Paradise Lost is the title of a famous poem written by John Milton in 1677. Actually it was not literally “written” by Milton, because at this time in his life, John Milton was blind; he dictated it.
Paradise Lost is a poetic retelling of the book of Genesis particularly of the fall of Adam and Eve and it is embellished with vivid imagery for the reader to picture what might have taken place that fateful day in Eden when paradise was lost. Milton was not alone in his hope in God's promise to Adam and Eve. No, time after time in human human history, in music, poetry, lyrical song, book, painting or statue we have heard the tale. The theme of returning to Eden or from a place of peace humans once knew so well is a common theme in literature and in music.
In the sixties, folksinger Joni Mitchell wrote a song about getting “back into the garden.” Titled Woodstock, and named after the 1969 music and art festival in New York where the song was first played, it was later popularized by the folk band, Crosby, Still and Nash. The song, contains overtly biblical elements, with references like “child of God, ” “being caught in the devil’s bargain” and the notion of how we have to “get ourselves back to the garden;” but it does not mention redemption through Jesus Christ. instead the elements of the song lyrics entwine scriptural truths with evolutionary beliefs. Still, a half-truth is not completely true
It was a character named Mary Poppins who once sang, “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down;” likewise a little bit of biblical sounding religion helps the yeast-like lie from Satan grow. Truth is , since Paradise and fellowship with God was lost. man has found himself in a sorry condition. He spends his days in toil and labor, singing the blues and trying get himself out of the mess he is in. It is not until he looks at Jesus for an answer that he will find what he is looking for, the door to heaven and the key to enter.
Jesus, amazing Jesus, stands at the cross-hairs of time as the Alpha and the Omega; the beginning and the end…author and finisher of our Christian faith. People before Christ ‘s birth looked forward to the promise given and fulfilled in Christ. People AD look back in time to the cross and resurrection.
Because we Christians have believed the promise of God, the one that He made and kept and held since the beginning. We can trust that though paradise was lost, there is a way back, one way, a way that God himself provided.
His name is Jesus, and like the good book says, he saves his people from their sin. He restores all things and we, who have believed, are confident in Him.
Though Paradise was Lost, Paradise was Regained in Jesus Christ, something Milton knew as well. Adam and Eve gave into temptation, disobeyed, and lost Paradise... the Son resists temptation, obeys the word of God, is resurrected from death and regains forever what was lost.
Armageddon
Armageddon is a term used only once in the Bible, in Revelation 16:16. It is generally thought to be a devastating conflict, the great final battle of all battles on the earth, that is, the final battle between good and evil.
Venus and Mars
There is a song... It goes:
“Sitting in the stand of the sports arena,
waiting for the show to begin.
Red lights,
green lights,
strawberry wine,
a good friend of mine
follows the stars,
Venus and Mars are alright tonight.”
Paul McCartney and Wings.
“Sitting in the stand of the sports arena,
waiting for the show to begin.
Red lights,
green lights,
strawberry wine,
a good friend of mine
follows the stars,
Venus and Mars are alright tonight.”
Paul McCartney and Wings.
Gaia
The term Gaia is a modern reference to Gaea, the Greek goddess of ancient mythology. It refers to a female divine being that was “worshipped” by ancient cultures as the creator of earth and of all life on earth. Gaia, was not simply a female form of God, she was an entity, somewhat equated to "Eve" the first woman from whom all life proceeded... (Remember Eve, who by eating the fruit was expelled from Eden?) Gaia today is the equivalent of the same mythological goddess who was born herself out of chaos,. She is the one said to have birthed the Titans, Cyclops’ and the Hecatonchires. It is this Gaia, who is said to be our Earth mother... not God, but Gaia, the same goddess of old who was to be worshipped in ancient Greece.
