[Serious Discussion]2012: Destiny of the Earth

[Silverthorn]

Alright, here we go....

What exactly is the reason why people believe the world would go down on December 21, 2012? As far as I know, we base it on a culture that failed to predict both their own extinction and the arrival of Cortés who practically wiped out the remnants. Also, who in their right mind would design a calendar that reaches 500+ years into the future? Superstition or not, half a millenium is a tad too much. And it always reminds me of this little cartoon:

Spoiler (Click to View)

So, I don't really trust the mayans...

Then, let's go over possible catastrophies that could potentially wipe out mankind:

• Meteorites. Well, there is none in sight that could harm Earth. And I'm pretty sure that astronomers would have found a humonguous rock floating around space if it's dangerous. Just for comparison: Earth's getting hit by around 40 tons of cosmic dust each day. Does it threaten our lives? Highly doubtful. What's the next larger object that could destroy something? So far, "99942 Apophis" holds the record on being, albeit temporarily, placed at 4 in the Torino Scale (where 0 is "perfectly safe" and 10 is "we and our descendants are pretty much dead"). Conclusion: nope.
  
• Global warming. Fine, let's assume the absolute worst-case-scenario for global warming kicks in. This would probably mean that we get a couple more storms, monsoons, droughts, and whatnot. Will it kill humanity? Probably not, we're way too scattered around the globe that these things can instantly destroy us. Also, there are less than 8 months left until the world is supposedly going downhill. Not a whole lot of time to destroy stuff...
  
• Cosmic radiation. Well, our sun does like to bombard us with highly energetic particles that tend to destroy satellites after a couple years by frying their electronics. But wait, it's just the electronics. Assuming that we get a large burst of radioactiveness: all magnetic and electronic disks will "forget" their data, while we get a small portion of high-energetic radiation as well. Will it kill us? Unlikely. There are still people that live in Chernobyl. We just might to get used to pen and paper for a few months.
  
• Earthquakes & Tsunamis. Plate tectonics have existed since earth's surface has cooled off so much that rock becomes solid (aka. a couple billion years). Whereever there was an earthquake, it has resulted in some sort of casualties, sometimes more and sometimes less. The fact that there are supposedly "more" earthquakes results in the fact that nowadays, every little movement is being registered. Back in the middle ages, that stuff just happened. Some notable events are recorded in historic books but not single bit. Humanity has experienced some pretty bad earthquakes/tsunamis but a tibetanian monk will probably not even know what a tsunami is.
  
• Volcanos. This is an interesting one. A single volcano at the level of Eyjafjallajökull (that Islandic volcano that led to major problems among airlines) won't really harm a whole lot. However, there are a few socalled "Supervolcanos" scattered around the planet. Those can actually become dangerous in case of an eruption. One of them is located in the Yellowstone National Park. In case you haven't heard about it, the last time the thing blew up was around 600,000 years ago and led to a pretty massive destruction of North America. It is now actually overdue. In case it does erupt, it'd also lead to a drastic climatic changes, negative impacts on agriculture, and ultimately, on us. The only thing that is positive is that geologists currently "see no evidence that another such cataclysmic eruption will occur at Yellowstone in the foreseeable future. Recurrence intervals of these events are neither regular nor predictable." [thank you wikipedia]
  Eventually, we'll probably have to deal with something like that, but not in 2012.

Anything else I forgot? Don't know. But in case you've read it, congratulations. And in case you are still unsure about what I think of the whole 2012-drama: I say it's not going to happen.