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Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Genesis and Climate Change

Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are.... --- Al Gore, chairman and co-founder of Generation Investment Management, a London-based business that sells carbon credits (Grist Magazine May 9, 2006)

(Mongolian Family Uses Solar Energy © UN Photo / E. Debebe)



"Abandon earth..." -- Stephen Hawking



Alice C. Linsley

Everyone seems to be talking about the heat and strange weather this summer. Stephen Hawking thinks that it is time to abandon earth because of global warming and the threat of the Sun devouring Earth.

What's going on?  You hear weather specialists talk about El Niño and La Niña, about ocean temperatures, about wind currents, and about the shrinking Arctic ice cap, but nobody is talking about the expanding Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina and Pio XI glacier in Chile. There's plenty of talk about how humans have caused atmospheric pollution leading to the greenhouse effect, but the magnitude of the gas emissions involved in the atmospheric warming by greenhouse gases is inadequate to account for the magnitude of temperature increases. Total human contributions to greenhouse gases account for only about 0.28% of the "greenhouse effect". So what causes the up and down cycles of global climate change?

One factor that nobody is talking about is the cycle of Earth's Great Year which brings fluctuation in earth's great river systems and affects sea levels. "The expansions and contractions of those environments have pretty profound effects on life on Earth," says Shanan Peters, a University of Wisconsin-Madison assistant professor of geology and geophysics. Over the course of hundreds of millions of years, the world's oceans and rivers have expanded and contracted in response to climate change and the shifting tectonic plates. About 150,000 years ago there was a major uplift of the Angolan ridge in the area of the equator. The upper Nile receives its chief supply of water from this mountainous region. From there streams pour eastward into Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake (over 26,000 square miles), and to the west and north into Lake Edward and Lake Albert. The waters of the Nile flow northward, but around 12,000 years ago all of the region between Lake Chad and the Nile was very wet. This is the time and location of Noah's flood, and the area is called "Bor-Nu", which means Land of Noah. Today the area is dry.

I'm pointing to the verifiable climatic changes that involve wide distribution of water in what are today some of Earth's driest regions. With the close of the sidereal cycle dry places that were formerly under water may be returning to wet conditions. In another 20,000 years these wet places may be dry again.This change from wet to dry is a factor in the Afro-Asiatics loss of control over those major water systems that enables them to forge the Afro-Asiatic Dominion. Of course, this didn't happen overnight and it wasn't the only factor.

During some periods, vast areas of the continents were flooded by shallow seas such as the shark-and mosasaur-infested seaway that neatly split North America during the age of the dinosaurs. Between 10 and 12 thousand years ago the Nile river system filled with waters from the Angolan Highlands, the result of geological uplift which created Lake Victoria and directed its excess flow north in the White Nile. The White Nile provides most of the Nile's water during the dry season.

Between 12 and 10 thousans years ago, the Nile connected to the Chadic and Niger water systems through a series of shallow lakes in the Sahara Desert. Because of this, a common plant and animal species is found in all three river systems. The now dry Botswana lake basin was once a sea, filled with water from the Angolan Highlands. Some of Africa's earliest human populations lived on the edges of this great lake and evidenced by thousands of man-made stone tools found there.  The tools include maceheads and date to between 80,000 and 100,000 years.

There were once cities, monuments and settlements on teh land bridge between the Arabian Peninsula and Pakistan.  Many Har-appa monuments and settlements are now submerged under water. Har-appa is a Dravidian word meaning Horus is father. Dravidian religion apparently originated in Egypt and ancient Kush. The Har-appa people had a centralized government as early as 2800 B.C. 

Now that Earth's Great Year is beginning a new cycle, these water systems and others around the world may swell. Perhaps in a few thousand years they will approach the size they once were, as indicated by their footprints seen from space. Vast desert areas were much wetter about 6800 years ago before the Monsoonal Belt started moving south, and the desert began to encroach on peoples of the Sahara, forcing residents to adopt pastoralism to survive. Before this climate change, the residents of the Sudan hunted and fished and grew millet.

If the picture given us in Genesis is taken seriously, we must recognize that the swelling and shrinking of earth's major water systems brings political, social and ecological change.  The ancient Afro-Asiatic rulers lost control when the great river systems they controlled began to shrink about 6,000 years ago. It was no longer possible to control huge areas of land since they were no longer connected by the water ways that made swift movement possible. This is likely when the territorial separation between the Afro-Arabians and the Afro-Asiatics (Aramaens) took place. Genesis says this happened in the time of Peleg and his brother Joktan.

Today the devastation in Pakistan is of such huge proportion that it could easily bring down that government.  There is a good reason for the world's leaders to be concerned about global climate change, but they are foolish to think that they can control a 25,000 -28,000 year cycle like Earth's Great Year.

The last cycle of Earth's Great Year ended in July 1998 and since that time earth's weather patterns have been changing rather dramatically.  The global north appears to be getting warmer and wetter.  The global south may be getting colder and dryer.