There is a subtle move to modernize the ancient pagan worship of a feminine earthen goddess all around the world. Politicians talk about it, and scientists do too. In fact, it was novelist William Golding (author of Lord of the Flies) who proposed the name Gaia to English scientist James Lovelock. Lovelock has authored several books on the subject including, Gaia, A New Look At Life on Earth, (2000) ; The Ages of Gaia,(2000) and The Revenge of Gaia,(2007) and these books notably promote the Gaia concept we see so prevalent today. More than the traditional pagan worship of inanimate objects like air, fire, water, and rock, the worship of Gaia is the worship of all of Earth and our earth mother... "mother" nature, as well as a move to worship the "feminine" and perhaps even recognize it "in us all."
Since Lovelock's theories, Gaia has quickly become the scientific/political buzzword. It's used to describe (sometimes) the whole ecobiological system of life on earth; this because as goddess she is believed to be an entity with a powerful capacity to regulate herself, everything from climate to the composition of the Earth; and this despite the media cries of “global warming. According to Lovelock, humans are her nervous system, her senses.
Locklock says that it was after man walked on the moon that, “through our eyes, she has for the first time seen her very fair face and in our minds become aware of herself.” Lovelock says too that humanity needs to become conscious too, become aware that we are the world. He adds, “No longer can we merely regret the passing of one of the great whales, or the blue butterfly, nor even the smallpox virus. When we eliminate one of these from Earth, we may have destroyed a part of ourselves, for we also are a part of Gaia.” (Quote from: What Is Gaia? by James Lovelock, www.ecolo.org)
The premise of returning to Gaia appeals to many humans who realize we are in peril here upon the earth, doomed if not to annihilation by modern warfare, at least doomed to the grave. In our very being we see the world around us perishing, and we cannot help but long for someplace, someplace like Eden.
If one is honest, they would soon discover that the very thing humanity lost when Adam and Eve sinned, is the very thing that we humans long for in our heart of hearts. (It's the very thing God gave the world through Jesus Christ his only son, eternal life with a holy righteous God,) This is of course, if one is honest. One can also be decieved or be purely evil and vehemently hate everything having to do with holiness, peace and love, God, the Bible, Jesus and all that goes with it.
Gaia enthusiasts , for example, don’t believe "the God story," nor do they admit to "sin." These New Agers say that to return to our “true state” of being (hmmm... return where?) we must simply raise our consciousness by the act of our own will... (not God's will) and remember who we really are, (Hmmmm, what exactly have we forgotten?) that is, remember that "we are God." There are many ways to do this in new age spirituality, many ways to god, or to godhood... at least that is generally the belief.
On the atheistic and agnostic front Gaia as "a goddess" to be worshiped is somewhat meaningless but it represents for them a pursuit of getting in touch with our true human psyche, or our feelings, connecting our senses and our minds, even connecting to the rest of the world and helping humanity... for they are not stupid and can see with all the pollution and aids and wars and crime, that it is "obviously" in peril. They may even have a solution to offer... but it won't be religious, instead it will probably be military or some politics or law, a political regime.
For the agnostic, Gaia represents developing a love and feelings for all the creatures of earth and even for ourselves. They are apt to adopt some form spiritual consciousness, one where everyone is "okay"... and you're "okay, "as long as I am "okay. " Even Jesus is "okay", at least as long as it is not fundamentally linked to, or defined by, the biblical account of Jesus Christ and who he is because, and they will admit, they simply "do not know" and they do not want to know either because they kinda like the ambiguity of it all. Gaia, is okay too as far as agnoistics are concerned, according to Lovelock, this is because Gaia is scientific... (Homage to Gaia, The Life of an Independent Scientist, by James Lovelock; Pg 417)
Yes, the Goddess is no longer limited to a bygone pagan era, a religion left behind at the fall of Rome. Even Al Gore, ex vice-president of the United States of America who served with Bill Clinton from 1993-2001, has adopted such philosophy into his thinking and makes no mistake about promoting what he calls the Gaia theory.
Gore has a strong political stance in the affirmative on the issue of Gaia and he blames Christians for Gaia's demise. In his book Earth in the Balance-Ecology and the Human Spirit, (2006) Gore faults Christianity for the disappearance of the “goddess” religion. He writes, ‘the last vestige of organized goddess worship was eliminated by Christianity (as well as Islam) as late as the fifteenth century.”
