A movie still from the new film “2012” depicting the end of the world. Credit: Columbia Pictures.

The hype is beginning to invade the cultural landscape like bio-engineered kudzu: the end of the world is a mere three years away.

In late December, 2012, thanks to an unusual celestial alignment — or maybe just the expiration date of the Mayan calendar — our planet will be wracked and ruined.  Look on the bright side: you can blow off your estimated tax payments for that year.

Hollywood producers — never ones to miss a silver lining — are hoping to make some hay with Earth’s imminent quietus. A soon-to-be-released film, bearing the inventive title "2012", will let you see just how visually stunning doomsday can be.

The brouhaha has got some people’s knickers in a knot. Scientists have waded into this sticky chiffon of pseudoscience and hyperbole, and told everyone to cool it. The end is not nigh, guy.  After all, the apocalypse is routinely predicted, but always fails to appear. 

This isn’t just a reference to the somber forecasts of the Heaven’s Gate crowd, or other dire warnings at the turn of the millennium — forecasts that were wildly inaccurate. No, you have to consider the big picture: There’s been life on this planet for nearly four billion years, and nothing — not asteroids, gamma ray bursts, shifting magnetic poles, or the occasional supernova — nothing has managed to snuff it out. Life’s tougher than a leather sandwich.

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