That is simply not true… The 2012AD is merely the Mayan “Y2K” date: when the most common representation for the “Long Count” runs out of bits and overflows. But there is nothing apocalytic about this date (computer controlled jetlines and nuclear power plans being pretty thin on the ground in Meso-America). There are plenty of mayan dates that use more “high precision” reprensentatoins (there are stellae containin dates in the far future).
Slight hijack: Anybody know if that’s the mysterious sound off the coast of South America that Christopher Moore said inspired him to write Fluke?
It’s all so obvious.
The World will end 5 minutes after it’s warrantee expires.
Personally,I’m fed up with end of the world scenarios.
Why it seems only yesterday that “they” were telling us that the hole in the ozone layer was going to be the end of us all, only to replace that threat with impending doom to global warming.
I still have a basement bunker filled with freeze dried food, bottled water, and machine guns :rolleyes: , left over from the Y2K scare.
Before the ozone layer we had the cold war, before that, disco.
I don’t know what attracts people to doomsday scenarios, maybe it’s some inner paranoia that the doomsayers feel a need to share with the rest of us, or maybe it’s simply a fear of uncertainty.
I’ve noticed similar, smaller scale doomsday predictions in the workplace too, in nearly every place I’ve worked, some come true, most don’t.
I hadn’t realized that the ozone layer and global warming were no longer anything to worry about.
I think you missed the point. Worry about them is fine…obsess about them because you think they are going to cause the end of the world soon is a bit over the top.
Put another way…do you have any evidence that either of these things is likely to cause the end of the world?
-XT
For all of us reading this the end is coming soon. Depending on your age what 20 to 60 years tops?
Well, the ozone layer isn’t getting the press it used to back in the 1980’s, now I know that we, as a society have taken steps to reduce the production of ozone depleting chemicals, and some scientists are predicting that the hole will be “healed” by the middle of the century. OK, so what happened to the world ending hype that surrounded this issue ? Remember, skin cancers, sunburned livestock, the end of plant life as we knew it were all going to combine to present us with a world far different from the one we know and love today. It didn’t.
Do we still need to be concerned about acid rain? I know it wasn’t really as doomsdayish as the hole or global warming.
I’m suggesting the same thing MAY happen with global warming. Will we look back in 15 years and wonder what all the fuss was about ? Will there be some other doomsday scenario that we’re all hot ( no pun intended ) about? Overpopulation maybe ?
But I’ll admit, global warming does seem like an insurmountable obstacle as far as the health of the planet goes, but I’m not going to loose any sleep over it.
Some days I’m just hoping the week will end…
It’s completely unnecessary for me to actually answer this question, isn’t it?
End of the world? No. End of humanity? Maybe. In our lifetimes? Not likely.
I hardly think the problem we’re facing is that everyone is just TOO worried about the environment. :rolleyes:
The end of the world has already come. Either the Bible never lies, or I slept through it. Matthew 16:28:
It’s not going to happen any time soon.
I am pleased to announce the exact date of the end of the world.
It is: eventually.
But should I be sure to go see the Mayan ruins before that, just in case something apocalyptic happens to them? 
Seriously, the Maya didn’t seem to do such a good job of predicting the end of the world as they knew it in the 1500s, including the death of most of their people from European diseases, or the Classic Maya collapse (or, if they did, they didn’t do much about it). Why should we think they’re right this time?
Deforestation isn’t a new problem. Failing ecosystems aren’t a new problem, either. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything about it, of course, but why should deforestation now be a harbinger of the end of the world when previous deforestation wasn’t?
It should be pointed out that much of the reason that massive predictions about the horror that would eventually befall us if nothing were done about X ended up not being true is because we did do something about X. Just not necessarily as much, as quick, or as government-controlled-oversight as the doomsayers wanted. Actions were taken to reduce pollution and CFC use in the 1980’s and 1990’s, both by individual consumers who had heard the message, and by small governmental shifts in policy.
This is why “peak oil” actually isn’t going to be a crisis: because everyone who states that it will be a crisis makes the assumption that A) there can and will be no innovation that changes the way the world uses oil in any significant way within the next fifty years and B) the great mass of Americans are stupid sheep who can’t think beyond whatever is cheapest and easiest for immediate use. Ergo, all solutions to the eventual “crisis” must come from the benevolent, wise government officials who will legislate us into compliance, or else we’re just doomed.
And meanwhile, scientists are figuring out how to make modern plastics out of corn rather than oil. And who’s their biggest buyer? Wal-Mart. Is it because the government has enacted drastic new legislation of environmental correctness? No, it’s because enough consumers - the great mass of stupid sheep, according to peak oil authors - are worried about oil-based products that Wal-Mart thinks it can use alternative plastics as a selling point.
I admit that I’m biased by experience. When I was in junior high school, the thing that most left an impression from my social studies class was the chart my textbook showed indicating how the world would deplete certain major metal supplies and when. Copper being extinct in 2010 or so, tin following in the mid teens, etc. But no one’s saying that now, are they? No one’s claiming that we’re going to be without water supplies in twenty years because of global overpopulation, but in the early '70’s authors were saying that by our time the world would have no food or water for 70-80% of its inhabitants. Predictions that were made invalid by changing trends in manufacturing and usage, as well as awareness of recycling and environmental concerns.
That’s too easy. It will happen just after the entire population has typed in five pages of perfect prose, and just before they hit save.
Thank you for putting your finger on why some environmentalist rhetoric bothers me.
The population explosion was another example of what you’re talking about. A number of science fiction authors speculated that the government would have to limit the number of children a couple would be allowed to have. But make contraception available and make it so that parents can assume that all of their children will survive, and a funny thing happened- people started having fewer children without the government telling them they should do that.
What year did they say that?
I don’t know, actually- I just remember reading science fiction stories in which there were various means by which the government regulated family sizes. I’ve always enjoyed old science fiction stories, though, so I have no idea when any of them were written.