All mankind shivers in anticipation of December 2012, when according to some interpreters of the Mayan calendar the end of the world will come.
Will the end of humanity really come? The British newspaper "Daily Telegraph" published the 10 most-circulated in recent years, scenarios for the end of the Earth.
Invasion of aliens
This version was more popular than back in 1898 when HG Wells published his novel "War of the Worlds". But scientists have found an interesting trend - fears of a deadly alien attack are increased at a time when people are afraid of more worldly threats.
- At the beginning of the 21st century an unknown planet will interject with the Earth, and will destroy civilization, or will cause a huge natural disaster. This scenario is based on fiction invented by the American Zekariya planet Nibiru Sitchin.
Every 3700 years Nibiru ends up in the inner part of our planetary system, but there are Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Proof of the existence of Nibiru exists. In 2005, NASA announced that it has finally found a planet of our solar system and many believe that it will pass in 2012 near the Earth and will somewhat affect us.
- A powerful solar flare will swallow the Earth. Scientists actually believe that when the sun "exhausted its fuel, " it will swell to the size of a red giant, will explode and then swallow the Earth. That will happen no sooner than 5 billion years.
- Theory of the Earth's shifting magnetic poles. According to its supporters this will cause a change in the rotation of the planet and subsequent catastrophic events.
Scientists from Princeton University and the University "Paul Sabatier" in Toulouse found that Earth did some "re- balancing", 800 million years ago. They studied the minerals in rocks sediments in Norway and found that the north pole has shifted by 50 degrees in 20 million years. Such a shift will be due again in the very near future, predict the supporters of apocalyptic theories. According to geologists, however, this will happen over a period of 1 million years.
- The outbreak of a super volcano. Such volcanic explosion would occur when magma rose in the bowels of the earth, but can not find its way out, researchers explain. Enormous pressure accumulates, which ultimately will lead to a giant explosion. Such a cataclysm would spew into the air tons of toxic gases and volcanic debris, and would cause a new ice age and would destroy the life of the planet.
A similar explosion may be in a giant caldera in Yellowstone National Park in the U.S.. Satellite images in recent years there have shown changes in the movement of molten rock at a depth of 16 kilometers. But now, nobody knows if and when this caldera will erupt.
- World War III, for which will be used nuclear weapons. This scenario was updated during the Cold War. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cold War fears allayed. In recent years, concern has also been returned because of Iran's nuclear program, tensions on the Korean Peninsula and continuing tensions between India and Pakistan - two countries with nuclear arsenals.
Last year in Prague, Barack Obama tried to dispel these fears with the promise of a world free of nuclear weapons.
- The act of terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. After the attacks on the twin towers in New York on September 11, 2001, when nearly 3, 000 people died, fears of scenario # 7 have risen sharply. Western governments are talking about the danger of similar attacks against major cities.
At the opposite end is the conspiracy theory that the September 11 attacks were planned and carried out by the U.S. administration. Currently there is no evidence that Al Qaeda has nuclear weapons.
- Peak demand for oil will lead to the end of the world. Demand will be much greater than supply and shortage of oil supplies will have huge implications worldwide. Most economies are powered by oil, agriculture depends on it, the plastics industry is based entirely on it. Such a crisis would lead to collapse of social order.
According to optimists, this will occur by 2020, some oil giants, however, acknowledged that they have overestimated their oil reserves and raised fears that we have entered an era when demand for oil is greater than supply.
- Scenario number 9 is associated with the phenomenon observed in the winter of 2008 - the extinction of whole colonies. And over a third of commercial bee swarms in the U.S. died as a result of the collapse of the syndrome of bee colonies.
Syndrome spread to several European countries including France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Several reasons were identified for the disease - pesticides, Israeli acute paralysis virus, wax moths, climate change, mobile phones and their networks.
New cases of the disease were previously reported by affected parties and hanging the threat of a pandemic on the bees, which can lead to their complete disappearance. If something like this happens, several cultures that are important to people, would disappear. These include soybeans, cotton, some nuts, grapes, apples, sunflowers, etc.
Third of the food consumed in the world is produced due to unsuspected involvement of bees. So the extinction of bees could lead to shortages of some foods, which leads to migration, violence, wars.
- Global warming and climate change. This can lead to multiplication of elements, from floods, to droughts ... Few scientists dispute the fact that average global temperatures increased last century. There were, however, climate skeptics, who discovered the errors and poorly substantiated conclusions in reports of international organizations for change, said that climate change data are manipulated by climatologists.
The world today has taken to counteract this phenomenon, and organized several international conferences on climate change.