Some things never change you see, Christianized society, then in ancient Rome as now, is somehow viewed as the enemy of those who so animatedly embrace this “Gaia,” or earth-based religion. But Christians did change the world. No kidding. You do remember don't you, how human sacrifices, temple prostitution and other unabashed sexual ceremonies... all part of ancient "Gaia" worship... have ended. And historically it was Peter, Paul and all those other Christians who were killed for no crime other than simply preaching about God and Jesus, that changed the minds and hearts of the pagan Roman world.
It's a pagan revival, one where God is no longer viewed as a male entity or as “Our Father” in heaven who is holy. All around the globe, animists are honored and revered, and there a movement to rediscover, or re-imagine, God into a female mother-god (or goddess) from whom all life is birthed. Women are referred to and refer to themselves as “divas,” and men believe they have a need to “get in touch with their feminine side.” Lesbianism (and male homosexuality) is considered not only "normal" sexual behavior, but vogue. ‘Girls rule, boys drool,” and since boys “drool,” so does the Christian concept of a father figure, or a son of God.
In this “new” way of thinking, the true ancient path walked by those like Adam and Moses and Abraham, those who walked and talked with God, even since the beginning of human history are not only dismissed and disregarded as some kind of myth or nonsense, but despised. Their ancient writings called the Bible and their beliefs about sin and sin's forgiveness is falsely blamed for all the problems in the world. The truth is that these ancient pathways walked by people who knew God are the very paths that lead to the true way home.
The New Age simply exchanges the truth of God for a serpent’s crafty lie, and calls what really is not new at all something “New” It’s not new, it is just the same old deception a green serpent gave to Eve, telling her she would be as God... only slickly repackaged for her children. It's a a false promise, a hope in a false promise of “sustainability,” on a planet that will one perish. It's a lie from that ol serpent himself that humans will find freedom and sustainability of their lives in worshiping the earth or any created things, as "God."
This is not mythical, not a fairytale. It’s common for highly educated men and women, people who study at university, who own and operate businesses, who work in high governmental positions of authority, even people who run for the presidential office to discuss environmental issues using the term “Gaia.” Like Lovelock and Gore, who's books they read, who's ideas they aspire to, there are those who believe that the Earth is alive. They believe it is an organism, one that is in itself a dynamic and intelligent being and one that human beings should bow down to and serve with all their hearts minds and strength. This is a growing religion and more and more people and their politics all over the planet Earth are turning “green."
Yes, "green" and this, just when you thought black and whites could finally get over racial issues. Now-a-days people have started identifying themselves politically as being various shades of green.
There are earth-centered greens or people centered greens with earth centered deeper greens being more politically correct than all the rest. In the political human quest to preserve the most favored species on the planet, it seems they are green with envy over who should be the fittest and most deserving of them all. They want to "save" the earth, and to make the world a perfect home and to do so they will control population and birth defects by killing, cut health care costs with physician assisted suicide and euthanasia, even let humans starve to death over politics and give animals their human rights.
If you know anything about being politically "green," you have do doubt heard of Gaia, and you need to realize that Gaia worship is at the heart of all things "green" in political arenas today.
There is a subtle move to modernize the ancient pagan worship of a feminine earthen goddess all around the world. Politicians talk about it, and scientists do too. In fact, it was novelist William Golding (author of Lord of the Flies) who proposed the name Gaia to English scientist James Lovelock. Lovelock has authored several books on the subject including, Gaia, A New Look At Life on Earth, (2000) ; The Ages of Gaia,(2000) and The Revenge of Gaia,(2007) and these books notably promote the Gaia concept we see so prevalent today. More than the traditional pagan worship of inanimate objects like air, fire, water, and rock, the worship of Gaia is the worship of all of Earth and our earth mother... "mother" nature, as well as a move to worship the "feminine" and perhaps even recognize it "in us all."
