Will the World End In 2012?

If you had asked me in 2010 if I thought there was any chance the world would end in 2012 I would have laughed. All my life I have heard predictions of doomsday and they never come true.

But now in 2011 the flow of events has forced me to rethink the possibility. For our discussion I will separate the overall flow of events into several different flows, such as environmental, economic, and political.

First of all, maybe I should point out that "the end of the world" doesn't mean the end of Planet Earth. Earth will be here for another billion years. Nor does it mean the end of Life. Life is too durable. What the "end of the world" means is the end of the present configuration of the human world, the end of the kind of weather and environment and economy and politics that we are familiar with. it means a sudden shocking change to a new configuration. It also could mean the deaths of billions of people and the destruction of much of what man has built over the centuries. It might even mean the end of man as a species, but my personal belief is that some of us will survive no matter what happens.

Now, let's consider some of the events that might be pointing towards a doomsday scenario taking place.

Extreme weather. 2011 has been a remarkable year so far and it's only half over as I write this in June. It's remarkable not only for the SIZE of the weather events (the EF5 tornados in USA, the mega-earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the floods of Australia and China and the USA, the drought and gigantic wildfires in USA) but also, as that list shows, the VARIETY of events. Extreme events are happening in EVERY weather category. There were record snowfalls, record high temperatures, and several volcanos have erupted (Iceland, Chile, and Africa).

OK, fine, 2011 is a year of extreme weather. That doesn't really scare me that much. Extremes can happen. To have so MANY extremes happen is... well, extreme!

But the real test will be 2012. If the extreme weather continues in 2012... then I will be very concerned. If the weather in 2012 is extreme but not quite as extreme as 2011, then not so much concern. But if the weather of 2012 is even MORE extreme than 2011, then I put that down as one fact in favor of the doomsday scenario.

You are probably familiar with the December 21, 2012 date that has been floated as being the Last Day? I don't know about trying to name a specific day, but the month of December is an excellent choice for the month, in my opinion. I will explain why later, but lets's move on to consider some other event streams.

I think we all know that the economy is not recovering the way it should and that Europe is having economic problems. The essence of the problem seems to be that there is so much debt in the Western World that it might not be possible to pay it off at full value. Different economists paint different pictures as to how serious the result would be. But judging from the riots in Greece, it probably does not take a full scale economic collapse to bring on extreme political unrest.

In the USA there is the danger that we will slide back into recession. And there is the danger that the political system will be deadlocked and unable to act effectively. Imagine an economy where the unemployment rate creeps back over 10%, unemployment benefits are not renewed, home values fall even further... it starts looking like riot conditions forming, doesn't it?

Keep your eye on the economy as we move into 2012. Gradual recovery will be a good sign pointing toward a No Doomsday scenario. Failing economy will be a bad sign pointing toward a Yes Doomsday scenario.

The reason I said December was a good choice of Doomsday month is because the USA election will be in November 2012. In the months before the election there will be uncertainty and hope and a willingness to wait to see what happens. If the economy fails and President Obama is not re-elected and an unpopular president is installed, then there will be widescale disappointment and rioting in November. It's not difficult to imagine that escalating into anarchy in December.

So keep your eye on American politics. An orderly presidential campaign with sedate debates points to a No Doomsday scenario. A disorderly presidential campaign with extreme mudslinging and fights breaking out at political rallies points toward a Yes Doomsday scenario.

There is also the geopolitical scene to consider. How bad will the Middle East get? Will oil supplies be even more disrupted than they are now? Ever higher oil prices point toward the Yes Doomsday scenario.

It's not any one particular event that causes Doomsday but the confluence of so many different negative events. It's a game of add them up and see if we break the bank. Are you familiar with the "tipping point" concept?

If I could put a diagram here it would simplify describing what a tipping point is but I will try to use just words. Imagine a flat smooth plastic tray and we want to use it to hold eggs so we put a dozen hemispherical depressions in it. Now imagine putting a marble in one of those depressions. It will stay there even if you tip the tray back and forth a bit, but if you tip the tray too far, then the marble will roll out of the depression it is in and over into another one nearby.

The idea of the tipping point is that the world can be in one configuration environmentally that is relatively stable and self-correcting, but if that configuration is stressed past a certain limit, called the tipping point, then the world settles into a new configuration. And there is no easy way to return to the old one.

The "End of the World" means the end of the world as we know it. The world moves into a new configuration and the past becomes something we only tell stories about and can never regain. What we have now is Atlantis. And our great grandchildren will tell each other the story of Atlantis and how in December of 2012, Atlantis came to an end, and the New Age began. Fortunately, being children, they will grow up in the New Age and learn to adapt to it and maybe they will also learn something from hearing the stories about Altlantis and how mankind once had a great civilization that spanned the globe, how he flew through the air in giant metal birds, and even to the moon! They will never believe the part about the moon. But it's true. It's all true.