Two Major Articles at Examiner.com
July 12, 2010
The first is a compendium of ideas regarding our fate in 2012. Topics covered include CMEs from the Sun, a coming Ice Age, Patrick Geryl’s pole shift theory, the Web Bot, Nibiru and more. The second article is entirely about the possibility of contact with aliens in 2012 (or even disclosure that we have been in contact with them).
There’s no new information, but an excellent overview of many of the non-Mayan aspects of 2012.
2012 Threats According to the Independent
July 2, 2010
The recent Independent article kicks off with a powerful prediction:
Forget man-made threats – the catalyst for the apocalypse will come from outer space – It’s true that the Mayan odometer will hit zeros on 21 December 2012
And, as befits a quality publication, it details the more likely cosmic catastrophes that may befall us, without any irony or sarcasm:
Then there’s the “Big One”. About every 100 million years, a rock the size of a small asteroid slams into the Earth, causing global earthquakes, kilometre-high tidal waves, and immediately killing all large land animals. Creatures in the sea soon follow, as trillions of tons of vaporised rock cause drastic cooling and the destruction of the food chain based on photosynthesis.
…If a hypernova went off within 1,000 light years, and Earth was within the narrow cone of high- energy radiation, we’d experience an immediate global conflagration. It’s brutal luck if a hyper nova ever goes off with its beam aimed at us.
And then it descends into the arena of “we’re doomed, but it is a billion years away so who cares…”
2012 Feature in Sky and Telescope
October 18, 2009
Hollywood movie 2012 is providing the 2012 meme with a lot of attention, from such diverse magazines as Playboy (last month) and now Sky and Telescope:
Noted archaeoastronomer E. C. Krupp explains all the details, and the history of this mania, in the cover story of the November 2009 issue of Sky & Telescope, now available at a newsstand near you.
At Space Daily we get a larger taste of what the article covers:
If you believe what you hear, writes Krupp, “The ancient Maya of Mexico and Guatemala kept a calendar that is about to roll up the red carpet of time, swing the solar system into transcendental alignment with the heart of the Milky Way, and turn Earth into a bowling pin for a rogue planet heading down our alley for a strike.”
Krupp explains the realities, the many falsehoods, and the mixed exaggerations of astronomy and the Maya calendar system that supposedly combine to predict catastrophe. Krupp also reviews other recent end-of-the-world astro-manias: the “Jupiter Effect” doomsday of 1982, the “Harmonic Convergence” overthrow of the old world order in 1987, and the “5-5-2000″ planet-alignment catastrophe predicted for 2000. Interestingly, some of the same people and their notions were behind these erroneous predictions too.
“As we approach 2012, more and more professional and amateur astronomers are being asked about the doomsday scenario, so we want to help educate them, so they can inform the general public,” says Sky and Telescope Editor in Chief Robert Naeye.
“Dr. Krupp’s article thoroughly demolishes this pseudoscience drivel, and serves as an outstanding resource for scientists, educators, and the media.”
A summary of Krupp’s debunking can be found at Griffith Observatory.
NewsDay: 2012 – Not the End of the World
October 7, 2009
As the 2012 blockbuster movie edges closer to a global release, every level of news media is chiming in with a mixture of fact, pseudo-fact, mis-information and quotes from whichever expert they came across first. In early November it might become difficult to avoid the 2012 topic.
Archaeologists, astronomers and modern-day Mayas shrug off the popular frenzy over the date of 2012, predicting it will bring nothing more than a meteor shower of new-age “consciousness,” pseudo-science and alarmist television specials. Found at NewsDay (via AP)
The article points out that only one Mayan inscription specifically refers to 2012 (this is factual), and follows this with another fact that takes the wind out of the 2012 sails – there’s another inscription that mentions a different year: 4772.
The tone of the article, which has snippets of information from various experts, is that a Mayan doomsday in 2012 is purely a western concept with little to support it.
2012 Forum Featured in Playboy Magazine
August 16, 2009
In this month’s edition of Playboy (September, USA, Heidi Montag on the cover) is a feature article written by Frank Owen, looking into the survivalist aspects of the 2012 phenomenon. Members from the popular 2012Forum.com website are interviewed – chiefly Steve Pace of Missouri, but also Susan Skains, Ace McQuade and forum founder Robert Bast.
