, I raise a skeptical eyebrow. I think that makes me sane in a world of people with way too many cans of tuna stocked in a bunker under their house.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The opinion that the End of the World is not happening is solely that of Harry Caines. The Cache Valley Media Group is not liable for any damages caused to the reader’s possessions should the Apocalypse actually happen.