Well, it was 2012. Yep, December 21, 2012 to be exact. The time of the solstice alignment as well as the alignment of the milky way with the center of our sun and vice versa. Everyone knows that when you align a lot of things something terrible will happen. Remember what happened when you built that long line of dominoes that you aligned perfectly in your kitchen? That’s right some bone-head, maybe even you, tumbled a domino and watched them all fall like countries in Asia to communism.
Well, since we don’t have the millinium or Y2K (what a BUST) to worry about any more we have to have something that will prick our collective conscience and keep us fearing things that we can’t control. Since the economy is WELL within our ability to fix, we really need something else to look forward to with dread and fear. Thank goodness the world will end so we can worry about that. Now it’s no mystery that the world will end. Even more specifically, Human existence will probably not outlast the earth although we have the best chance what with our limited reasoning ability and all.
The other constant we have is that it will happen in the future. So as long as it doesn’t happen today, there is something to talk about. There isn’t much difference between the humans on earth being wiped out and the earth itself drawing to a fitful close so this will cover a little of both. Just in case you’ve run out of apocalyptic ice breakers. Here are my top opinions that how our earth will end.
10. Giant Meteor:
Yup, a big rock from the sky comes hurtling towards the earth at terrific speeds. They say one about a mile around is enough to turn the whole planet into a giant dust bowl. For a long time they thought that a giant meteor is what caused the ice age that killed the dinosaurs. Some still do. The giant cloud of dust and debris that is supposed to get kicked up will cover the whole earth in a cloud and not allow the sun to get in and therefore it will kill all the vegetation and make a new ice age right away. We’ll be giving our eye teeth for some good old fashioned global warming at that point.
9. Flu:
No this won’t kill the earth, but it could kill the humans on it. Every year we get a bunch of new strains of bird flu. Why bird do you ask? because it passes from birds to other animals and eventually to us. Every year we get our flu shots to keep us from getting sick. Now those of you that think you can get the flu from those shots are just as stupid as the ones that think that just because you got the shots means you can’t get the flu.
Flu vaccines take the form of several of the most probable strains of flu, take the dead cells of flu and give them to you. your white blood cells take a picture of these dead cells and say ‘hmmm, next time i see these gang bangers in my town, I’ll take em out like Clint Eastwood on Geritol’ and that’s what happens. Of course the problem comes when the flu that comes to town is the one that the scientists didn’t pick. It’s a real crap shoot. The good news is, the more shots you get the more flu’s you are learning to defend yourself from so go ahead and get your shots.
8. Super Volcano:
They had to call it a SUPER volcano because we have all seen a few volcanoes in our life time and quite frankly they aren’t THAT big a deal. sure they spew some ash around and yeah they make rumbling sounds and belch out all manner of noxious gasses, big deal, so did my dad. So we all agree to stay away from what’s left of Mt. St. Hellens and we’ll all be safe. What’s that?! a SUPER volcano? Son of a…I don’t know WHAT we would do in the face of a SUPER volcano.
I assume that SUPER is to volcano as SUPER is to man. So a SUPER volcano would have extra heat vision and could fly but was really mean and wanted to kill everyone. They say that the Yellowstone National park is the home of a giant caldera which is an underground bowl of water. This water sits atop a particularly thin piece of the earths crust and provides the perfect gateway for the earth to pop off with a HUGE eruption. They say that within 3 months the whole of life on earth is gone. Of course that won’t touch the government officials that are hidden away in their tax payer funded emergency bunker with enough provisions to keep them alive for several years under ground. With nobody to tax or to piss off wouldn’t they just cease to exist?
7. Nuclear Holocaust:
MAD or Mutually assured destruction. That’s the idea that was keeping us safe for 20 years or so after a couple of the big countries of the world got nuclear war heads. The concept played out like this; since both countries had enough nuclear weapons to destroy the earth several times over, nobody would be fool enough to use them because then the whole world would be destroyed and NOBODY would be dumb enough to commit suicide. Surely you would have to be an absolute flaming idiot to think about suicide on that scale.
Imagine. committing suicide in such a way as to take as many people with you as you possibly could. Preposterous! Never happen. Not in a million years. Of course the only thing more outlandish than that is the idea that if we all took down our nuclear warheads then we would all be happy and peaceful together. The truth is, nuclear weapons only guarantees one thing. if you beat a country down enough that has nuclear weapons they will use them. I’m pretty sure we are capable of wiping ourselves out on this scale, but I think we are also capable of a really good snack food that isn’t fattening and we haven’t seen that happen yet either.
