On December 21st 2012 the world as we know it is in for some dramatic and devastating changes.
What is everyone's opinion on this subject, I have heard about it for a while now. What do you think will happen, could the end of the world be just four years away?? cho
"The Hopi and Mayan elders do not prophesy that everything will come to an end. Rather, this is a time of transition from one World Age into another. The message they give concerns our making a choice of how we enter the future ahead. Our moving through with either resistance or acceptance will determine whether the transition will happen with cataclysmic changes or gradual peace and tranquility. The same theme can be found reflected in the prophecies of many other Native American visionaries from Black Elk to Sun Bear.
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People are making both ominous and positive connections between the restart of the Mayan calendar and other phenomena predicted to happen around the same time. For instance, the winter solstice is on Dec. 21, and in the year 2012, a solar maximum also is expected to occur. At maximum, the Sun can have many sunspots and many more large flares and solar storms, said Karen Masters, a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. These events release charged particles from the surface of the Sun, which travel out into space. Those that hit the Earth can cause disruption to power grids, damage satellites and other electronics, she said. "So solar maximum can be inconvenient — but I don't think it's going to end the world," she said. "The date matching the Mayan 'end of the world' prediction is just a coincidence — after all, lots of things are going to happen in 2012." There is an 11-year cycle between the current solar minimum and the solar maximum NASA predicts will come in 2011 or 2012. Some people are also anticipating a reversal of the magnetic poles soon. But there are at least hundreds of thousands of years between reversals, and scientists are not sure when it will happen again. However, signs of a reversal have been observed for several years, including the magnetic field weakening, NASA has reported. If the trend continues, the magnetic field could collapse then reverse. The magnetic field protects the planet from some cosmic radiation, which has the potential to knock out power grids and scramble communications systems. The gradual process of a reversal would alter the direction compasses point, but most modern navigation equipment does not rely on the poles. However, some animal migration patterns might.
Other debatable 2012 prophecies include:
The nuclear World War III predicted by Nostradamus, a physician in 1500s France noted for his future predictions
A global peak in energy production, which would disrupt industrialized civilization as outlined in the Olduvai theory
Technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence, making computers the source of invention in a theory known as the Singularity