Take your Pick: Honest to god (so to speak) IF I were a believing person -- which I am NOT -- but let us just say for a moment I WERE a believing person and a Christian to boot subscribing to the New Testament Book of Revelation, I can see where those believers would tout the events especially since 9/11 as the beginning of the End Times.

When one thinks present time about the climate changes, the melting of the ice caps, the floods, the fires, the earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts and generally EXTREME bizarre weather phenomena, hurricanes galore, tornadoes and snow where there was heretofore little, it does seem like something is out of whack. Those things alone could bankrupt a nation state. Oh yes, that reminds me, dare I forget the plunging economy which still presents huge unemployment and loss of savings with no health care for many. Worse, when one thinks the banks are doing the EXACT same things with little regulation and experts have said another 2008 crash is nearly a certainty; salt and pepper in a clash of civilizations with a nuclear war hammer held above man’s head and, oh yes, the possibility of a pandemic flu, I can see where Bible toters would think to get ready for Jesus who will be coming on a cloud to take the believers up to heaven.

If one were not a Christian who would never subscribe to a belief in Jesus even assuming one believed in god, one might see those events in rational, scientific terms and not in myth. One might say 3/4 of these extreme events are man made. I believe global warming is in large part man made through man’s progression toward and embrace of industrialization, its attendant emission of gas choking carbon dioxide both to man, animals, to our fragile atmosphere and ultimately to the balance of nature itself. I believe carbon should be capped. I believe filthy oil and energy should be changed to CLEAN energy. I believe the extreme weather events come from a temperature increase which accounts for global warming and that its upset of the balance of nature is man made.

I SURELY believe the economic catastrophes are man made and believe the US is the epicenter of that. I believe war, too, is, of course, man made waged in an age where war NEVER will be won. I believe the economic collapse of 2008 and future ones should be placed squarely in human laps of an unregulated Wall Street gone wild holding hands with their government money-soaked enablers.

So, one can sit back and just let er rip to wait for Jesus to come down on a cloud to take believers to heaven and send non-believers to hell OR one might use one's cerebral intelligence evolution bestowed upon us, which accounts for man's great survival despite the harshness of nature, to, in combination with government and the private sector, solve these problems, save the planet and us as inhabitants thereof. Take your pick. It's up to you. I know what I would choose!