6. God has finally had enough:
Now some people would say that any of the other methods for ending humanity would also qualify for this. In this specific instance, I’m addressing all of the worlds different religions. You see, that’s one of the ingredients of a successful religion is an end game. It’s the end of the earth that is one of the big benefits of choosing the ‘right’ religion and win God’s favor when he decides to really shake up this snow globe.
Those that are correct will usually either be protected, or have a way out as God rains down judgements on the rest of those people and Democrats that have bahaved wrongly in his sight. This is the one end of earth scenario that has most religious folk of any stripe looking back to 2012 because they all assume they were right. How will it end when God put’s his foot down? Depends on your religion. Here’s a hint, if the earth is ending in a way you didn’t expect, then you bet on the wrong horse, or horsemen as the case may be.
5. Ice age:
We’ve seen so many different reasons that the earth will plunge into another ice age that is seems pretty inevitable. Our species has actually survived a prior ice age or 2, but the REAL ice age will kill us. If we only would have listened to Ed Begley Junior we could have avoided it. Actually I give kudos to Ed. He’s one of the few Hollywood folks that actually puts his money where his mouth is. solar panels, electric car, you name it. if it’s giving him a smaller carbon foot print, he’s doing it. Now what about the rest of youse ham fisted glamourist as of hollywood boulevard? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Anyway, there are lots of ways the Ice age could happen. one is blocking the sun, but the other is from the oceanic currents shifting. The oceans are like a big swamp cooler moving cold water down and warm water up to the poles keeping the whole earth nice and temperate. Unfotunately that current is powered by salt water. if there isn’t enough salt in the water, the current stops moving the water around on the earth and THAT’s what makes up a good old fashioned ICE AGE. Since the polar caps are made up of fresh water, and that fresh water is melting into the oceans at an alarming rate, it’s an eventuality that an ice age will happen and kill us all. Well ok, we probably won’t be wiped out, but I’ll bet the price of hand warmers jumps dramatically!
4. Solar Flares:
Really really big solar flares. The kind that will jump off the sun and wipe out little itty bitty earth. That’s what they say anyway. The sun has been having some weird behaviors as of late and that is manifest in sun spots and solar flares. We are bombarded with these particles all the time, but they are increasing in intensity. Some scientists believe that the sun will just whip out a big old solar flare and crisp us all in a heart beat. I don’t want to die burning alive, it sounds uncomfortable.
3. Aliens:
I’ve always believed that if there were such a thing as aliens. They wouldn’t be here to give us grand technologies that will make our lives easier. But rather they would be here to make sure we taste good in their pet food and that our water is still relatively clean before that come back to take over. Don’t let any movies about our military strength in the face of aliens fool you.
If they can get to here from even the closest galaxy, they have WAY better technology than we do. Of course we probably have better TV, so maybe they will keep us alive. Then again, Simon Cowell might have been mistaken as a hostile act upon the universe and we were wiped out for the good of all existence. Maybe we can give them Clay Aiken as a peace offering. He’s one of them?! wow…I guess it all makes sense.
2. Black hole:
Remember that giant super collider that shut itself off a few months ago? It was supposed to make black holes that we could study. Kind of like an ant farm of extreme gravity. of course these black holes were so small that nothing would happen as a result of making them except for watching a whole lot of money and a whole lot of energy get burned up in a relatively short period of time. But in that time, scientists believe that they can figure out how the universe started. I was wondering how that all happened. Well, like any good science, it will go horribly wrong ala Godzilla. And the black hole will feed on it’s surroundings and suck us all up until we are all sitting in it’s black hole tummy and wondering what in the world were we thinking?
1. Cosmic shock wave:
My favorite one and my true hope for the end of days. The idea is that all around us there are stars and galaxies exploding into existence. Well that energy has to go somewhere! and it does. in an ever expanding arc around the fledgling galaxy a shock wave full of the power of several suns will hit the earth and literally vaporize us. POOF. The nice thing is that we can all go together. Nobody has to miss anyone and nobody has to be left to read all those books with a pair of broken glasses.
It might be fun to have about a week’s notice as we witness Pluto (the asteroid) get demolished from seemingly nothing. Then we could have news coverage as each following planet breaks apart into chaos as the wave closes in on us. Those crazy people with the signs that say ‘the end is near’ will finally be right. But they won’t have a lot of time to say I told you so.