Since Lovelock's theories, Gaia has quickly become the scientific/political buzzword. It's used to describe (sometimes) the whole ecobiological system of life on earth; this because as goddess she is believed to be an entity with a powerful capacity to regulate herself, everything from climate to the composition of the Earth; and this despite the media cries of “global warming. According to Lovelock, humans are her nervous system, her senses.
Locklock says that it was after man walked on the moon that, “through our eyes, she has for the first time seen her very fair face and in our minds become aware of herself.” Lovelock says too that humanity needs to become conscious too, become aware that we are the world. He adds, “No longer can we merely regret the passing of one of the great whales, or the blue butterfly, nor even the smallpox virus. When we eliminate one of these from Earth, we may have destroyed a part of ourselves, for we also are a part of Gaia.” (Quote from: What Is Gaia? by James Lovelock, www.ecolo.org)
The premise of returning to Gaia appeals to many humans who realize we are in peril here upon the earth, doomed if not to annihilation by modern warfare, at least doomed to the grave. In our very being we see the world around us perishing, and we cannot help but long for someplace, someplace like Eden.
If one is honest, they would soon discover that the very thing humanity lost when Adam and Eve sinned, is the very thing that we humans long for in our heart of hearts. (It's the very thing God gave the world through Jesus Christ his only son, eternal life with a holy righteous God,) This is of course, if one is honest. One can also be decieved or be purely evil and vehemently hate everything having to do with holiness, peace and love, God, the Bible, Jesus and all that goes with it.
Gaia enthusiasts , for example, don’t believe "the God story," nor do they admit to "sin." These New Agers say that to return to our “true state” of being (hmmm... return where?) we must simply raise our consciousness by the act of our own will... (not God's will) and remember who we really are, (Hmmmm, what exactly have we forgotten?) that is, remember that "we are God." There are many ways to do this in new age spirituality, many ways to god, or to godhood... at least that is generally the belief.
On the atheistic and agnostic front Gaia as "a goddess" to be worshiped is somewhat meaningless but it represents for them a pursuit of getting in touch with our true human psyche, or our feelings, connecting our senses and our minds, even connecting to the rest of the world and helping humanity... for they are not stupid and can see with all the pollution and aids and wars and crime, that it is "obviously" in peril. They may even have a solution to offer... but it won't be religious, instead it will probably be military or some politics or law, a political regime.
For the agnostic, Gaia represents developing a love and feelings for all the creatures of earth and even for ourselves. They are apt to adopt some form spiritual consciousness, one where everyone is "okay"... and you're "okay, "as long as I am "okay. " Even Jesus is "okay", at least as long as it is not fundamentally linked to, or defined by, the biblical account of Jesus Christ and who he is because, and they will admit, they simply "do not know" and they do not want to know either because they kinda like the ambiguity of it all. Gaia, is okay too as far as agnoistics are concerned, according to Lovelock, this is because Gaia is scientific... (Homage to Gaia, The Life of an Independent Scientist, by James Lovelock; Pg 417)
Yes, the Goddess is no longer limited to a bygone pagan era, a religion left behind at the fall of Rome. Even Al Gore, ex vice-president of the United States of America who served with Bill Clinton from 1993-2001, has adopted such philosophy into his thinking and makes no mistake about promoting what he calls the Gaia theory.
Gore has a strong political stance in the affirmative on the issue of Gaia and he blames Christians for Gaia's demise. In his book Earth in the Balance-Ecology and the Human Spirit, (2006) Gore faults Christianity for the disappearance of the “goddess” religion. He writes, ‘the last vestige of organized goddess worship was eliminated by Christianity (as well as Islam) as late as the fifteenth century.”
Some things never change you see, Christianized society, then in ancient Rome as now, is somehow viewed as the enemy of those who so animatedly embrace this “Gaia,” or earth-based religion. But Christians did change the world. No kidding. You do remember don't you, how human sacrifices, temple prostitution and other unabashed sexual ceremonies... all part of ancient "Gaia" worship... have ended. And historically it was Peter, Paul and all those other Christians who were killed for no crime other than simply preaching about God and Jesus, that changed the minds and hearts of the pagan Roman world.
