(Or); Everybody talks about the end of the world, but nobody is doing anything about it…

Okay, that isn’t really true. All those fine folks working at government labs trying to develop new disease strains and bio weapons are certainly doing their part. Terrorists are trying to destabilize whole regions and cause mass conflict. I assume we are still building nuclear weapons somewhere on the planet, and some Governments… I’m looking at you, North Korea… are trying to move us as close to a new world war as they can. But aside from that.

The Mayans were very specific about the date our world would end, but then the details seem a bit sketchy. What is the timeline here? Are we going to go out with a bang or a long, drawn-out wail. Are we talking seconds or years here?

According to all the reasearch I have done, which I admit involves mostly watching a lot of TV, there are a few choices when it comes to the end of times scenario. Here are the most popular methods of our destruction in no particular order:

1. A big object from space slams into us… This has the advantage of being over fairly quickly, and will certainly be interesting to watch.

2. Nuclear annihilation… Hey, why not go out with a bang? Besides, I like all these that contain the irony that we did it to ourselves.

3. Climate change… Maybe all the Mayans meant was that this is the day we pushed the world past a tipping point that we can’t come back from. But that sort of sucks, because that is going to be a slow way to go.

4. Pandemic… We have been fighting against microorganisms for all of our history. Maybe somewhere in the world right now a little bug just mutated and is going to kick all our asses.

5. Zombie apocalypse… This one might tie in with number 4. Or with those guys making mutant bio-weapons. Who knows? But the world just might end like a big block-buster movie or a video game. So rack up some good kill points while you can.

6. A breakdown of the food supply… Hungry people might be just as bad as zombies, when you get right down to it.

7. A breakdown of society… Our veneer of civilization might be a lot thinner than you think it is. The fact is that if any of the things on this list happen, people are going to start going a little crazy. Does your neighbor have an underground bunker full of automatic weapons? Better bring him some Christmas cookies right now, just in case.

8. Some kind of global catastrophe involving huge storms, earthquakes, the crust of the earth cracking, the magnetic poles switching places, volcanoes, super storms, etc… This is just like climate change, only quicker.

9. Being hit by a neutrino pulse sent out from a dying star millions of years ago… And ZAP! All the electronics go dead. You think rich people are mad about Obama wanting to raise their taxes, wait till you see them when their bank accounts disappear.

10. It turns out that the religious fundamentalists were right… All the gods get pissed that we haven’t been behaving ourselves and come down to earth for some serious payback. This could get messy.

11. An alien invasion… This is my personal favorite. We think we are so ‘all that’, until an advanced culture shows up and does to us what our advanced cultures did to indigenous people all over the globe for centuries. Native people will certainly get the last laugh. And since most of them have been pushed to the margins of society, they might just be living in places that the aliens wouldn’t bother to go. See, it is the irony that appeals to me.

So go ahead, pick your favorite. And let’s talk about it. Or tell me which end of the world scenarios I forgot to mention. I figure if we are all going to die in the next few hours… or days… or weeks… or years… we might as well have some fun with it.