TEOLAWKI - now it's really serious

Of the many ways we face The End Of Life As We Know It - including the supernova and galaxy-attack scenarios, the massive gas cloud speeding toward a collision with the Milky Way, the earth's atmosphere may detonate and then the asteroids and black hole death stars or we might be swallowed whole by the sun - none evoke in me the feeling of dread and horror as much as this:

"A World Without Chocolate? Without Conservation Efforts, Cacao Could One Day Be in Short Supply."

It's hard to imagine Valentine's Day without chocolate, but some scientists say that it's possible that chocolate could one day be in short supply. ...

Scientists say that now it is chocolate's sustainability that needs to be monitored. The Ghana-based Nature Conservation Research Center warns that chocolate may become as rare and expensive as caviar within 20 years.

A number of factors, including climate change, are affecting the farming and production of cacao, or the cocoa plant.

Howard Shapiro, global director for plant science and external research for confectionery manufacturing Mars Inc. of McLean, Va., said measures must be taken soon to prevent shortages of chocolate.

"If nothing was done, and the temperature was to rise, and the rainfalls were to change and drought became more prevalent ... without looking into new farming practices, then there should be a problem, and there might likely be a problem," he said.

It's not bad enough that we might all be wiped out by the thousands of unmapped and undetectable dark comets, or the intense beam of gamma rays coming our way. Then there was the fear that "human society is very quickly headed to a violent and disturbing end." Then the earth began to kill people for changing its climate. Then there is the voracious, galactic Hoover in Switzerland that will suck the whole planet into a black hole. And the massive destruction along the coasts of countries like the USA, UK and many on the African continent, within a matter of hours.

I tell ya, I'm starting to think that sooner or later, every one of us is going to wind up dead. And with no chocolate, what's to live for?