7 reasons the world will end in 2012
Scientific experts from around the world
Who are these "scientific experts" from which organizations? What are they basing their "findings" on? Is there any reputable published research on this? I am talking about the level of "Nature" and "Science" not some Hollywood blockbusters.
are genuinely predicting that 3 years from now, all life on Earth could well finish.
Predicting based on what? With what probability? I could very well predict that based on the history of the cold war and it's resurgence in Central and Southeast Asia there is a 0.0000000000000000000000000000000001% chance in 168 hours the remnants of the military industrial complex will engage in a worldwide extincion level even nuclear warfare. Now thats a prediction.I give you the area of focus, the reason, the probability and the impact.How come these scientists are so unscientific?
which ones?
it'll be humans that set it off.
What, how, where, why?
Others believe that a natural phenomenon will be the cause.
What, how, where, why?
And the religious folks are saying it'll be God himself who presses the stop button....
What if I say god does not exist and quit the baloney?
1. Mayan Calendar
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...72/Mayan_5.gif
The first mob to predict 2012 as the end of the world were the Mayans, a bloodthirsty race that were good at two things:
Building highly accurate astrological equipment out of stone and
Sacrificing Virgins.
Thousands of years ago they managed to calculate the length of the lunar moon as 329.53020 days, only 34 seconds out. The Mayan calendar predicts that the Earth will end on December 21, 2012. Given that they were pretty close to the mark with the lunar cycle, it's likely they've got the end of the world right as well.
Doomsday psychobabble
See
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091106-2012-end-of-world-myths.html
2012 MYTH 1
Maya Predicted End of the World in 2012
The Maya calendar doesn't end in 2012, as some have said, and the ancients never viewed that year as the time of the end of the world, archaeologists say.
But December 21, 2012, (give or take a day) was nonetheless momentous to the Maya.
"It's the time when the largest grand cycle in the Mayan calendar-1,872,000 days or 5,125.37 years-overturns and a new cycle begins," said Anthony Aveni, a Maya expert and archaeoastronomer at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York.
The Maya kept time on a scale few other cultures have considered.
During the empire's heyday, the Maya invented the Long Count-a lengthy circular calendar that "transplanted the roots of Maya culture all the way back to creation itself," Aveni said.
During the 2012 winter solstice, time runs out on the current era of the Long Count calendar, which began at what the Maya saw as the dawn of the last creation period: August 11, 3114 B.C. The Maya wrote that date, which preceded their civilization by thousands of years, as Day Zero, or 13.0.0.0.0.
In December 2012 the lengthy era ends and the complicated, cyclical calendar will roll over again to Day Zero, beginning another enormous cycle.
"The idea is that time gets renewed, that the world gets renewed all over again-often after a period of stress-the same way we renew time on New Year's Day or even on Monday morning," said Aveni, author of The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012.
2012 MYTH 2
Breakaway Continents Will Destroy Civilization
In some 2012 doomsday prophecies, the Earth becomes a deathtrap as it undergoes a "pole shift."
The planet's crust and mantle will suddenly shift, spinning around Earth's liquid-iron outer core like an orange's peel spinning around its fleshy fruit. (See what Einstein had to say about pole shifts.)
2012, the movie, envisions a Maya-predicted pole shift, triggered by an extreme gravitational pull on the planet-courtesy of a rare "galactic alignment"-and by massive solar radiation destabilizing the inner Earth by heating it.
Breakaway oceans and continents dump cities into the sea, thrust palm trees to the poles, and spawn earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and other disasters. (Interactive: pole shift theories illustrated.)
Scientists dismiss such drastic scenarios, but some researchers have speculated that a subtler shift could occur-for example, if the distribution of mass on or inside the planet changed radically, due to, say, the melting of ice caps.
Princeton University geologist Adam Maloof has extensively studied pole shifts, and tackles this 2012 myth in 2012: Countdown to Armageddon, a National Geographic Channel documentary airing Sunday, November 8. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News and part-owns the National Geographic Channel.)
Maloof says magnetic evidence in rocks confirm that continents have undergone such drastic rearrangement, but the process took millions of years-slow enough that humanity wouldn't have felt the motion (quick guide to plate tectonics).
2012 MYTH 3
Galactic Alignment Spells Doom
Some sky-watchers believe 2012 will close with a "galactic alignment," which will occur for the first time in 26,000 years (for example, see the Web site Alignment 2012).