In a well-written and balanced piece, Owen ultimately suggests that a little preparation for whatever may come is not such a bad idea. Interestingly he also quotes a forum post in which Daniel, who claims to have travelled back in time to provide us 2012 information, tells us how he is stuck in a space-time continuum.
Where to next for the 2012 meme? I expect to see it appearing in Time, NewsWeek & 60 Minutes within the next 12 months.
UPDATE: The 2012 Playboy Article is now online
Extra! 2012 Space Weather by Wired
May 13, 2009
You are no doubt aware of the potential for a catastrophic space storm (from our Sun), as described recently by NASA. Now Wired asks a pair of experts, author Lawrence Joseph, and John Kappenman, CEO of electromagnetic damage consulting company MetaTech, about what might occur in our immediate future:
Lawrence Joseph: Ultra-high voltage transformers become more finicky as energy demands are greater. Around 50 percent already can’t handle the current they’re designed for. A little extra current coming in at odd times can slip them over the edge.
The ultra-high voltage transformers, the 500,000- and 700,000-kilovolt transformers, are particularly vulnerable. The United States uses more of these than anyone else…
Power grid operators now rely on one satellite called ACE, which sits about a million miles out from Earth in what’s called the gravity well, the balancing point between sun and earth. It was designed to run for five years. It’s 11 years old, is losing steam, and there are no plans to replace it.
ACE provides about 15 to 45 minutes of heads-up to power plant operators if something’s coming in. They can shunt loads, or shut different parts of the grid. But to just shut the grid off and restart it is a $10 billion proposition, and there is lots of resistance to doing so. Many times these storms hit at the north pole, and don’t move south far enough to hit us. It’s a difficult call to make, and false alarms really piss people off. Lots of money is lost and damage incurred. But in Kappenman’s view, and in lots of others, this time burnt could really mean burnt.
2012 in Mainstream Media Again
January 29, 2009
This week a good number of Americans will have become exposed to the 2012 meme, if they hadn’t already heard of it….
New York Post, Jan 28 – 2012: The End is Nigh!
Mark Dec. 21, 2012 on your calendar. That’s the exact day that lots of normally sane people believe some disaster will befall our planet – and not the kind of annoying everyday disaster like your cable going out or Ethan Hawke writing another novel. We’re talking Biblical proportions – the end of life on Earth as we know it.
…He may not be the cheeriest fellow, but Geryl is committed. In Belgium, he’s formed a survival group of about 20 people who plan on buying land in Africa to start building the foundation for a new society. That will be after the Earth’s magnetic poles suddenly shift, causing a new Ice Age.
Skeptic Dismisses 2012
January 21, 2009
Benjamin Radford, managing editor of the Skeptical Inquirer, has an article at LiveScience.com, World to End in 2012 (Check Back for Updates), that starts off with this paragraph:
Three children were recently removed from a remote church compound called Strong City in New Mexico. There had been allegations that children at the cult may have been sexually abused, though the matter remains under investigation and charges have yet to be filed.
2012 Solar Peak to be More Severe
December 17, 2008
At a recent press conference, NASA scientists explained that while they previously thought that more solar particles (radiation) entered Earth’s magnetosphere when the sun’s field was oriented southward, in turns out the exact opposite is true.
Essentially our planet’s magnetic shield is at its strongest when scientists had thought it would be at its weakest. And vice-versa. Our shields will be down in 2012 – the next solar maximum – when NASA scientists figured they would be up.
While this will alter calculations regarding the consequences of the next peak, all that has changed is our understanding. The Sun will keep peaking every 11 years, as it appears to have done historically.
More details at Space.com
Our Silent Sun – What Does it Mean?
October 30, 2008
This month the news of our currently very quiet sun reached a non-scientific publication, the Financial Times:
The solar wind – which is comprised of electrically charged particles streaming out from the star – is weaker than at any time since scientists began accurate observations in the 1950s, and the number of sunspots in 2008 may be the lowest since the 19th century.
…no one knows how long the Sun is likely to stay quiet. One extreme would be a continued period of inactivity, with very few sunspots or solar storms, that could last for decades. The last such suspension of the 11-year solar cycle occurred between 1645 and 1715, a period known by historians of astronomy as the Maunder Minimum, which coincided with the coldest period of the past millennium, known as the “little ice age”.
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