For those of you living under a rock these past 24 hours, it might be news to you that Japan has suffered a large earthquake this afternoon. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, it measured a magnitude of 8.9, making it the most turbulent quake to hit Japan in recorded history. So far, 400 casualties have been estimated, with this number predicted to rise greatly as the recovery efforts continue.
Make no mistake, this is a terrible disaster for everyone involved. However, there are a few things that have infuriated me about how people and the media have reacted to this tragedy. As soon as I first heard about all this, I instantly knew that the religious conspiracy nuts will come out of the woodwork.
To add context, in the space of 12 months, there were other major earthquakes in New Zealand and Chile. Now with this third major seismic event, everyone from crazy religious nuts, 2012 conspiracy believers, preachers and pseudo-scientists have been spewing all sorts of nonsense out there; doing nothing to help, and only adding to the fear and panic.
It's normal for people who don't understand how things work to resort to magical and irrational thinking. The brain sees a pattern, and then makes all sorts of involuntary assumptions that lead to a conclusion that preaches nothing but doom and apocalypse. Luckily, I actually study geology amongst other things, and can actually shed some light into what's been happening lately.
First thing's first. The world is not going to end. To all the conspiracy nuts, I'm sorry. I really am... But you're all going to live. Trust me, I'm severely disappointed too.
Ok, so who can guess what Chile, New Zealand, and Japan have in common? They all lie right on a plate boundary on the Earth's crust. Don't believe me? Take a look at these maps.
Imagine the surface of the earth as a hard boiled egg that's got a cracked shell, and that's basically what we're living on. Except the bits of shell (or "plates") are continuously moving around at about the same rate your fingernails grow. So these plates rub and smash against each other, even slipping underneath each other in slow motion. As pressure builds up due to friction between these plates, the energy is eventually and violently released as an earthquake.
This is nothing new. There have been earthquakes since there have been continents on our earth. They've been happening for billions of years now.
So why did we have three of them occurring within such a relatively short amount of time of each other? This might not actually have anything to do with the Earth, or "God's wrath" or your preferred apocalypse, but more to do with how your brain receives and interprets information.
Let's say you have a die (is that what you call the singular for dice?). Pretend that you write a little label that says "earthquake" and stick it one of the sides. Now roll that die continuously for oh, I dunno... 2 billion years.
Now tell me, do you really think that after 2 billion years of rolling dice that it would be extraordinary to land on the side which has "earthquake" written on it three times in a row? Hell no. In fact, if you roll it for long enough (as the Earth has been), it's not only possible, it's very likely that this will happen.
If you were to average out the major earthquakes that happen in the world over a decade, you would get roughly the same number. It's not the amount of earthquakes that have increased, it's the perceptions of the people hearing about them.
This is where I go on a rant about the media. Every time a disaster like this occurs, they over-present it. What I mean is that they tirelessly try and elicit as much emotion from their audience as they can in order to keep them glued to their screen, while asking the poor victims stupid tear-provoking questions like "what did you feel as you watched your house being washed away by the tsunami that followed?" - What the fuck do you think the poor woman felt, you insensitive twat!??
But I digress. It's not just the media who is provoking hysteria over this. Social media websites like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube provide cranks with a stage to share their ridiculous ideas on why this totally natural (although terrible) natural event occurs. Over the past 12 hours, I've seen people blame the following things for the earthquake:
- Sinners
- Money/greed
- Carbon emissions
- The moon
Yeah I'm serious. The fucking moon. While it's true that the moon causes the tides (and the land itself) to rise and fall as much as 4 metres, the effect is so relatively minuscule compared to the scale of the Earth that it hardly rates a mention. It's kinda like jumping up and down on a cruise ship to try and make it sink.
Carbon emissions? I'm totally not surprised that this came up. Environmental activists can be just as guilty of not applying evidence and reason to their thinking, so they would blame spilled milk on carbon emissions if they could. In reality, there is no possible mechanism for any increase in CO2 to have an effect on tectonic plates. Whilst the evidence for climate change is now impossible to ignore, it's a totally unrelated crisis that deserves our attention, and unlike earthquakes, it's something that we can actually prevent. Though sadly, anything happening in the atmosphere is simply irrelevant in terms of the rocky material that makes up our planet.
Sinners and money/greed are obviously the religious crackpots speaking out (do you expect them to do anything else?). This line of thinking absolutely fascinates me. How does one propose that sinning and owning money have any effect on the physical earth we live on? Firstly, Chile and New Zealand aren't exactly the wealthiest countries in the world, so it would have to be a pretty dim-witted god to choose those countries out of all of them to punish. Secondly, this ridiculous thinking is usually coming from the same people that urge everyone to pray for them... Because that'll do a shitload more than other stuff like donating, or heaven forbid, taking time out from your privileged life and volunteering to help.
What pisses me off more is the implication that these people are making in that the victims somehow must've deserved to be 'punished' by a natural disaster. Yep, even innocent children. Apparently, god probably considers them collateral damage and had all this planned out for them as soon as they were born, just so he could kill them to teach people around the world a lesson... About something.
And another thing! Why are the same nutbags who believe a god is punishing these people also ask the same god to help them? Is he schizophrenic? Or are they just trying to score some cheap points to get into heaven?
It's not that the Earth hates us. It's just that it's indifferent. It might sound melancholy, but it really doesn't care whether we live or die. The Earth has seen countless billions of species crawl on its surface. We are just one of them. It will keep doing its thing regardless of if we're here or not, so stop trying to blame it on something you hate, and instead, donate a couple bucks to help out your fellow man. Instead of spreading fear and paranoia, why not spread goodwill and charity?
If only.
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