by Michael Penner

Created on: January 16, 2009

There are probably many reasons our popular media culture has started to hype the possibility of something earth shattering happening in 2012, but most of it is likely driven by the one truly omniscient thing in all our lives: money. Right now, in 2009 Hollywood is getting the festivities started big time with their upcoming movie "Knowing". If this movie has anything near the impact on the mass consciousness that "The Day After Tomorrow" did upon those prone to believe in a coming eco-disaster, then 2012 is going to have a lot to live up to.

The date is very specific. It is December 21st, 2012, as determined by the end of the ancient Mayan calendar; a calendar which is reputed to be more accurate than the modern day calendar. This is impressive mathematics by any standard, but is wholy unrelated to predicting future events. The Mayan calendar ends on 12/21/2012, but there are some who would say it ended in 1546. Credence has been given to something bad happening in 2012 by the supposed correlation of bad events happening at 4 other key moments on the Mayan calendar. You can surf the web to find out what they are, but the math is questionable, the suppositions expansive and imaginative.

I clearly don't believe it is possible to predict the future, but I do believe it is possible that some really bad stuff could happen tomorrow, or in 2012. Here are a few possibilities that, at any time, could end our way of life as we know it:

1. Gamma Ray Bursts: Horrendously powerful cosmic events that happen currently on the outskirts of our known universe, should one of these occur even within the next closest galaxy to us (Andromeda, at 250 million light years distance) we could be toasted in less than a few days...literally. So, if such an event occurred already 250 million years ago, we would see it soon, just before everyone went blind from massive and relentless exposure to gamma ray saturation.

2. Near Earth Objects (NEOs): If you go to www.spaceweather.com you will see a listing NEOs...asteroids the size of mountains that do a dangerous dance in proximity to earth's orbit. If you've ever wondered how a mountain of rock can transform into a nuclear explosion, get familiar with E=Mc2, where E is Energy, M is mass, and c is the speed of light squared. When stone of a given mass strikes a planet at sufficient speed, you don't need weapons grade plutonium and complex machinery to cause a nuclear maelstrom. You just need stone. We're talking about 30 miles per second or faster

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>