In this scenario, the path of the sun in the sky would appear to cross through what, from Earth, looks to be the midpoint of our galaxy, the Milky Way, which in good viewing conditions appears as a cloudy stripe across the night sky.
Some fear that the lineup will somehow expose Earth to powerful unknown galactic forces that will hasten its doom-perhaps through a "pole shift" (see above) or the stirring of the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's heart.
Others see the purported event in a positive light, as heralding the dawn of a new era in human consciousness.
NASA's Morrison has a different view.
"There is no 'galactic alignment' in 2012," he said, "or at least nothing out of the ordinary."
He explained that a type of "alignment" occurs during every winter solstice, when the sun, as seen from Earth, appears in the sky near what looks to be the midpoint of the Milky Way.
Horoscope writers may be excited by alignments, Morrison said. But "the reality is that alignments are of no interest to science. They mean nothing," he said. They create no changes in gravitational pull, solar radiation, planetary orbits, or anything else that would impact life on Earth.
The speculation over alignments isn't surprising, though, he said.
"Ordinary astronomical phenomena are imbued with a sense of threat by people who already think the world is going to end."
Regarding galactic alignments, University of Texas Maya expert David Stuart writes on his blog that "no ancient Maya text or artwork makes reference to anything of the kind."
Even so, the end date of the current Long Count cycle-winter solstice 2012-may be evidence of Maya astronomical skill, said Aveni, the archaeoastronomer.
"I don't rule out the likelihood that astronomy played a role" in the selection of 2012 as the cycle's terminus, he said.
Maya astronomers built observatories and, by observing the night skies and using mathematics, learned to accurately predict eclipses and other celestial phenomena. Aveni notes that the start date of the current cycle was likely tied to a solar zenith passage, when the sun crosses directly overhead, and its terminal date will fall on a December solstice, perhaps by design.
(Take a Maya Empire quiz.)
These choices, he said, may indicate that the Maya calendar is tied to seasonal agricultural cycles central to ancient survival.
2012 MYTH 4
Planet X Is on a Collision Course With Earth
Some say it's out there: a mysterious Planet X, aka Nibiru, on a collision course with Earth-or at least a disruptive flyby.
A direct hit would obliterate Earth, it's said. Even a near miss, some fear, could shower Earth with deadly asteroid impacts hurled our way by the planet's gravitational wake.
Could such an unknown planet really be headed our way in 2012, even just a little bit?
Well, no.
"There is no object out there," NASA astrobiologist Morrison said. "That's probably the most straightforward thing to say."
The origins of this theory actually predate widespread interest in 2012. Popularized in part by a woman who claims to receive messages from extraterrestrials, the Nibiru doomsday was originally predicted for 2003.
"If there were a planet or a brown dwarf or whatever that was going to be in the inner solar system three years from now, astronomers would have been studying it for the past decade and it would be visible to the naked eye by now," Morrison said.
"It's not there."
2012 MYTH 5
Solar Storms to Savage Earth
In some 2012 disaster scenarios, our own sun is the enemy.
Our friendly neighborhood star, it's rumored, will produce lethal eruptions of solar flares, turning up the heat on Earthlings.
Solar activity waxes and wanes according to approximately 11-year cycles. Big flares can indeed damage communications and other Earthly systems, but scientists have no indications the sun, at least in the short term, will unleash storms strong enough to fry the planet.
"As it turns out the sun isn't on schedule anyway," NASA astronomer Morrison said. "We expect that this cycle probably won't peak in 2012 but a year or two later." (See "Sun Oddly Quiet-Hints at Next 'Little Ice Age'?")
2012 MYTH 6
Maya Had Clear Predictions for 2012
If the Maya didn't expect the end of time in 2012, what exactly did they predict for that year?
Many scholars who've pored over the scattered evidence on Maya monuments say the empire didn't leave a clear record predicting that anything specific would happen in 2012.
The Maya did pass down a graphic-though undated-end-of-the-world scenario, described on the final page of a circa-1100 text known as the Dresden Codex. The document describes a world destroyed by flood, a scenario imagined in many cultures and probably experienced, on a less apocalyptic scale, by ancient peoples (more on the Dresden Codex).
Aveni, the archaeoastronomer, said the scenario is not meant to be read literally-but as a lesson about human behavior.
