Op-Ed Contributors

Disasters, science and lunacy

By John Coulter (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-03-18 07:52

Yet some diehard alarmists point out the year is still to come, and wonder on the Web, "will 2012 be the end?" One wag replied, "No, but it will be the end of rumors that 2012 is the end".

It is important in the modern world, with so much science and data available, to be clear on what we do know, and be big enough to admit there are still uncertainties, to try to define their scope, and to take measures that acknowledge dangers and risks.

The full moon on March 19 will be large and round, and, the doomsdayers say its gravitational pull will cause earthquakes. The lie of their thinking is that some even attribute the March 11 quake off Japan's east coast to the moon, though it was nowhere as close then.

A small dose of facts can put the alarmists out on the extreme fringe: The moon is about 400,000 kilometers away. The orbital distance changes by more than 46,000 km each month as it circles the Earth. Every 20 years there is an additional proximity of about 6,000 km, only discernable with laser measurements invented recently. Gravitational force diminishes with the square of distance, so any effect on Earth would be imperceptible. The moon's gravitational force causes tides, a few meters of water level out of oceans kilometers deep.

We must acknowledge the unfolding fact that the Earth's core is an engine - slowly rotating convicting molten iron, generating the magnetic field and supporting tectonic plates like the crust on a custard pudding. Serious scientific research will help us understand and rationally prepare for natural risks.

To do otherwise is to go back centuries before, in the Middle Ages when ignorant persons baying at the moon gave us the term, lunatic.

The author is an Australian research scholar collaborating with Chinese academic and commercial institutions.

(China Daily 03/18/2011 page9)