Global warming and tectonic plate movement - Part II:

Transit of Venus and Earth’s well-being

Gamini DISSANAYAKE

Many apocalyptic stories and prophecies about the year 2012 have been going around for years causing much interest, concern, and debate. These range from the end of Long Count of the Mayan Calendar, The Galactic Alignment which occurs every 26, 000 years falling on December 21 this year, Hopi Indian Prophecies about the end of the Fourth World, merging of Kali Yuga and Mayan Calendar Timing, Solar Storms hitting the Earth which could shut down most anything electronic like computers, satellites, telephones, to scientists’ statements about imminent natural disasters in 2012.

Venus

Earth

Michel de Nostradamus

The 16th Century French physician and seer Nostradamus, best known for his book The Prophecies (first instalment published in 1555), however, made no prophecy zeroing the year 2012. Yet his Century 11 Quatrain 46 goes;

“After a great misery for mankind
An even greater approaches.
It will rain blood, milk, famine, iron and pestilence.
In the sky will be seen a fire, dragging a trail of sparks”

Many Nostradamus scholars seem to believe the last line is about an asteroid or some such celestial object in devastating collision with the Earth. Also that most of his End Times prophecies were said to be inspired by the Biblical Prophecies.

For me, though, in the larger matrix of the 2012 stories, one that has fallen through the grid but worthy of a closer look is the astronomical event the Transit of Venus.

Anthropogenic disasters

Fortunate or not, we are able to watch a pair of Transit of Venus within the first two decades of this century. The first on Jun 8, 2004 and the second on June 6 this year. This is a rare event because Venus Transit or passage across the face of the Sun happens in a 243 year cycle, which currently occurs or rather recurs at intervals of 8, 105.5, 8, and then 121.5 years.(It occurs in pairs of eight years apart because the length of eight years on Earth is almost the same as 13 years on Venus)

Although 81 such transits occur between 2000 BC and 4000 AD only seven of them have been recorded since the invention of the telescope in 1610. Namely, the pairs of December 1631 and 1639, June 1761 and 1769, December 1874 and 1882 and June 2004 (and 2012)

After the June 6, 2012, the next pair will be in December 2117 and 2125 or after 105.5 years and eight years.

Since the December 2004 Earthquake and Tsunami, the plausibility of a link between that June Transit of Venus and December devastation (and not just a mere coincidence but as Carl Jung said ‘a meaningful coincidence’) has bugged me on and off.

Every year has its own share of both natural and man-made or anthropogenic disasters and turbulence. Do the recorded Transits of Venus,(supported by neighbouring Eclipses) show any outstanding traumatic or catastrophic events, within a short period before or after its occurrence like the 2004 Tsunami?

1. The 1761 Transit of Venus on June 6, was preceded by a Total Lunar Eclipse on May 18 followed by another on November 12. While the Seven Years War was raging, sandwiched between two Total Solar Eclipses (June 13, 1760 and October 17, 1762) and three partial and two annular ones, The Great Holocaust of the Sikhs or Vadda Ghallughara in 1762 by Afghan invaders stood out as a bloody campaign of slaughter in which close to a 100, 000 people perished (some reports say up to half a million) In Jan 2009. National Geographic reported the findings of astronomer Kevin D. Pang on the eruption of Makian Volcano which ‘belched out enough dust and gas to completely blot out the Moon during the May 18 eclipse’ and that ‘Old Chinese weather chronicles revealed that large parts of China experienced an unusually bitter winter and heavy snowfall in 1761 and 1762’

2. It is interesting to note that the June 3, 1769 Transit of Venus was soon followed five hours later by a Total Solar Eclipse and a Total Lunar Eclipse on June 19 (Very scary event , when they occur within two weeks of each other and, during a same Lunar month, according to Jyotish or Vedic Astrology quoting the Indian epic Mahabharatha) Three months later, widespread drought in Bengal gobbles up to ten million lives in a 15 month period, which to date, is the worst natural disaster in human history in terms of lives lost. On a much lesser scale, the city of Brescia in Italy was said to be struck by lightning, igniting 90,000kg of gunpowder stored in a neighbourhood church, and the explosion killing 3000 people.

3. The year 1875 was dotted with many wars and two shipwrecks. Nothing really major though. Looked very much like the lull before the big one in December 1882.

4. The December 6, 1882 Transit of Venus (the last one until the 2004 June occurrence) was hemmed in between two Total Solar Eclipses on May 17, 1882 and May 6, 1883. On June 6, 1882, flooding in Bombay harbour reported to have caused by a cyclone in the Arabian Sea killed about 100, 000 people. And in October 1882, Mt Galunggan erupted in Java, Indonesia killing 4011 people. Then came ‘Krakatoa: the Day the World Exploded’ true to Simon Winchester’s 2003 non-fiction best-seller’s title, the volcano fired on all cylinders for three days Aug 26-28, 1883 destroying 163 villages and killing over 36, 000 people.

The June 8, 2004 Transit of Venus was surrounded by three Total Lunar Eclipses: November 9, 2003, May 4 and October 28, 2004. Total Solar eclipse on Nov 23, 2003 and two Partial on April 9 and October 14, 2004. What strikes out ominously are the two eclipses within two weeks in November 2003 and the couple occurred in October 2004. In Vedic Astrology, eclipses like these alone signal imminent earthquakes, and floods, famine and mass unrest.

Traumatic events

And that brings us to the deadly year 2004, which like the study reports on Global Warming getting gloomier than the ones before, has left us on a decidedly crucial and vastly vulnerable spot on our current plane of existence. And like those folks who went vegetarian and vegan (those who do not eat or use animal products) by thousands after watching Shaun Monson’s 2005 animal rights movie Earthlings, many - myself included - went vegetarian and green, shaken by the traumatic events caused by our ruthless and unabated abuse of the planet, and feeling guilty and responsible, are now hell-bent on cutting short their carbon footprints.

Because, the bottom-line is, our very existence hangs on the well being of our planet Earth, period. And we had another report from the IPCC last November warning us to prepare for more ‘unprecedented extreme weather caused by Global Warming.’

Concluded