He likens the cycles to our own New Year period, when the closing of an era is accompanied by frenetic activities and stress, followed by a rebirth period, when many people take stock and resolve to begin living better.
In fact, Aveni says, the Maya weren't much for predictions.
"The whole timekeeping scale is very past directed, not future directed," he said. "What you read on these monuments of the Long Count are events that connected Maya rulers with ancestors and the divine.
"The farther back you can plant your roots in deep time the better argument you can make that you're legit," Aveni said. "And I think that's why these Maya rulers were using Long Count time.
"It's not about a fixed prediction about what's going to happen."
2. Sun Storms
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Solar experts from around the world monitoring the sun have made a startling discovery: our sun is in a bit of strife. The energy output of the sun is, like most things in nature, cyclic, and it's supposed to be in the middle of a period of relative stability.
However, recent solar storms have been bombarding the Earth with so much radiation energy, it's been knocking out power grids and destroying satellites. This activity is predicted to get worse, and calculations suggest it'll reach its deadly peak sometime in 2012
What calculations? By who? published where? Peer reviewed by who?
3. The Atom Smasher
Scientists in Europe
Which scientists? You don't even know how to substantiate your article by an acronym?
have been building the world's largest particle accelerator. Basically its a 27km tunnel designed to smash atoms together to find out what makes the Universe tick. However, the mega-gadget has caused serious concern, with some scientists suggesting that it's properly even a bad idea to turn it on in the first place. They're predicting all manner of deadly results, including mini black holes. So when this machine is fired up for its first serious experiment in 2012, the world could be crushed into a super-dense blob the size of a basketball.
This is like saying somebody might fall down on the ground because he had a haircut and the difference in weight will cause an imbalance!
See some stuff to debunk this falsehood
here
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1888121/posts
4. The Bible Says
If having scientists warning us about the end of the world isn't bad enough,religious folks are getting in on the act aswell. Interpretations of the Christian Bible reveal that the date for Armageddon, the final battle between Good an Evil, has been set down for 2012. The I Ching, also known as the Chinese book of Changes, says the same thing, as do various sections of the Hindu teachings.
This is like saying somebody might fall down on the ground because he had a haircut and the difference in weight will cause an imbalance!
See
http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl2.htm
44 failed & 1 ambiguous end-of-the-world
predictions between 30 and 1920 CE
Updated as 63 failed & 1 ambiguous end-of-the-world predictions between 30 CE and 1990 CE.
–2nd Century CE: Prophets and Prophetesses of the Montanist movement predicted that Jesus would return sometime during their lifetime and establish the New Jerusalem in the city of Pepuza in Asia Minor.
–365 CE: A man by the name of Hilary of Poitiers, announced that the end would happen that year. It didn't.
–375 to 400 CE: Saint Martin of Tours, a student of Hilary, was convinced that the end would happen sometime before 400 CE.
–500 CE: This was the first year-with-a-nice-round-number-panic. The antipope Hippolytus and an earlier Christian academic Sextus Julius Africanus had predicted Armageddon at about this year.
–968 CE: An eclipse was interpreted as a prelude to the end of the world by the army of the German emperor Otto III.
–992: Good Friday coincided with the Feast of the Annunciation; this had long been believed to be the event that would bring forth the Antichrist, and thus the end-times events foretold in the book of Revelation. Records from Germany report that a new sun rose in the north and that as many as 3 suns and 3 moons were fighting. There does not appear to be independent verification of this remarkable event.
–1000-JAN-1: Many Christians in Europe had predicted the end of the world on this date. As the date approached, Christian armies waged war against some of the Pagan countries in Northern Europe. The motivation was to convert them all to Christianity, by force if necessary, before Christ returned in the year 1000. Meanwhile, some Christians had given their possessions to the Church in anticipation of the end. Fortunately, the level of education was so low that many citizens were unaware of the year. They did not know enough to be afraid. Otherwise, the panic might have been far worse than it was. Unfortunately, when Jesus did not appear, the church did not return the gifts. Serious criticism of the Church followed. The Church reacted by exterminating some heretics. Agitation settled down quickly.
–1000-MAY: The body of Charlemagne was disinterred on Pentecost. A legend had arisen that an emperor would rise from his sleep to fight the Antichrist.
–1005-1006: A terrible famine throughout Europe was seen as a sign of the nearness of the end.
