- "Theoretical Geography or Imminent
Disaster," by Anatoly Votyakov and his son Alexei, contains maps and
diagrams outlining the doomsday scenario. The book sold out within hours
of appearing in Moscow book shops recently, London's Independent newspaper
reports.
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- Votyakov graduated in mathematics from
Urals University, then worked for a Russian Academy of Sciences institute.
He explains that despite global warming, ice is building up at the polar
caps. There will come a point when the Earth's crust will have to distribute
the weight more evenly.
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- "Once the ice exceeds a certain
limit, a catastrophe will occur, a real deluge," he says. This, he
adds, has happened many times before in the Earth's 4.5 billion-year history.
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- "The process will begin when Greenland
starts slipping toward the equator," Votyakov says. "The first
result of this will be that a huge tidal wave hits the east coast of America,
making clear to everyone the total irrelevance of the dollar."
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- Initially, the English Channel will recede
and there could be a land path to France. Later, the low-lying parts of
Europe will be submerged. Severe cold will render Japan and China uninhabitable.
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- Doomed cities include Montreal, Toronto,
Rome, and Paris. Norway will be a good escape. Muscovites will have to
run for eastern Siberia, which should enjoy a warm spell.
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- As proof that this has happened before,
Votyakov points to studies from eastern Siberia that show layers of birch
wood 9,300, 26,800 and 31,800 years old in the permafrost.
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- That means that the area once must have
been warm, he says. Remains of mammoths have been found with freshly swallowed
grasses in their digestive tracts, meaning that they died from a sudden
cataclysm, not hunger.
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- Votyakov and his son Alexei, both Orthodox
Christians, note in their book that Nostradamus, the 16th-century French
astrologer, predicted the end of the world in 1999. "It was the only
time he gave a specific date," says Votyakov.
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- Modern Russian seers go further and set
the date for July 19, the Independent reports.
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