While we pan the skies for errant meteors, sun spot activity, and maybe the return of Planet X, what about the monthly and annually increasing in costs to our society? How long can we keep footing the bill for the luxurious life style that so many seek? Can you say living on the coast line where mountains meet oceans?

Does this sound way to small of a deal to rank a 2012 comparison or concern?

Well then, how about this recent report from the United Nations Disaster Preparedness experts, “By next year (2010), some 50,000,000 people around the globe could be driven from their homes by weather related storms.” See! This is no small deal, but then, who can trust what the United Nations (experts) say anyway?

The truth is that we’re seeing two to three times as many extreme weather events as before. 2012 predictions? Want some more interesting data?

The World Health Organization (WHO) says that 150,000+ people died in 2000 due to climate change. Obviously there’s a lot of blame being spread around in that category. Maybe Al Gore did the figuring. But, as a real example, nearly 15,000 people died as a result of just a “heat wave” in France in 2003. And another 500+ people died in the European heat wave of July 15-22, 2007. That’s just one week!

The economic costs for Katrina-like hurricanes are staggering.

And then we have pictures of stranded polar bears on a small floating chunk of ice. Did the bear know he was in trouble or was he just looking for a little “quiet time”? Who knows what some of these pictures and statistics have to tell us. Are the numbers indicative of global warming, solar heating, or just the next cycle?

One thing that is real though is that we’re seeing more “dead ocean” areas and the coral reefs in many parts of the oceanic world are dying. Did I mention we’re quickly turning the Amazon rain forest into a mega subdivision surrounded by mineral mining and oil rigs? Ah, who needs to worry about all that big 2012 catastrophic stuff? We’ve got enough of our own TROUBLES right here in river city, and that begins with a capital “T”.

We’re seeing more and more sun spots, more eruptions, and we’re probably just getting started- on 2012?

Oh yeah, there’s that 2010 thing first (November 2nd- called a mid-term election). But, back to the natural catastrophies.

Planes and helicopters packed with rescue workers and supplies landed for the first time Wednesday on remote Indonesian islands that were pounded by a 10-foot (three-meter) tsunami, sweeping away villages and killing at least 272 people. The first aerial surveys of the region revealed huge swaths of land underwater and the crumbled rubble of homes torn apart by the wave. One lay tilted, resting on the edge of its red roof, with tires and slabs of concrete piled up on the surrounding sand.

A tsunami alert was sounded but does a falling tree make a noise if no one is listening?

Two days after a powerful earthquake triggered the wave, the casualty count was still rising as rescuers and disaster officials finally reached the Mentawai island chain, which was closest to the epicenter and the worst hit. Bad weather had kept them away.

And then there was the FIRE (volcano)

Rescuers scoured the slopes of Indonesia’s most volatile volcano Wednesday after it was rocked by an eruption that spewed clouds of searing ash, killing at least 28 villagers including an old man known as the mountain’s spiritual gatekeeper. The blast eased pressure that had been building up behind a lava dome perched on the volcano’s crater, but experts said the worst may not be over. The lava dome could unleash deadly gases and debris if it collapses.

It’s not yet over!

“It’s a little calmer today,” said Surono, the chief of Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation. “No hot clouds, no rumbling. But a lot of energy is pent up back there. There’s no telling what’s next.” Mount Merapi, which translates as “Fire Mountain,” has erupted many times over the last 200 years, often with deadly results. In 1994, 60 people were killed, while in 1930, more than a dozen villages were incinerated, leaving up to 1,300 dead.

And, all of this is two years out from December 21, 2012!

It’s definitely not Nibiru, nor planet X!

It’s the BIG GREEN COMET! The icy nucleus of comet 103P/Hartley 2 measures no more than a couple of kilometers across. That tiny nugget, however, is surrounded by an vast atmosphere of gas more than 150,000 km in diameter–about the same size as the planet Jupiter! And it’s coming our way.

And that means what?

At present, the comet is a 7th-magnitude object best seen through telescope. The comet glides by Earth only 11 million miles away on Oct. 20th. Two weeks after Comet Hartley has its close encounter with Earth, NASA will have a close encounter with the comet. The Deep Impact/EPOXI spacecraft is hurtling toward Comet Hartley now, and on Nov. 4th it will fly 435 miles from the comet’s active icy nucleus. The encounter will mark only the fifth time in history that a spacecraft has been close enough to image a comet’s core.

For astronomers this is an exciting visit.

Typically during the course of a year about a dozen comets will come within the range of amateur telescopes. Most quietly come and go with little fanfare, but during the upcoming weeks one rather small comet will be making an unusually close approach to the Earth. On March 15, 1986, astronomer Malcolm Hartley discovered a new comet on photographic images taken at the U.K. Schmidt Telescope Unit at Siding Spring, Australia.

At the time Hartley discovered it, the new found comet was an exceedingly faint object, with just a hint of a tail; it was about 25,000 times dimmer than the faintest stars that can be seen with the naked eye. After further images were obtained over the next several days, Hartley announced his discovery to the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams in Cambridge, Mass.

This fall, Comet Hartley 2 will again be passing through the inner solar system, reaching its closest point to the sun (called perihelion) on Oct. 28 at a distance of 98.4 million miles. And while en route to the sun, it will also make a very close approach to the Earth. In fact, on Oct. 20, the comet will be at its closest point to our planet at a distance of 11.2 million miles.

It’s quite unusual for any comet to approach this close to Earth. Such an event only happens on average perhaps three or four times a century. So, we should have an exciting show, but that’s about all…………..unless!