well, speaking purely in patterns:

• the sun is currently at it's lowest ebb of sunspot activity (nothing comparable since 'the little ice age'
• we're about due for a shift in magnetic poles (which happens fairly regularly). no telling what that will do to the magnetosphere
• we're about due for another supervolcano erruption from yellowstone (which also happen fairly regularly)

Our best bet, it seems, would be that the supervolcano erupts just as the magnetic poles shift and the suns radiant output drops. the clouds of ash and greenhouse gasses from the volcano should keep in the heat from the diminished solar output while simultaneously protecting us from the radiation that slips through the weakened magnetosphere. of course, it will be like visiting Satan's own health spa...

the magneticsphere is actually losing its power. So get ready for when the solar flares from the sun begin, it will most definitley affect earth. who wants some earthquakes? some tsunamies maybe? how about YOSEMITE super volcano erupting and contaminating the air for half of america. :)

Won't that kill the dinosaurs?

I am comforted that Nostradamus has predictions that extend past 2012. And, the Social Security Trust Fund will last until 2040.... no way Congress would let us expire with money left over.

well, there you go. an argument that actually makes sense. :D

After a while, amazed transforms into dumbfounded :p

Geomagnetic reversals occur on a scale of thousands to millions of years apart. They don't happen regularly at all. They are very irregular - no pattern of occurrence has been discerned from geological records. Saying that we are about due for a geomagnetic shift is like saying that the Pacific Rim is due for an earthquake - yes, it will happen, but good luck predicting when it will happen! The point also applies to supervolcano erruptions being called "regular".

The decrease in the Earth's magnetic field over the past 2000 years has been fairly steady, which leads many to believe that we are heading towards a geomagnetic shift. According to this thinking, the shift will occur in approximately 2000 years. However, there is also evidence that geomagnetic excursions happen on a frequent basis (more frequently than reversals). The rate of decline and the current strength of the magnetic field are still within normal variation since the last reversal. Thus, what we are witnessing could be normal variation, an excursion, or a reversal. Given the predictions by geoscientists that put a reversal out by around 2000 years, I am confident in saying that the magnetosphere is not going anywhere.

A few links on the subject, posting in order of increasing academic reputability:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/12/sc...rtner=USERLAND
http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/que...php?number=523
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/j...TRY=1&SRETRY=0

Unless you have an account through your academic institution or workplace, you will only be able to read the abstract of this last one - that should be sufficient to get the gist of it, however.

Yes, but the first one will be 1/100th of full size, the next 1/100000th, and so on...! Not nearly as scary. Although the one which is 1/10^666 might be... of course, since that's really 10^-666, it means it'll actually be good, not evil! :D

ugh. how dare you contradict my speculations with mere facts! :D

the fact is that earth is heating up. We dont need to be manipulated by al gore's film that claims that we have caused the problem to earth heating up..we have probably 10% to do with it honestly....The rest is just a natural cycle of earth...NATURAL

LOL! Right! Well over six Billion people, with literally billions of machines burning over 30 Billion barrels of oil per year, with the affects accumulating every year, and it's the natural cycle that takes precedence! :eek:

Edit:
Oh, and let's not forget the billions of tons of coal that is burnt in plants that are NOT clean. Add to all this massive deforestation, overfishing the oceans, and millions of square miles of blacktop covering the earth and absorbing sunlight that would have been reflected back into space. Yet somehow, it's just a coincidence that the earth is naturally warming. :rolleyes:

no offense to these people or anyone who follows this religion... thats just a head up to what i am about to say. in the infomus 2012 when the world is suppose to end and everyone is still alive the christian community will be wondering why everyone is still alive and the world has not ended yet. Along with the fact that several people think this actually might happen. If thats the case then wow, you do not know whats going to happen 4 years from now. like i said no offense to the christian community or people who believe that the world might end in 2012 or any other organizations or communities that i might be offending

yes, and the other 90% has to do with the decline of pirates in the world. however, if we all eat nothing except pasta from now until 2013, the all-powerful Flying Spaghetti Monster will have mercy on us. :D

well the heating up of the earth explains why there have been ice ages.

The planet does heat and cool, but that generally happens over long periods of time, not mere decades. What's more, the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere tend to closely match temperature changes, and we've already increased CO2 to levels beyond those in previous warming periods.

Even if you don't want to conclude that the planet warming is due primarily to our actions, it's an inescapable conclusion that we're contributing to it. If we assume for the moment that warming is primarily due to natural cycles, we still must reverse our course because global warming will be devastating for humans. We need to push the climate in the opposite direction from the one we're pushing now, no matter what the cause.

The world ending (or the Second Coming of Christ) on Dec 21, 2012 is not a Christian belief any more than Y2K was. Since religion is a taboo subject on this forum, I'll stop there.

Palin As President <-- click, click. ;)
[click anything that gets a pointy cursor at least once]

-HI-

Quoted for truth. thepeople, if you are going to make generalizations about the Christian community (or any religious community for that matter), it would do you well to do some research on the subject first. If you had, you would have discovered that NONE of the world's major religions propose that the world will end in 2012.

The fact is that you keep jumping from one melodramatic doomsday topic to the next. What is your game here? Are you really this panicky, or are you just having a little fun seeing what kind of speculation and debate you can prompt with such overhyped assertions?

Now that's funny! Joe the Chair cracks me up.

That is pretty entertaining! At the bottom it says updated daily, so I think I'll be checking back to see what else they come up with!