that’s summer sea ice. on 12/21/2012, the arctic ocean will have already refrozen.
2012 is only a tick in the 5th digit of the Mayan calendar, no more or less significant that Y2K. I’m not sure how useful a timekeeping device is for observing the social and environmental change we’re already in.
yah. i’m still sticking w/ the 2012-2015 timeframe, but that has less to do w/ the Mayan calendar than it does w/ (to my mind) a realistic assessment of the situation. not that i think civ is going to completely go away during that timeframe, but i think that’s when the door will open.
Every 11 years my birthday is on easter. On April 15, 2012, my birthday and easter will coincide. THE END IS NEAR¡¡¡¡!!! :o :o 
Every year my birthday is on the winter solstice: 12/21 :o :o :o
Any significance to turning 36? I shall certainly have to plan a blowout of a party
According to the Japanese, 36 is a very unlucky year.
Wow, wanderer. I was recently wondering what I would be doing on that solstice … you’ll be celebrating your birthday!
I was thinking the other day that for my own purposes, I would like the collapse to either happen within the next ten years, or wait for about thirty years.
I’m 51, so if it happens in the next ten, then I’ll still be able to get some enjoyment out of the situation. If it takes longer than that, I’ll probably be getting too tired and achy to really have any fun with it. So in that case I think I’d rather have the collapse hold off until I’m at least 80, then I can just check out and leave all the fun to ya’ll.
I noticed yesterday that my passport, my drivers license and my firearms license all expire in 2012!!! :o
Must mean sumthin’ 
2012, end the old, start the new
Yeah Billy, don’t bother renewing them… there won’t be a government by then anyway.
So after reading this article: http://afterarmageddon.blogspot.com/2009/03/december-21-2012-doomsday.html
Im pretty much considering this a possibility. Im not well read into this subject so im asking anyone a little more invested into the topic to tell me how well this article makes its case.
[rant]Also. This might sound weird, but i always feel kindof comfortable in the presence of such powers. I mean its scary and all. But its not JUST scary. Its beautiful too. [/rant]
The Mayans don’t believe and never said that 2012 marks the end of the world, anymore than the equinox marks the end of the world. It marks the end of a great cycle–but that just means the beginning of a new one. A change in the season. I expect changes about as big as comes with a solstice–things we’ll recognize as momentous in hindsight, but a lot of disappointed hippies at the stroke of midnight.
Okay that makes sense Jason. I never read a well-put case on the “2012 phenomenon” so i am pretty unfamiliar with it.
That article is just the piece of info I was looking for.
I knew that the sun, milky way, etc would all “interlock” on that day, and I knew that a huge solar maximum was predicted, at least as strong as the largest previous maximum, which allowed/forced telegraph lines to run on ambient electrical charge…out of thin air, essentially.
I never factually connected the two so directly, though.
Some of the influences on the sun seem to be understudied. I wonder if the “official” predicted maximum takes into account the things put forth in the article?
As some pompous, science-worshiping douche on the radio said a few weeks ago, the planets align every winter solstice. Take that with a salt mine, of course.
I was talking to an old friend of mine, who is a Native woman from our local area, a while back. Somehow the subject of 2012 came up. She said that the world as her people knew it started coming to an end in 1492.
I got to thinking that yes, that certainly was an event that changed the world forever. Like she said, for the indigenous people of the western hemisphere the world as they knew it was going to disappear.
If you look at it though, Columbus lands in 1492. It’s another 128 years before the pilgrims land at Plymouth Rock and almost 200 more years before Lewis and Clark cross the continent. The native population of this area didn’t start feeling the affects of 1492 in any significant way until almost 300 years later, when the first waves of introduced diseases came to this area, which happened before most ever saw a European. It wasn’t until the 20th century that native people on this continent had enough information to piece together the significance of 1492, although there may have been prophecies that clued some of them in.
Interesting, do you see 2012 as the culmination of that, or the beginning of a new world, or both?
I see 2012 as the year when people in the US realize gas doesn’t grow on trees. It’s the year when food will begin to become too expensive and people will stop paying their credit cards in order to make sure the grocery store gets the cash instead.
I should mention that it will become that expensive because of shipping costs. At THAT point is when panic will begin. Oil is already never going to come down in price, ever again. It will fluctuate some, but the general trend will always be up. Recall that it has already doubled in the past 5 years. In 5 more we will be paying what they already are in the UK, and if theirs doubles as well, their economies will have begun the permanent break down.
Fossil fuels do not have a viable drop-in replacement. The economies of scale are against the use of renewable energy in the same manner that fossil fuels are used today and if all of the world’s countries start growing Monsanto corn for the ethanol, well, I’ll let someone else come up with the math. The cost in human lives and the cost to the world ecology… believe me, the world will come up with SOMETHING to put all that corn(soy/wheat) in its place. There will be a new disease, I can assure you.
“For every action there is an equal, but opposite, reaction.” – Isaac Newton
“The above applies to genetics, too.” --Me
Without something seriously heroic, watch it come down.
It will be a time of great rejoicing for those of us who see it as liberation.