–1033: Some believed this to be the 1000th anniversary of the death and resurrection of Jesus. His second coming was anticipated. Jesus' actual date of execution is unknown, but is believed to be in the range of 27 to 33 CE.
–1147: Gerard of Poehlde decided that the millennium had actually started in 306 CE during Constantine's reign. Thus, the world end was expected in 1306 CE.
–1179: John of Toledo predicted the end of the world during 1186. This estimate was based on the alignment of many planets.
–1205: Joachim of Fiore predicted in 1190 that the Antichrist was already in the world, and that King Richard of England would defeat him. The Millennium would then begin, sometime before 1205.
–1284: Pope Innocent III computed this date by adding 666 years onto the date the Islam was founded.
–1346 and later: The black plague spread across Europe, killing one third of the population. This was seen as the prelude to an immediate end of the world. Unfortunately, the Christians had previously killed a many of the cats, fearing that they might be familiars of Witches. The fewer the cats, the more the rats. It was the rat fleas that spread the black plague.
–1496: This was approximately 1500 years after the birth of Jesus. Some mystics in the 15th century predicted that the millennium would begin during this year.
–1524: Many astrologers predicted the imminent end of the world due to a world wide flood. They obviously had not read the Genesis story of the rainbow.
–1533: Melchior Hoffman predicted that Jesus' return would happen a millennium and a half after the nominal date of his execution, in 1533. The New Jerusalem was expected to be established in Strasbourg, Germany. He was arrested and died in a Strasbourg jail.
bullet 1669: The Old Believers in Russia believed that the end of the world would occur in this year. 20 thousand burned themselves to death between 1669 and 1690 to protect themselves from the Antichrist.
–1689: Benjamin Keach, a 17th century Baptist, predicted the end of the world for this year.
–1736: British theologian and mathematician William Whitson predicted a great flood similar to Noah's for OCT-13 of this year.
–1792: This was the date of the end of the world calculated by some believers in the Shaker movement.
–1830: Margaret McDonald, a Christian prophetess, predicted that Robert Owen would be the Antichrist. Owen helped found New Harmony, IN.
–1843-MAR-21: William Miller, founder of the Millerite movement, predicted that Jesus would come on this date. A very large number of Christians accepted his prophecy.
–1844-OCT-22: When Jesus did not return, Miller predicted this new date. In an event which is now called "The Great Disappointment," many Christians sold their property and possessions, quit their jobs and prepared themselves for the second coming. Nothing happened; the day came and went without incident.
–1850: Ellen White, founder of the Seven Day Adventists movement, made many predictions of the timing of the end of the world. All failed. On 1850-JUN-27 she prophesized that only a few months remained before the end. She wrote: "My accompanying angel said, ‘Time is almost finished. Get ready, get ready, get ready.' …now time is almost finished…and what we have been years learning, they will have to learn in a few months." 10
bullet 1856 or later: At Ellen White's last prediction, she said that she was shown in a vision the fate of believers who attended the 1856 SDA conference. She wrote "I was shown the company present at the Conference. Said the angel: ‘Some food for worms, some subjects of the seven last plagues, some will be alive and remain upon the earth to be translated at the coming of Jesus." 11 That is, some of the attendees would die of normal diseases; some would die from plagues at the last days, others would still be alive when Jesus came. "By the early 1900s all those who attended the conference had passed away, leaving the Church with the dilemma of trying to figure out how to explain away such a prominent prophetic failure." 12
–1891: Mother Shipton, a 16th century mystic predicted the end of the world: "…The world to an end shall come; in eighteen hundred and eighty-one."
–1891 or before: On 1835-FEB-14, Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church, attended a meeting of church leaders. He said that the meeting had been called because God had commanded it. He announced that Jesus would return within 56 years - i.e. before 1891-FEB-15. (History of the Church 2:182)
–1914 was one of the more important estimates of the start of the war of Armageddon by the Jehovah's Witnesses (Watchtower Bible and Tract Society). They based their prophecy of 1914 from prophecy in the book of Daniel, Chapter 4. The writings referred to "seven times". The WTS interpreted each "time" as equal to 360 days, giving a total of 2520 days. This was further interpreted as representing 2520 years, measured from the starting date of 607 BCE. This gave 1914 as the target date. When 1914 passed, they changed their prediction; 1914 became the year that Jesus invisibly began his rule.
