Not with a Bang, but a Burp

As if we didn't already have enough to worry about, here's a bit of cheery news (at least to me) from our valiant friend, Nick Kristof, at the Times. It seems that there's a whole new dimension to Global Warming that most of us haven't heard about: billions of tons of frozen methane at the bottom of the oceans. Methane evidently has TWENTY times the greenhouse effect of Carbon Dioxide. If the water heats up enough, this noxious gas will start to burble up into the atmosphere... Nobody knows exactly what the effect might be -- whether it will be cataclysmic, or catastrophic, or merely disastrous. But one thing's for certain: it will finally end the debate about whether Global Warming is actually occurring -- so there's that, at least.

And, by the way, it's amazing to me that on the day I should inaugurate this blog, Kristof should mention the Apocalypse by name in his column. More evidence of the vast concatenation of events and signs of the end of things as we know them. "Something unknown is doing we don't know what." There is some great process at work -- could be a world in the act of annihilating itself, or could be just some bi-millenial house cleaning. That's not for us to know, apparently, and certainly not for me to say. "For we know in part, and we prophecy in part..." But open your ears and eyes, friends. Pay a little attention... You'll perceive the signals -- the game is afoot, and we're just pieces on the board.