| Chapter : | Introduction |
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“An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for the United States National Security,” warns that a natural disaster of truly epic proportions could arise and threaten the stability of the world. In December 2003, more than 60,000 people died in the Iranian Earthquake. One year after the Iranian Earthquake, according to major media and other reliable sources,1 on December 26, 2004, a massive tsunami created by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake off the western coast of Sumatra, hit the coasts of the South East Asian countries—Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, even Somalia on the Eastern African Coast, and others. The earthquake sent a 30-foot wall of water at speeds up to 500 mph crashing across south Asia causing more than 220,000 deaths and displacing more than 1.5 million people from their homes. More than five million people suffered from lack of food in early January of 2005. Global warming, which is probably caused by pollution, has been gradually melting the Arctic ice, causing people to fear rises in the sea level that may one day make many cities uninhabitable. Scientists continue to warn that it is not only pollution that should concern us; a pole shift of earth could produce great weather changes, earthquakes, floods, and massive landslides that could bring tremendous disasters and lead to the deaths of a large portion of humanity. Diseases that are already known to us, but resistant to treatment, such as AIDS and SARS, along with new viruses that we do not yet understand, threaten the health of the world. Moral and ethical standards have been dropping and escalating crimes disturb family peace and humanity. Many people, young and old, are dying as a result of poverty, disease, and war. People want to be free from suffering and live in peace and happiness.
The millenarian dream of lasting peace has been with us since the beginning of human history. Many prominent people, including those from the religious, academic, and scientific communities, have predicted that at some point in the future a disaster could engulf this world, triggering the end of the world as we know it and the coming of a new era. History shows that many brilliant ancient civilizations, such as the Mayan civilization, existed but collapsed as a result of unknown, but