Really those who believe in an impending crisis idea are similar to the adherents of the Mayan prophecy. Facts to support the end of the world idea are elusive.

The loss of bee colonies for example, wrongly attributed WITHOUT evidence to Global Warming and pesticides was found to be caused by a Mite which carries a virus causing wings to be deformed. You would think after reading some posts here that this had never been discovered. They ignore the facts and pursue their wacky ideas. e.g that the loss of bees was a 'warning sign' Really?

Global Worriers theory - If the facts don't tally, ignore the facts and carry on.

Of course, Atman, the Mayans are renowned for their scientific prowess (their jet propulsion laboratory is the stuff of legends:)...so there's definitely a correlation there : )

As for bee colony decimation - it's complicated.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/May07/bees.kr.html

Don't worry about the honey bees Poirot, they'll be right, just like the butterflies:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/butterfly_broken/

PEST

I also saw that article on methane from permafrost in the SMH. Now go and look at the actual concentrations of methane in the atmosphere as recorded at the CSIRO Cape Grim site..
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/research/capegrim_graphs.html click on the methane graphic

Basically the concentration of methane in the atmosphere leveled off about the turn of the century, and remain well below projections made in 2000. There has been a slight uptick in the last couple of years but levels would have to move up a fair way before they get anywhere near even the business as usual scenarios..

No one has yet been able to satisfactorily explain why methane levels haven't budged much although a favored explanation concerns fixing up of European natural gas pipelines.

curmudgeon:"Basically the concentration of methane in the atmosphere leveled off about the turn of the century, and remain well below projections made in 2000. There has been a slight uptick in the last couple of years but levels would have to move up a fair way before they get anywhere near even the business as usual scenarios..
No one has yet been able to satisfactorily explain why methane levels haven't budged much although a favored explanation concerns fixing up of European natural gas pipelines."

Don't you mean "Basically the concentration of methane in the atmosphere leveled off about the turn of the century For about five years, and remain well below projections made in 2000. There has been an uptick in the last 6 years, which is simlilar to the previous pre-200 rate of increase, but levels would have to move up by a few percent before they get anywhere near the middle of the projected scenarios..

No one has yet been able to satisfactorily explain why methane levels leveled off for 5 years, although a favored explanation concerns fixing up of European natural gas pipelines, which presumably all broke again in 2006."

There, fixed.

Poirot

Your link to the Bees problem was from 2007 ...way out of date. No-one knew the cause then. By 2012 the real cause was discovered. Hence your explanation of the problem being 'complex' is patently false. The cause of the problem has been discovered and it doesn't support with the ecological disaster theory.

Secondly, its not the Mayans I'm referring to, its the disaster theorists who believe that the end of the world is nigh. Some of them use the Mayan calendar theory and others the loosely cobbled together enviro-disaster theory yet they are very similar in their approach and conclusions. Get some information and piece it together to support the answer you already believe in.