Apocalypse really is coming — someday

A Canadian earth scientist confirms that the end of the world is coming. Just not in time to meet the latest doomsday deadline.

With the termination of the Mayan calendar approaching, speculation around Dec. 21 marking Armageddon is kicking into high gear. Even skeptics are expected to join in, with experts noting that it’s only natural to entertain the question of, ‘what if?’

“Humans are very preoccupied with their own lifetimes,” says Robert McLeman, associate professor of environmental studies at Wilfrid Laurier University. “There’s a latent concern in everybody that maybe there’s something (threatening) out there that they should be aware of.”

A recent Ipsos survey of 16,262 people in 21 countries found 10 per cent of global citizens agree that “the Mayan calendar, which some say ‘ends’ in 2012, marks the end of the world.” Of the roughly 1,000 Canadians polled, nine per cent held that belief.

But if Judgment Day is imminent, there’s little sign of it in popular science.

NASA has refuted all claims that the planet could meet its end, or experience any kind of “blackout,” on Dec. 21. And McLeman notes that the next asteroid that poses even a mild threat isn’t likely to be a danger until 2040, let alone in the next two weeks.

“I don’t think the ancient Mayans knew anything more about the end of the world than we do today,” says McLeman, adding with a laugh that he’s “prepared to be wrong and face the punishment of the gods.”

Colin Goldblatt, an assistant professor in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria, says the planet is indeed operating under a deadline. Just not the same one professed by “2012ers.”

“Ultimately, the apocalypse will be something called a runaway greenhouse,” Goldblatt says. “Venus in the past is like earth in the future.”

Evidence suggests Venus’s early history was marked by a warming effect similar to what we’re experiencing now, with temperatures eventually soaring to more than 1,000 C as a result of more energy getting in than out. Goldblatt says the same thing will happen here, but likely not for another billion years.

Jacqui Derbecker, a visionary from Barrie, Ont., sees the post-Dec. 21 world as being characterized by a return to innocence, wherein “relationships and positive vibrations” prevail. She describes it as being more like Candy Land than the Walking Dead.

“You could call it a dismantling of old ideas and really coming back to your original self,” says Derbecker, author of Movement of Stillness.