It's a pagan revival, one where God is no longer viewed as a male entity or as “Our Father” in heaven who is holy. All around the globe, animists are honored and revered, and there a movement to rediscover, or re-imagine, God into a female mother-god (or goddess) from whom all life is birthed. Women are referred to and refer to themselves as “divas,” and men believe they have a need to “get in touch with their feminine side.” Lesbianism (and male homosexuality) is considered not only "normal" sexual behavior, but vogue. ‘Girls rule, boys drool,” and since boys “drool,” so does the Christian concept of a father figure, or a son of God.
In this “new” way of thinking, the true ancient path walked by those like Adam and Moses and Abraham, those who walked and talked with God, even since the beginning of human history are not only dismissed and disregarded as some kind of myth or nonsense, but despised. Their ancient writings called the Bible and their beliefs about sin and sin's forgiveness is falsely blamed for all the problems in the world. The truth is that these ancient pathways walked by people who knew God are the very paths that lead to the true way home.
The New Age simply exchanges the truth of God for a serpent’s crafty lie, and calls what really is not new at all something “New” It’s not new, it is just the same old deception a green serpent gave to Eve, telling her she would be as God... only slickly repackaged for her children. It's a a false promise, a hope in a false promise of “sustainability,” on a planet that will one perish. It's a lie from that ol serpent himself that humans will find freedom and sustainability of their lives in worshiping the earth or any created things, as "God."
This is not mythical, not a fairytale. It’s common for highly educated men and women, people who study at university, who own and operate businesses, who work in high governmental positions of authority, even people who run for the presidential office to discuss environmental issues using the term “Gaia.” Like Lovelock and Gore, who's books they read, who's ideas they aspire to, there are those who believe that the Earth is alive. They believe it is an organism, one that is in itself a dynamic and intelligent being and one that human beings should bow down to and serve with all their hearts minds and strength. This is a growing religion and more and more people and their politics all over the planet Earth are turning “green."
Yes, "green" and this, just when you thought black and whites could finally get over racial issues. Now-a-days people have started identifying themselves politically as being various shades of green.
There are earth-centered greens or people centered greens with earth centered deeper greens being more politically correct than all the rest. In the political human quest to preserve the most favored species on the planet, it seems they are green with envy over who should be the fittest and most deserving of them all. They want to "save" the earth, and to make the world a perfect home and to do so they will control population and birth defects by killing, cut health care costs with physician assisted suicide and euthanasia, even let humans starve to death over politics and give animals their human rights.
If you know anything about being politically "green," you have do doubt heard of Gaia, and you need to realize that Gaia worship is at the heart of all things "green" in political arenas today.
Magnetic Force
“The earth’s magnetic force is moving! The earth’s magnetic force is moving!” The cry is a little bit like the little chicken, ‘Henny Penny,” (or was it “Chicken Little”) that yelled, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!”
By any name, in any culture, the fable is about a little chicken that believes the sky is falling down because an acorn falls on her head. There are many version as it has been passed on and on from ears to lips from lips to ear from lips to ears over the years, but in true fable fashion, it always ends with a moral of some kind. The most common moral is “do not believe everything you hear.”
In the story, the chicken jumps to a conclusion because of a little acorn, whips the entire barnyard into hysteria and the next thing you know there’s some carnivorous fiend, (usually the fox) that is attempting to manipulate the situation into his own personal lunch. Like the Little Red Hen, or the Chicken Little story, we see mass hysteria forming today as media informs us of all the dangers there are in the world. "Global Warming!" they cry, along with things like ‘The earth’s magnetic force is moving!” Anything is game as long as it creates mass hysteria that moves people into action against the evil threat.
So what is up with the magnetic field of earth? It is moving? Will it's movement be the demise of life upon the earth?
The north magnetic pole was first discovered in 1831, and when it was reassessed in 1904, explorers found it had moved by 50 km! (31 miles) More recently, Peter Olsen, geophysicist from John Hopkins University in Maryland who has studied the issue commented, “The Earth's magnetic field has been our protector for millennia, and now, it appears, it's about to go away.”
