Did you hear? According to the scientific consensus of John Cusack, the ancient Mayans, and a cabal of authors desperate to score some Last Days cash, the world is going to end on December 21, 2012.
Or … will it?
I’m no Tim LaHaye, but I consider myself a decent enough expert on the end of the world. If, by expert, you mean “someone who wrote a book about the subject seven years ago, even if he barely remembers any of it.” And clearly that’s what you mean.
Anyway. According to my expert opinion, the world will most likely NOT end in 2012. What follows are 12 reasons why I believe this to be true.
1. The Mayan calendar doesn’t really end.
If you’ve paid attention to any of the 2012 doomsday scenarios, you’ve probably heard most frequently that the Mayans predicted it. That’s not really accurate — there are no real predictions involved. The idea comes from one of the calendars created by this ancient civilization. They had a bunch of them, and they’re all pretty complicated.
One is called the Long Count Calendar and it allows them to record 1,872,000 consecutive individual days. Yes, it’s a beast of a calendar. It lasts 5,125 years, a length of time known as the Great Cycle. A handful of researchers have determined that the calendar probably began somewhere around August 11, 3114 BC. Guess when the cycle comes to an end? December 21, 2012. Or maybe December 23, 2012. Or maybe in August of that year. (There are some disputes about this.)
But the date of the 21st seems especially doomsday-worthy because it coincides with the winter solstice, so the calendar conclusion has gotten everyone excited. But here’s a question: When your page-a-day calendar gets to December 31, do you automatically assume that there will be no January 1? That everything you’ve ever known and loved will disappear?!? No, you don’t. Because calendars are cyclical. The flip over and start again. SO DOES THE MAYAN CALENDAR. Everyone relax, please.
2. The Mayans find this whole thing amusing.
Consider the perspective of Apolinario Chile Pixtun, a Mayan Indian elder from Guatemala. In 2009, he told a reporter, “I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff.” Yucatan Mayan archaeologist Jose Huchim told the same reporter, “If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn’t have any idea. That the world is going to end? They wouldn’t believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain.” Why aren’t they worried? See #1 above. Also see the fact that the Mayans believed that, when a planet survives all the way through a Great Cycle, it meant a time of celebration and luck. Good times can really ruin an apocalypse.
3. If the so-called Planet X were headed our way, we’d know it by now.
The whole 2012 phenomenon dates back as early as 1976, when a guy named Zecharia Sitchin wrote a book called The Twelfth Planet. In it, he claims that translated ancient Sumerian texts speak of a secret planet called Nibiru. (But Nibiru is hard to say, so most people know it today by the more awesome nickname Planet X.) According to the conspiracies, this hidden planet orbits our sun in a crazy elliptical orbit, which is why no one knows about it. But it’s headed back our way…on a collision course with Earth! Conveniently, the impact is scheduled for December 12, 2012. It was supposed to have arrived earlier, though.
A fellow conspiracy theorist named Nancy Lieder took up the Planet X cause and originally speculated it would hit us in May of 2003. When that didn’t work out, she latched onto 2012. Because if everyone else is doing it, why not join the crowd? Anyway, NASA denies that there are any secret planets on a collision course with Earth. If there were,
- They’d have been tracking it for the last decade;
- You could see it by now with the naked eye; and
- President Obama would already have announced plans to send a team of deep-sea oil-drillers up there on the Space Shuttle to nuke it.
Duh.
4. Solar flares are not that big a deal.
Another major 2012 prediction? Solar weather freak-outs. The theory is that we’ll see the sun reach a state called “solar maximum,” which happens every 11 years. The last one happened in 2000, so we’re due. Fingers crossed, because it might just kick off on December 21, 2012! During solar maximum, we usually see an increase in solar flares. A really gigantic solar flare could cause a lot of problems — like increasing radiation levels, a massive geomagnetic storm on earth, or a total shut-down of the world’s electrical grid. The result? Mass chaos. Worldwide apocalypse. And dangerously low phone battery levels. The humanity!
Sure, it could happen. But solar flares have been leaping from the sun’s surface for years — the largest one ever recorded spiked in 2003 — and so far all they’ve done is mess up our satellite feeds. About solar flares, NASA says, “there is no special risk associated with 2012.”
5. Nostradamus seems to have overlooked it.
Yes, that Nostradamus, the famous 16th century French astrologer. And Nostradamus knew when everything was going to happen! Actually, the writings of Nostradamus are so vague you can attach them to anything — and people have, from the French Revolution to the Sept. 11 attacks (though many of the quotes attributed to him are hoaxes). But he makes no meaningful references to 2012. Not a peep. Obviously this confirms we’re safe.
6. The Large Hadron Collider project is headed for a shut-down.
You’ve heard of the LHC, right? It’s the world’s largest particle accelerator, located in a miles-across underground circle beneath Switzerland. In that sinister underground lair, scientists are trying to figure out the secrets of the universe by smashing hydrogen protons together at the speed of light. When they do this, critics say, they risk creating a microscopic black hole that will destroy life as we know it. Or they could accidentally create a hypothetical particle called a strangelet that devours the universe.
Either one of these, while theoretical, could be really, really bad. But a number of safety reviews have said this kind of doomsday scenario isn’t a possibility, and anyway, the project will shut down sometime around mid-December 2012. It won’t ramp back up until 2014. So, sure, the LHC could destroy the universe anytime between now and December 15, 2012. But if we make it to December 21, 2012? Blue skies.