–1925. Watchtower magazine predicted: "The year 1925 is a date definitely and clearly marked in the Scriptures, even more clearly than that of 1914; but it would be presumptuous on the part of any faithful follower of the Lord to assume just what the Lord is going to do during that year."
–1919: Meteorologist Albert Porta predicted that the conjunction of 6 planets would generate a magnetic current that would cause the sun to explode and engulf the earth on DEC-17.
–1936: Herbert W Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God, predicted that the Day of the Lord would happen sometime in 1936. Nothing much happened that year, except for the birth of the compiler of this list - who has been referred to as an Anti-Christ. When the prediction failed, he made a new estimate: 1975.
–1940 or 1941: A Bible teacher from Australia, Leonard Sale-Harrison, held a series of prophesy conferences across North America in the 1930's. He predicted that the end of the world would happen in 1940 or 1941. 7
–1948: During this year, the state of Israel was founded. Some Christians believed that this event was the final prerequisite for the second coming of Jesus. Various end of the world predictions were made in the range 1888 to 2048.
–1953-AUG: David Davidson wrote a book titled "The Great Pyramid, Its Divine Message". In it, he predicted that the world would end in 1953-AUG.
–1957-APR: The Watchtower magazine quoted 6 a pastor from California, Mihran Ask, as saying in 1957-JAN that "Sometime between April 16 and 23, 1957, Armageddon will sweep the world! Millions of persons will perish in its flames and the land will be scorched.'
–1959: Florence Houteff's, who was the leader of the Branch Davidians faith group, prophesied that the 1260 days mentioned in Revelation 11:3 would end and the Kingdom of David would be established on 1959-APR-22. Followers expected to die, be resurrected, and transferred to Heaven. Many sold their possessions and moved to Mt. Carmel in anticipation of the "end time". It didn't happen. The group almost did not survive; only a few dozen members remained.
Most Branch Davidians did die on 1993-APR-29 as a result of arson apparently ordered by their leader, David Koresh. They were not bodily resurrected - on earth at least.
–1960: Piazzi Smyth, a past astronomer royal of Scotland, wrote a book circa 1860 titled "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid." It was responsible for spreading the belief in pyramidology throughout the world. This is the belief that secrets are hidden in the dimensions of the great pyramids. He concluded from his research that the millennium would start before the end of 1960 CE.
–1967: During the six day war, the Israeli army captured all of Jerusalem. Many conservative Christians believed that the rapture would occur quickly. However, the final Biblical prerequisite for the second coming is that the Jews resume ritual animal sacrifices in the temple at Jerusalem. That never happened.
–1970's: The late Moses David (formerly David Berg) was the founder of the Christian religious group, The Children of God. He predicted that a comet would hit the earth, probably in the mid 1970's and destroy all life in the United States. One source indicated that he believed it would happen in 1973.
–1972: According to an article in the Atlantic magazine, "Herbert W. Armstrong's empire suffered a serious blow when the end failed to begin in January of 1972, as Armstrong had predicted, thus bringing hardship to many people who had given most of their assets to the church in the expectation of going to Petra, where such worldly possessions would be useless."
–1974: Charles Meade, a pastor in Daleville, IN, predicted that the end of the world will happen during his lifetime. He was born circa 1927, so the end will probably come early in the 21st century.
–1975: Many Jehovah's Witness predicted this date. However, it was not officially recognized by the leadership.
–1978: Chuck Smith, Pastor of Calvary Chapel in Cost Mesa, CA, predicted the rapture in 1981.
–1980: Leland Jensen leader of a Baha'i Faith group, predicted that a nuclear disaster would happen in 1980. This would be followed by two decades of conflict, ending in the establishment of God's Kingdom on earth.
–1981: Arnold Murray of the Shepherd's Chapel taught an anti-Trinitarian belief about God, and Christian Identity. Back in the 1970's, he predicted that the Antichrist would appear before 1981.
bullet Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church predicted that the Kingdom of Heaven would be established this year.
–1982: Pat Robertson predicted a few years in advance that the world would end in the fall of 1982. The failure of this prophecy did not seem to adversely affect his reputation.
–1982: Astronomers John Gribben & Setphen Plagemann predicted the "Jupiter Effect" in 1974. They wrote that when various planets were aligned on the same side of the sun, tidal forces would create solar flares, radio interruptions, rainfall and temperature disturbances and massive earthquakes. The planets did align as seen from earth, as they do regularly. Nothing unusual happened.