(Go away?) How serious is this?
According to Olsen, “…its strength is rapidly decreasing, so fast that at the current rate it will last only into the next millennium.” (He said, millennium" and that means one thousand years.)
Even the BBC News December 12, 2005 reported that “The Earth's north magnetic pole is drifting away from North America so fast that it could end up in Siberia within 50 years.” Other researchers like The Space Science Institute are more conservative; they anticipate a reversal, but they say, “Sometime in the next 10,000 years.”
Who is a person to believe?
he PBS television series, NOVA, on November 18, 2003 first televised their program called Magnetic Storm: When Compasses Point South. In this program we we told that paleomagnetists report that reversals in the Earth's magnetic field are as common as ice ages, and that such reversals from North to South and South to North have happened “hundreds of times in our planet's history.” The NOVA website, complete with a guide for teachers to use in their classrooms, provoke people into inquiry by asking the question, “Is the magnetic field protecting earth from deadly radiation about to reverse direction or disappear altogether?”
Well, it depends on who you think the expert is.
It can be unsettling to learn of global phenomena that are "inherently unstable," " unpredictable" as is the case with the Earth's magnetic field, they say as they shout like the 1920's newspaper boys, “The Earth’s magnetic field is moving!” Students from coast to coast now, not only have to worry about crime, air pollution, water pollution, global warming, overpopulation and ozone depletion, and the failing economy, they can worry about the effects on our lives as magnetic north completely disappears too.
The teaching materials for teachers to use with their classrooms (available at the NOVA webpage) tries to offer the now frieghtened reader at least some comfort when they say, “You could perhaps take comfort in the knowledge that these reversals happen infrequently—on average every 250,000 years" only to revers it, "—but maybe not when you consider that it's been over 700,000 years since the last reversal, and the next one may be currently underway.” Offering comfort and then taking it away is bound to leave the average student believing that the whole world they’ve barely discovered themselves in their youth is falling apart at the seams!
NOVA’s materials suggest catastrophe is about to fall upon the earth yet they do offer tools to educators to “discuss with students how Earth changes over time” and lead the classroom in a discussion about “other examples of change.” It’s the kind of thing that makes one wonder if the students are really learning facts and being given an opportunity to actually think for themselves as they discuss science, or if they are being cohearsed in their thinking by this strange implementation of fear.
In spite of the initial fears such information given to the masses, it appears there still may be hope for earth and it's magnetic fields for scientist also believe that there are various electrical currents created as the earth rotates They think that somehow the high temperatures in the Earth's core continues to create more magnetic fields. They say that despite the fluctuations we can see, the magnetic field seems to be something that is constantly replenished as the earth spins in orbit with it’s solid inner iron core surrounded by molten iron and nickel.
Most scientists believe that the magnetic field has possibly reversed sometime in the past, but most of what we humans really understand about the mechanics of it all is not concretely evidenced. For example, no one has actually seen the inner core of the earth, or even ever taken a sample. It’s theoretical, based on things we do know and understand.
Gary Glatzmaier, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences of the University of CA is responsible for a lot of the computer models of the earth’s magnetic field. He is a proponent of the idea that there may be a reversal of the Earth's magnetic field sometime in the future, and he says, the flipping of the Earth's fading magnetic field is no cause for great concern. HE is quoted in National Geographic News, September 27, 2004, saying, "The field has reversed many times in the past, and life didn't stop."
By any name, in any culture, the fable is about a little chicken that believes the sky is falling down because an acorn falls on her head. There are many version as it has been passed on and on from ears to lips from lips to ear from lips to ears over the years, but in true fable fashion, it always ends with a moral of some kind. The most common moral is “do not believe everything you hear.”
In the story, the chicken jumps to a conclusion because of a little acorn, whips the entire barnyard into hysteria and the next thing you know there’s some carnivorous fiend, (usually the fox) that is attempting to manipulate the situation into his own personal lunch. Like the Little Red Hen, or the Chicken Little story, we see mass hysteria forming today as media informs us of all the dangers there are in the world. "Global Warming!" they cry, along with things like ‘The earth’s magnetic force is moving!” Anything is game as long as it creates mass hysteria that moves people into action against the evil threat.