7. Hollywood is a poor predictor of doomsday scenarios.
People have been yammering about 2012 for a long while, but the idea really gained traction with the release of 2012 the film, which released in 2009 and made more than $700 million worldwide. In it, John Cusack tries to save his family from a world being destroyed by a nefarious combination of solar flares, catastrophic earthquakes, and the eruption of an underground supervolcano in the form of the Yellowstone caldera. We’re told, of course, that the Mayan long count calendar predicted it. But should we worry because Hollywood hints it could happen? No.
As proof, I offer the currently unfulfilled apocalyptic prophecies of Red Dawn (invading Russians), Terminator (cyborg assassins), Independence Day (alien invasion), The Matrix(world domination by computers), I Am Legend (vampiric zombie plague), Back to the Future II (the existence of hoverboards, which isn’t apocalyptic but would have been awesome) or ... this could be a really long list. Clearly we can’t trust Hollywood, so if the film industry suggests it, we’re probably OK.
8. Polar shift probably won’t be fatal.
Did you know the north and south poles are moving? In the last century or so, their exact locations have shifted several miles every year. That’s because our planetary core is a constantly moving ball of liquid iron. In Earth’s history, sometimes the poles have moved so much that they actually change places. It’s called polar shift, and the last time it happened was around 780,000 years ago.
The 2012 conspiracy honks speculate another shift will happen on December 21, 2012, causing Earth to start spinning the opposite direction. Which then would lead to all kinds of chaos, from earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis to the horrifying prospect of compass inaccuracies. But don’t be alarmed. For one thing, no one can predict this kind of reversal. Secondly, it doesn’t mean the rotation of the Earth will change. And even if it does happen, there’s no evidence it will be a catastrophic, extinction-of-mankind type of event.
9. The Web Bot can’t be trusted.
Have you heard of the Web Bot Project? It’s a software program that was built in the 1990s to analyze stock market trends. It uses Internet keywords and online chatter to figure out what large groups of people are talking about and (supposedly) predict the future. In the summer of 2001, it predicted a “world-changing event” would occur within 60-90 days. So when the Sept. 11 attacks came around, certain apocalyptic Web types started freaking out about Web Bot. They believe it also went on to predict Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 tsunami, and other calamities. And guess what? The Web Bot predicts a major cataclysm on December 21, 2012. But there are problems.
Most of Web Bot’s predictions are ridiculously vague and can point to almost anything in retrospect. As you’d expect, it’s made many, many predictions that were just plain wrong. And because it works from Internet chatter, the more people start talking about a 2012 apocalypse, the more it anticipates something apocalyptic in 2012. Which makes its prophetic process a bit self-fulfilling.
10. Galactic alignments aren’t dangerous.
Certain New-Agey prognosticators are excited because the 2012 Winter Solstice, they say, will see the Earth and Sun align with the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Others talk about a once-in-a-lifetime planetary alignment occurring in 2012 — sort of a loose line-up of multiple planets as they pass each other in their orbits. Will the combined gravitational pull of Mars and Jupiter and Saturn cause flooding or pole shifts on Earth? Will the alignment of the sun and Earth in the center of the Milky Way bring us to a cosmic cataclysm? Quick answer to both questions: No.
For one thing, there are no major planetary alignments on tap for the next two decades (the last one was in 2000, which apparently we survived), and anyway, the planets are too far apart to impact each other gravitationally. For what it’s worth, the Milky Way alignment happens every December “with no consequence,” according to NASA. No big deal.
11. The odds are in our favor.
Hilary of Poitiers in 365 AD. Adso of Montiers in 950 AD. John of Toledo in 1179. Martin Luther in 1600. Cotton Mather in 1736. William Miller in 1844. Billy Graham in 1949. Hal Lindsey in 1970. Pat Robertson in 1982. Edgar Whisenant in 1988. What do these guys have in common? Each of these religious leaders — along with dozens and dozens of other people — publicly predicted either an imminent Judgment Day, Second Coming, or worldwide apocalypse. All were wrong. Even the Apostle Paul seemed to think Jesus would return in his lifetime.
From the earliest followers of Christ to Harold Camping last May, people have been predicting the end of the world. So far, our cumulative batting average is zero-for-every-single-prediction. That’s not very good. I guess, eventually, someone will predict Doomsday and be right. But history suggests they’ll be wrong, and this includes the 2012 apocalypse theorists.
12. We’re not supposed to make it to 2012 anyway.
Speaking of Harold Camping, you’re aware he predicted that the universe will be destroyed on October 21, 2011, right? When the radio broadcaster’s predicted May 21 Judgment Day didn’t pan out — for the record, Mr. Camping says it was an invisible, “spiritual” judgment rather than the expected visible one — he told reporters that God had decided to spare humanity the chaos of the Rapture and was giving us a few more months of existence. But Armageddon was totally still scheduled for October, so get ready. If Mr. Camping is correct, all this 2012 nonsense is useless. Don’t worry about it, because he says we’ll be gone before the calendar rolls over. We won’t even make it to November. Break out the party hats.
Sigh.
Yes, the world will end someday. Maybe in fire, maybe in flood, maybe due to an exploding supervolcano. Maybe at the hand of God. But it probably won’t happen in 2012. I’m an apocalypse “expert,” and you can quote me on it.