Is the end coming?

The year 2012 is suddenly in the news. Will it be worse than Y2K? Let the hype begin.

12/21/12:  The end of the world as we know it?Four years, nine months and three weeks may be about all the time we have left on Earth. Why? Dec. 21, 2012, marks the end of a 5,000-year cycle by the Maya Long Count calendar. To some, this spells doomsday (disaster scenarios include earthquakes, volcanic eruptions caused by solar storms, cracks forming in the earth's magnetic field and mass extinction brought on by nuclear winter). To others, it carries the promise of a new beginning. And to still others, 2012 provides explanations for unsettling developments (e.g., the disappearance of bees) that seem beyond our control.

While all this has largely been a hot topic within alternative cultures, the 2012 phenomenon is slowly trickling into the mainstream. At least four new books on 2012 have appeared in bookstores in the wake of the 2006 success of Daniel Pinchbeck's "2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl." This month, Sony won a bidding war for disaster-movie king Roland "Godzilla" Emmerich's apocalyptic script "2012." And this Saturday, 2012-ers will converge on Hollywood for a day-long conference devoted to the subject.

"There's a real hunger for this kind of knowledge," says 2012 Conference producer Christian John Meoli. Meoli takes a more optimistic view of the date, referring to it as "the Shift" (the conference's slogan: "Shift Happens"). "It's easy to manipulate people with fear," he says. "I wanted to stay away from the gloom and doom."

Among those appearing at the conference will be "Return of Quetzalcoatl" author and psychonaut Pinchbeck, who describes 2012 as "a window of opportunity to change civilization."Comment:  Let me be the first to predict that nothing of earth-shattering significance will happen on December 21, 2012. The world will be pretty much the same on December 22, 2012.

Who's right:  multitudes of ancient and modern prognosticators, or Rob? Come here on 12/22/12 and find out.