People are starting to think the world is going crazy. Not the world of culture and people this time, but the physical world – the earth. Major earthquakes – newscasters with arched brow asking “Is Los Angeles due for a major quake!?” – and volcanic eruptions disrupting air traffic all across Europe. Some say the earth is “trying to tell us something.”

Even Christians wonder if it’s finally here – The End Times in all its glory – wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and famines and plagues and other terrifying things. Which incidentally, are just the birth pangs. (Followed by “Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed,” which we don’t worry about nearly as much.)

There may be another explanation. It’s possible this is simply another example of the remarkable uniqueness of the planet on which we live. The Privileged Planet is a video documentary that examines Earth’s incredible uniqueness. The considerations include its correct location in the galaxy – the perfect distance from the sun – protection by larger planets Jupiter and Saturn, a large moon that maintains axis stability, a crust that’s the right thickness to support plate tectonics, and a biosphere that supports complex life. With a hundred billion stars in the galaxy, scientists estimate the probability of all this precision at a thousandth of a trillion.

So back to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The earth’s crust is made up of more than a dozen tectonic plates, the movement of which create a “dynamic geology” that actually regulates the planet’s interior temperature. It turns out that earthquakes are the planet self-adjusting. You could take the thousandth of a trillion bet and say this all happens by a hugely lucky coincidence. But it sure looks to be on purpose.

Rather than being alone and insignificant in the galaxy as scientists might have us believe, the earth is in fact rare and incredibly significant.