2012 The end of days a macleans.ca view...
 

The end of days

Mayans, psychics and serious scientists all foresee disaster in 2012

BRIAN BETHUNE | Feb 15, 2007 | 5:06 pm EST

The Apocalypse just ain't what it used to be. With the millions of fundamentalist believers expecting the imminent arrival of the Last Judgment matched on the secular side by prophets of ecological desolation, it would seem "The End is Nigh" sandwich-board guys are firmly in the mainstream. Still, it comes as a bit of a shock to find so many in the Armageddon community fixed on a definite -- and very near -- date: Dec. 21, 2012. And even more of a jolt to learn how much actual science lies behind the doomsday predictions.

Admittedly, the precise date is more mystical than scientific, being primarily based on the day the millennia-old Mayan Long Count calendar runs out. Since the Mayans were without a doubt the world's greatest astronomers, the mere fact that they called a halt at a set date is enough for many doomsayers -- psychics, self-appointed saviours, alien visitor aficionados and the like. Books and websites are mushrooming, and survivalists are heading for the hills -- literally: South Africa's Drakensberg Mountains, safe from volcanos and tsunamis, are a favoured refuge.

But Lawrence Joseph, whose survey of end-time scenarios, Apocalypse 2012 (Random House), manages to be both lighthearted in tone and more than a little disturbing in content, keeps his focus on the science. (Besides, he adds in an interview, it's difficult to get ahold of Noah's heirs: most of them are "very nice, but they're all pressed for time.") So Joseph goes to South Africa, not to scope out real estate in the Drakensbergs, but to talk to geophysicists about the earth's weakening magnetic field. Nobody knows why it's thinning, or whether that presages a pole shift. The dwindling field, which already has cracks in it the size of California, is bad enough, since it's our primary line of defence against lethal solar radiation; a pole shift, which last occurred about 780,000 years ago, would be catastrophic while it took place, reducing radiation protection to near zero, and initiating seismic and volcanic eruptions.

If that doesn't do it for us, there's always the Yellowstone super-volcano that devastates North America every 600,000 to 700,000 years. It last went off some 640,000 years ago, spewing enough ash to fill the Great Lakes twice, enough to block sunlight around the world for 10 years. Nor is a ticking clock the only reason to look askance at the Tokyo-sized lake of fire under America's most famous park: it's risen 750 cm since 1922, a lightning change in geological terms. But maybe Yellowstone is too small to worry about. The 542-million-year fossil record shows that every 62 to 65 million years, the planet undergoes a mass extinction episode that routinely wipes out between 50 and 90 per cent of all genera. It's no surprise to learn the last mass extinction, the one that killed the dinosaurs, was 65 million years ago. We're overdue.

All this still doesn't -- yet -- add up to a good reason to stop contributing to your RRSP. On the time scale of our 4.5-billion-year-old planet, those disasters may well be due, but in a human lifespan, or even that of our children's children, there's ample wriggle room. Even a pole shift -- if one is underway at all -- would play out over a millennium. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about the recent strange behaviour of our hitherto friendly neighbourhood star.

On Jan. 20, 2005, a solar storm the size of Jupiter shot out a massive flare that carried several billion tons of protons to earth in a half-hour. This was seriously perturbing for two reasons. First was the speed the protons travelled at -- about a quarter of the speed of light, 50 times their usual pace. The closer to lightspeed any object approaches, the more mass it achieves: "unless Einstein is seriously wrong," Joseph writes, "we all will be obliterated if a future batch of protons manages to shave another 22 minutes off their travel time." Second, and more important, the solar storms of 2005 -- there were many more, including 10 between Sept. 7 and 13, one of the most turbulent weeks in recorded solar history -- shouldn't have happened at all. The year 2005 was very near solar minimum, the quiet part of the 11- to 13-year sunspot cycle. The next solar maximum, when storms are most frequent and powerful, will climax in 2012. Given the peculiar way the sun acted at minimum, a lot of people are worried about what it will do at maximum.

That includes Joseph, 52, a skeptical science writer who, in his own words, "had a lot of mean-spirited fun with the Y2K freaks." And now? "Personally and emotionally," he says, "I can't grasp the mega-disaster scenario. I have two small children -- I mean I literally can't face it. But greater minds than mine see it coming." Have a nice day.

http://www.macleans.ca/homepage/maga..._102286_102286

pour d'autre source
http://www.apocalypse2012.com/us/

science maya
http://www.dinosoria.com/maya_science.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar

solar storm
http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...lar_flare.html

super volcan yellowstone
http://www.solcomhouse.com/yellowstone.htm
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...llowstone.html

I guess now they have 5 years to think up an excuse as to why this will never happen...

the point is that someday there is going to be a big shakeout that will wipe us and all we've built out, that's the history of the planet - but our lifetimes are so short there's no way anybody can predict whether it comes in our lifetimes or our great great great grandchildrens or 100 generations from now. we can't prepare for any of those major disasters even if we had a 50 years to prepare. so no point worrying.

The one scientific fact that has been left out of the equation by many but does exist is that the date of Dec 2012 also coincides with one other event that hasnt occurred in 28,000 years.
On that date the sun and the earth will be in perfect alignment with the center of the recently discovered black hole at the absolute center of the milky way. The effects, by scientific calculations anyway, will have the effect of shifting those poles you talk about, as well as causing a major shift in the tectonic plates on the earths surface due to the magnetic change.
Since we dont have real good newspapers lying around from when it happened the last time - the only thing we can rely on is the geological evidence that was left from that same shift that occured 28k yrs ago.
Most geologists agree that at that time there was so much shifting in the plates that if anything had been alive on the surface it ceased to exist at that point due to the major eruptions of magma from the earths core.
The other effect that the black hole has is the effect people have been seeing with the sunspots and proton/gamma activity lately - the alignment with the black hole causes a shift in magnetic fields which is also predicted to change the rotation axis and speed of the earth
I just hope Im still around to see it as it will be quite the "lightshow" as the moon (which is in gravitational pairing with the earth) starts getting into the path of the asteroid belt again (ever notice all those craters)

Linkster your text is pretty scarry !!

im searching info about this subject and dont find anything im using keyword such as black hole 2012, earth sun black hole etc..and find nothing about eath sun aligmnent with a black hole

There was a documentary on the History channel a few weeks ago talking about doomsday (my buddy was telling me about it so I am going on hearsay). Appearantly, some dude did something with computers and I Ching and no matter what he does, he cannot get it to go past Decemeber 12, 2012.

Oops, I mean 12/21/2012

http://www.aztlan.net/rumblings_center_galaxy.htm

The fact that there is a black hole in the center has been proven by measuring the photon emmisions and xray telescopes - there also seems to be a star that is in partnership with the hole right now which shows a pulsing exchange of matter/energy

Of course most of this is refuted by most scientists who havent really taken the time to look at it - most of them scoff at it as good meat for a movie (I think Mel Gibson has one coming out or already out about it) - unfortunately most of the scientists that post on the web as "astronomers" and experts - are really not even close - but at least they are getting good money getting their names before the cable news networks as "experts" :)

Well damn, since we only have 5 years might as well live it up ...
Get those webcam links up while you can -- see sig

:upsidedow

A BBC documentary showed a pole reverseal on Earth would also disturb planets around us and most likely end up pulling the Moon towards us ultimately crashing and destroying everything