So what is up with the magnetic field of earth? It is moving? Will it's movement be the demise of life upon the earth?
The north magnetic pole was first discovered in 1831, and when it was reassessed in 1904, explorers found it had moved by 50 km! (31 miles) More recently, Peter Olsen, geophysicist from John Hopkins University in Maryland who has studied the issue commented, “The Earth's magnetic field has been our protector for millennia, and now, it appears, it's about to go away.”
(Go away?) How serious is this?
According to Olsen, “…its strength is rapidly decreasing, so fast that at the current rate it will last only into the next millennium.” (He said, millennium" and that means one thousand years.)
Even the BBC News December 12, 2005 reported that “The Earth's north magnetic pole is drifting away from North America so fast that it could end up in Siberia within 50 years.” Other researchers like The Space Science Institute are more conservative; they anticipate a reversal, but they say, “Sometime in the next 10,000 years.”
Who is a person to believe?
he PBS television series, NOVA, on November 18, 2003 first televised their program called Magnetic Storm: When Compasses Point South. In this program we we told that paleomagnetists report that reversals in the Earth's magnetic field are as common as ice ages, and that such reversals from North to South and South to North have happened “hundreds of times in our planet's history.” The NOVA website, complete with a guide for teachers to use in their classrooms, provoke people into inquiry by asking the question, “Is the magnetic field protecting earth from deadly radiation about to reverse direction or disappear altogether?”
Well, it depends on who you think the expert is.
It can be unsettling to learn of global phenomena that are "inherently unstable," " unpredictable" as is the case with the Earth's magnetic field, they say as they shout like the 1920's newspaper boys, “The Earth’s magnetic field is moving!” Students from coast to coast now, not only have to worry about crime, air pollution, water pollution, global warming, overpopulation and ozone depletion, and the failing economy, they can worry about the effects on our lives as magnetic north completely disappears too.
The teaching materials for teachers to use with their classrooms (available at the NOVA webpage) tries to offer the now frieghtened reader at least some comfort when they say, “You could perhaps take comfort in the knowledge that these reversals happen infrequently—on average every 250,000 years" only to revers it, "—but maybe not when you consider that it's been over 700,000 years since the last reversal, and the next one may be currently underway.” Offering comfort and then taking it away is bound to leave the average student believing that the whole world they’ve barely discovered themselves in their youth is falling apart at the seams!
NOVA’s materials suggest catastrophe is about to fall upon the earth yet they do offer tools to educators to “discuss with students how Earth changes over time” and lead the classroom in a discussion about “other examples of change.” It’s the kind of thing that makes one wonder if the students are really learning facts and being given an opportunity to actually think for themselves as they discuss science, or if they are being cohearsed in their thinking by this strange implementation of fear.
In spite of the initial fears such information given to the masses, it appears there still may be hope for earth and it's magnetic fields for scientist also believe that there are various electrical currents created as the earth rotates They think that somehow the high temperatures in the Earth's core continues to create more magnetic fields. They say that despite the fluctuations we can see, the magnetic field seems to be something that is constantly replenished as the earth spins in orbit with it’s solid inner iron core surrounded by molten iron and nickel.
Most scientists believe that the magnetic field has possibly reversed sometime in the past, but most of what we humans really understand about the mechanics of it all is not concretely evidenced. For example, no one has actually seen the inner core of the earth, or even ever taken a sample. It’s theoretical, based on things we do know and understand.
Gary Glatzmaier, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences of the University of CA is responsible for a lot of the computer models of the earth’s magnetic field. He is a proponent of the idea that there may be a reversal of the Earth's magnetic field sometime in the future, and he says, the flipping of the Earth's fading magnetic field is no cause for great concern. HE is quoted in National Geographic News, September 27, 2004, saying, "The field has reversed many times in the past, and life didn't stop."
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