–1984 to 1999: In 1983, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, later called Osho, teacher of what has been called the Rajneesh movement, is said to have predicted massive destruction on earth, including natural disasters and man-made catastrophes. Floods larger than any since Noah, extreme earthquakes, very destructive volcano eruptions, nuclear wars etc. were to happen. Tokyo, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Bombay will all disappear. Actually, the predictions were read out by his secretary; their legitimacy is doubtful.
–1985: Arnold Murray of the Shepherd's Chapel predicted that the war of Armageddon will start on 1985-JUN 8-9 in "a valley of the Alaskan peninsula."
–1986: Moses David of The Children of God faith group predicted that the Battle of Armageddon would take place in 1986. Russia would defeat Israel and the United States. A worldwide Communist dictatorship would be established. In 1993, Christ would return to earth.
–1987 to 2000: Lester Sumrall, in his 1987 book "I Predict 2000 AD" predicted that Jerusalem would be the richest city on Earth, that the Common Market would rule Europe, and that there would be a nuclear war involving Russia and perhaps the U.S. Also, he prophesized that the greatest Christian revival in the history of the church would happen: all during the last 13 years of the 20th century. All of the predictions failed.
–1988: Hal Lindsey had predicted in his book "The Late, Great Planet Earth" that the Rapture was coming in 1988 – one generation or 40 years after the creation of the state of Israel. This failed prophecy did not appear to damage his reputation. He continues to write books of prophecy which sell very well indeed.
–1988: Alfred Schmielewsky, a psychic whose stage name was "super-psychic A.S. Narayana," predicted in 1986 that the world's greatest natural disaster would hit Montreal in 1988. Sadly, his psychic abilities failed him on 1999-APR-11 when he answered the door of his home only to be shot dead by a gunman.
–1988-MAY: A 1981 movie titled "The man who saw tomorrow" described some of Nostradamus predictions. Massive earthquakes were predicted for San Francisco and Los Angeles.
–1988-OCT-11: Edgar Whisenaut, a NASA scientist, had published the book "88 Reasons why the Rapture will Occur in 1988." It sold over 4 million copies.
–1990: Peter Ruckman concluded from his analysis of the Bible that the rapture would come within a few years of 1990.
5. Super Volcano
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Yellowstone National Park in the United States is famous for its thermal springs and Old Faithful geyser. The reason for this is simple - it's sitting on top of the world's biggest volcano, and geological experts are beginning to get nervous sweats. The Yellowstone volcano has a pattern of erupting every 650,000 years or so, and we're many years overdue for an explosion that will fill the atmosphere with ash, blocking the sun and plunging the Earth into a frozen winter that could last up to 15,000 years. The pressure under the Yellowstone is building steadily, and geologists have set 2012 as a likely date for the big bang.
Which geologists? Using which data? When was the research done? published where? peer reviewed by who?
6. The Physicists
This one's case of bog-simple maths mathematics. Physicists at Berekely Uni have been crunching the numbers. and they've determined that the Earth is well overdue for a major catastrophic event. Even worse, they're claiming their calculations prove, that we're all going to die, very soon - while also saying their prediction comes with a certainty of 99 percent- and 2012 just happens to be the best guess as to when it occurs.
Why is 2112 "the best guess"? Is science reduced to guessing now? The world was at a danger of an extinction level event warfare throughout the cold war, why should 2012 be sopecifically worse?
7. Slip-Slop-Slap-BANG!
We all know the Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field that sheilds us from most of the sun's radiation. What you might not know is that the magnetic poles we call north and south have a nasty habit of swapping places every 750,000 years or so - and right now we're about 30,000 years overdue. Scientists have noted that the poles are drifting apart roughly 20-30kms each year, much faster than ever before, which points to a pole-shift being right around the corner. While the pole shift is underway, the magnetic field is disrupted and will eventually disappear, sometimes for up to 100 years. The result is enough UV outdoors to crisp your skin in seconds, killing everything it touches.
Only a person with no understanding of the gradual way this happens will fear this.The continents are moving apart and towards each other by centimeters per year, this was happenning since Gondwanaland (Continental drift theory, Alfred Wagner).Yet we do not have much to fear an extinction level event because this happens gradually.Fearing this and the pole shift, is akin to fearing a tree in the Congo rainforest will grow right into your face.
This myth is addressed in the above debunking available at
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/11/091106-2012-end-of-world-myths.html