Africa
Rains are falling in the Sahara, restoring the grasslands in many places. Between 10,000 and 8000 BC the climate changed, ushering in years of persistent, heavy rains. The Nile was transformed from a slow stream into a roaring river with mile-deep gorges. Lake Chad was a sea, 600 feet deep and 5 times the size of Lake Superior.  Mega-Chad's old footprint is still visible from space. This was the beginning of the wet period that would turn the Sahara into vast grasslands able to support elephants, antelopes, gazelles, ostriches, giraffes, and hyenas. Lakes formed in the basins, large enough to support fish, crocodile and hippopotamus. Early hunters camped along the lakes, as evidenced by heaps of domestic refuse at many sites along the lakeshores.

Between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago the Nile river system filled with waters from the Angolan Highlands. Before this time, the streams of the Ugandan highlands flowed west to join the Congo River, which drains into the Atlantic. Geological uplift about 12,000 years ago tilted the region and created Lake Victoria. The excess swelled the source of the Nile.  Settlements emerged along the length of the Nile river system. Likewise, the Botswanan basin in southern Africa was once a sea, filled by water from the Angolan Highlands. Thousands of stoneage tools have been found here.


Pakistan and India
The Indus is swelling, seeking to become the great river it was 10,000 years ago. The devastion and human misery in Pakistan is beyond any in recorded history. The Indus River Civilization is one of the oldest known. Archeologists have identified over 2600 sites along the Indus and Sarasvati rivers in Pakistan and India. This civilization extended from the Baluchistan highlands in the west to the Punjab deserts in the east. From north to south the region stretches from the Himalayan foothills to the coastal region of Pakistan. This is an area of about 100,000 square miles. The largest known site is Ganweriwala, on the bank of the Sarasvati River in India dating to about 3000 BC. Another site is the prehistoric town of Kalibangan in the northern part of the Rajasthan desert.

During the Neolithic period (ca. 7000-5500 BC) Indus River valley peoples grew food and domesticated animals. They had large ceremonial baths for ritual cleansing, wells and reservoirs. The Indus peoples had kings, priests and specialized elders such as traditional healers, astronomers and prophets. There were farmers, artisans and brick makers.

This civilization includes cities dating to the time of Abraham and surrounded by walls made of mud bricks. Port cities on the Karachi Bay supported trade between India, Arabia, East Africa and Egypt. One material moved through this region was lapis lazuli, a blue semi-precious stone that was mined in the region of Badakhshan, Afghanistan and traded throughout Mesopotamia, East Africa and Egypt.

This ancient Indus Valley civilization was supported by an enormous river that flowed south from the Himalayas in the northwestern region of India until about 4000 years ago. Using satellite photographs, scientists have discovered the outline of the ancient riverbed. At its widest point it was five miles across. The region today is mostly arid, evidence of global climatic changes that led to the disappearance of the Afro-Asiatic Dominion.

North America
Parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa are flooding, and it is interesting to note where the floods are happening.  They are in the southern and western Great Lakes region, in territory that was covered by these lakes thousands of years ago. The recent flooding in Minnesota was adjacent to the south tip of Lake Superior. It is almost as if the cycle of climate change is restoring the larger size of the ancient river systems.

The question we must ask is what will this mean down the road?  It could mean years of flooding in the great river basins and along the seacoasts. For people who live in these areas, it would be wise to follow God's advice to Noah: get a big boat!




5 comments:

Anonymous said...

LINSLEY FOR
PRESIDENT!!

Alice C. Linsley said...

Thanks for the good laugh!

Sandra McColl said...

Why not? The only better candidate would be a palaeoclimatologist who could explain things about glaciations and what happens between them. But then, Alice has the human touch as well.

Odysseus said...

Ms. Linsley,

I have visited your blog off and on for a couple years, at least. At first, I just thought it curious and, occasionally, absurd. But I realize now that there is something really interesting about your research. I'm not sure I agree with all of it - I'm still skeptical about the claims for Genesis 1-11 being transp;anted tales from Africa, though I am not as skeptical as I once was. Certainly, you have shown me that Africa is, and was, more than just a place with lions and giraffes and some quaint, primitive natives. Thanks for your work. I will be visiting more frequently.

Alice C. Linsley said...

Odysseus, thank you for keeping an open mind and not writing me off as a nut case!

Ultimately, we must deal with the biblical claim that Abraham was a descendent of both Shem and Ham, since the Bible shows that their lines intermarried exclusively. (See http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2009/03/sheba-lines-of-ham-and-shem.html)

This means that Abraham was a descendent of Kush, one of Noah's African grandsons. (See http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2010/07/tracing-christs-kushite-ancestors.html)

Kush was the father of Nimrod who built a kingdom for himself in Mesopotamia. (See http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2008/12/nimrod-afro-asiatic-chief.html)

So it is that we first meet Abraham and his father Terah in Mesopotamia. Their ancestors, however, came out of Africa.