PREPARING FOR THE END OF THE WORLD

The world will end on December 21st, 2012.

I understand that the world was actually also meant to end on May 21, 2011 according to US preacher Harold Camping and a reported 40 million others, but I was busy on that day on my way to a board meeting in Switzerland and therefore missed it all. Camping has now reset his forecast of Doomsday to October 21, 2011. It appears that he made an arithmetic error in his initial calculation when “subtracting the number he first thought of”, though the one common element remains that it will happen on the 21st of some month.

Author: Lenin and McCarthy; via Wikimedia Commons

One outcome is that I’ve stopped trying to lose the 10 kilos that I promised myself I would shed in my last New Year’s resolution. If the world is due to end in about 18 months on the winter solstice next year, dieting now seems to be somewhat pointless. This is good news not only for me but for overweight people everywhere… they may as well eat up as it will make little difference anyway, as we will be judged by our deeds rather than by our BMI.

This date of 21st December, 2012 for the World’s end seems to be the one that is most widely agreed upon, whether you believe the Mayan b’ak’tun, being the end of the 5125 year-long cycle of the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar, predictions from Nostradamus or the Hopi Indians belief that the world will go through a destruction and renewal at this same time.

Mayan Calendar; Author: Truthanado; via Wikimedia Commons

Anyway, Hollywood legitimised it all with the disaster movie “2012” so it must be true.

It is not 100% certain how this end will come about, some soothsayers predicting a destabilisation of the Earth’s core, some foretelling Earth’s collision with a black hole and others foreseeing a collision with a rogue planet called “Nibiru”, which to me sounds more like something you would find on a sushi menu, than a serious threat to earth’s survival.
Fundamentalist Christians see this as the Armageddon (“End of Days”) when the Messiah will return to the earth and then take 200 million Christians with him to heaven whilst the other 6.8 billion of us perish in eternal hell fires. I never realised that Heaven had such limited seating and a ceiling on available harps, but it looks as though it will be even harder to get in than getting tickets for the London Olympics.

Based on the fact that the end of the world will be only a few weeks after the US Presidential elections on Nov 6th, I am sure that Republicans believe that this will come about as God’s punishment if President Obama wins a second term in office, and Democrats will be nervous that it will potentially happen if a newly elected President Sarah Palin decides to test out the big red button in her nuclear-scenario-buffalo-skin-briefcase, called “The Football”.

So, if one does believe that this time around there is some strong support for the world ending on December 21, 2012, how do we prepare for and survive this apocalyptic event? As it may be a bit hard to get in to that favoured 200 million (odds of 35:1 if we just include the living candidates alone, and not all the dead rising up as well), is there something we can do to try and survive, or possibly be overlooked, or at least have a great time and go out with a bang.

A few possibilities to consider:

1. Some people in France believe that you can survive by being in the region called the Gers on December 21st.
I feel that this is a distinct possibility as it is an isolated and boring part of the country and if God was going to overlook any place in France it could conceivably be the Gers.

Author: fr:Utilisateur:Rinaldum; via Wikimedia Commons

2. Kiwis believe that their country is “God’s own” and it would therefore be unlikely that God would allow any harm to come to his own domain. This to me seems somewhat optimistic as there appears to be an attempt to destroy the country beforehand as a warning to others. To the people in my home town of Christchurch, the end of the world can only come as relief from the never ending earthquakes.

3. Greeks have decided that nothing could be worse for them than the conditions imposed by the EU financial bailout. They have therefore decided to hold a national strike on that day to protest against the EU conditions that will try and force Greeks to actually pay some taxes, which is akin to ending their world anyway.

4. The Irish have been living their entire lives as though the world was going to end tomorrow so as far as they are concerned December 21, 2012 will be treated as just another day, and “feck the consequences”.

Author: Firebelly (own work); via Wikimedia Commons

5. In Australia, December 21 is at least one week into the annual summer holidays so the entire population will be trying to squeeze onto Bondi beach and struggling to keep their “tinnies” cold in the 40C heat. Though there will be very few Aussies with seats on the “heaven express”, it is definitely a good place for a final party, as heat levels will be close to those in Hell anyway, and so good acclimatisation.

Author: Andrea Schaffer; via Wikimedia Commons/Flickr

6. The UK will be in the throes of another cold and wet spell. The roads will be closed because they will have yet again run out of grit to sand them (though a shipment will be on the way from Egypt), and everyone will be at home watching re-runs of Coronation Street. It will be hard to get there anyway as it’s a good chance that Heathrow airport will not be able to stay open in the inclement weather, and most Brits will welcome the warmth that Hell will bring.

Based on these available options open to me, I have decided that we may as well stay at home in Tabanac drinking our last 2 bottles of 1982 Haut Brion. As we sit about 150 metres above sea level, the approaching floodwaters will at least enable us to experience the feel of a waterfront property, even if only for a few moments.

The interesting thing is that the descendants of the Mayans will just be getting on with their lives, as they believe that this is only a date changeover, and that it is just time to start counting down the next 5125 years in their calendar’s cycle.

Ah well, at least it will finally give me a good reason to pull the corks on the Haut Brion after 30 years of waiting.