Did You Survive the Most Recent Apocalypse?

Did you get your "I Survived the Apocalypse!" T-shirt yet? December 21st was supposed to be the end of the world, according to a dim-witted interpretation of the Mayan calendar. The reality is that the end of the previous baktun of the Mayan calender was no different from the end of December on our calendar, or the end of the fiscal year, or the end of the 20th century, or the end of the second millennium.

We saw plenty of crazies predicting doom on December 31, 1999 (though, technically, the third millennium didn't start until Jan. 1, 2001). There were the typical fire-and-brimstone second-coming loonies, but there were also plenty of technological Y2K doomsayers. And more recently there was Harold Camping, who took two swings at the Apocalypse piñata in 2011, spending more than $100 million promoting his end-of-the-world predictions. And we're all still here.

What is it about a calendar rolling over like an odometer that turns out the crazies?

Historically prophets have cast catastrophic events like hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, wars, plagues and droughts as presentiments of the end times, or punishments for our wickedness. Pat Robertson predicted a Gay Days weekend at Disney World would bring a hurricane down on Orlando. Instead Hurricane Bonnie hit Virginia Beach, where Robertson's 700 club originates. James Dobson blamed the Newtown shooting on gay marriage. Did I miss the story about Adam Lanza's girlfriend dumping him and marrying a lesbian?

Climate scientists have long predicted that stronger hurricanes, prolonged drought punctuated by huge deluges, the spread of tropical diseases like West Nile virus and dengue fever — events that we're experiencing right now — would be the result of global warming caused by human-generated carbon dioxide emissions. Many on the Christian Right reject these data-driven observations and computer-modeled predictions out of hand. Yet at exactly the same time they cite these events as evidence of our moral failings, portraying them as God's retribution for our disobedience.

Climate scientists are missing the boat. To gain broader acceptance they need to recast their climate forecasts as apocalyptic prophecies of doom caused by God's ire over the seven deadly sins we are committing:

• Greed: skyrocketing oil-company profits
• Pride: Americans who proudly drive gas-wasting Hummers to flaunt their wealth
• Sloth: people who are too lazy to walk to the corner store contribute to global warming
• Wrath: the refusal of irate Republican members of the House to renew wind power tax credits
• Lust: the rape of the earth by oil wells and coal mines
• Envy: the consumer culture that causes us to compete with the Joneses by buying ever-greater quantities of immediately disposable things that require oil, gas and coal to produce and transport
• Gluttony: the epidemic of diabetes and other obesity-related diseases resulting from our consumption of high-fructose corn syrup produced on gigantic monoculture corporate farms that use billions of gallons of oil for fuel and fertilizer, as well as damage the environment and our own genetic code with pesticides and herbicides

There's a far better case for divine wrath over excessive oil consumption for the overtopping of seawalls that caused the flooding of New York and New Jersey during Hurricane Sandy than there is for God expressing his anger over gay marriage by having Adam Lanza murder 20 first-graders in Newtown. Higher ocean temperatures raise sea levels, causing more flooding. But those kids were not members of the Connecticut Supreme Court who upgraded civil unions (passed in 2005) to full marriage in Connecticut four years ago.

In the case of Sandy there's an obvious cause and effect, and in Newtown there's an "I told you so." God might move in mysterious ways, but if he wants us to get the message, he should be a little more direct, rather than relying on preachers in expensive suits asking for handouts on TV. What's even more incredible is that there are people who would willingly worship a god who wrought a terrifying bloody death upon innocent children who had absolutely nothing to do with the perceived violation of his laws. I just don't remember hearing that any of those kids were gay or married.

Climate change deniers insist scientists are just saying this stuff to get grant money. Just as skeptics insist Harold Camping predicted the end of the world just to get donations from frightened old ladies. Maybe the religious right doesn't believe climate scientists' predictions because they're suffering from a nasty case of psychological projection.

Hmm. What is that odd, rodent-like odor?