shift is happening, the protection offered by the magnetic field will be drastically weakened—if not absent entirely —during a process known as a “fade.” And with that field gone, expect cancer and mutation rates to rise dramatically. If it helps, think of the magnetic field as a sort of space sunblock… except instead of shielding your pasty ass at the beach, it shields the entire planet, and instead of getting sunburned if it fails, you get supercancer and flipper children.
• Eskimos
• Canadians
• Children
• PETA (unrelated)
Thus far this has been a “wouldn’t that suck if that happened” scenario and, though the timing dictates that it
That’s right! You’ve won the cosmic shit-death lotto!
The magnetic field has been fading at an ever-increasing pace for the last three hundred years or so, and right now it’s already down to about three-quarter strength. Just judging by the numbers so far, even if it continues at this rate, it shouldn’t really matter to you: We should all still have a few hundred years minimum before it’s low enough to affect life on Earth. But that mentality, in addition to being relatively dickish to your great-great- grandchildren, also isn’t entirely accurate. We can’t rely on the rate of change to be slow and steady. There’s an anomaly that exists right now in the south Atlantic called the South Atlantic Anomaly (because they’re scientists, not advertising executives; sexy names ain’t in their repertoire) that has already started the shift. It is a huge chunk of Earth beneath the ocean where the field is not just absent, but actively switching its magnetic polarity. Apart from fucking up all the mermaids’ computers, this particular anomaly isn’t going to really do anything, but it does confirm that the shift is going to happen in pieces, and in a nonlinear fashion.
So the rate the field is decreasing has been roughly mapped out. It will be completely gone—as in everywhere—in less than a thousand years, but vast swaths of the planet will also be losing their field in chunks well before that time. But even the areas with still-functioning magnetic fields will be operating at partial strength, and partial protection is just that: incomplete. Every percentage point that the field weakens makes it just a little more likely that you’ll be catching tiny molecular comets of radiation with your major organs. So instead of having full protection, like a Kevlar vest, right now you have a Kevlar tube top: spotty coverage at best. Soon, you’ll be down to a Kevlar bra as the field drops further in strength, and then before you know it all you’re left with is Kevlar pasties: It’s still protection, technically, but unless your nipples have some serious enemies, it may not be where you need it, when you need it. It’s a pan-global game of strip poker against space cancer, and the game is rigged against you.
While the more reasonable theories argue that the flip is a long and intricate process taking thousands of years to fully complete, a few people insist that the only way a magnetic shift this large can occur is from a huge planetary body passing so close to the Earth that the torque from its influence literally shifts the geographical locations of the poles—sending Sweden to South Africa and vice versa. The continents themselves would shift on the liquid base supporting them, sliding like gargantuan air hockey pucks across the molten interior of the globe. Obviously, this would be catastrophic. It would be exactly like pulling the rug out from underneath somebody… if by “rug” you mean planet, and by “somebody” you mean everybody. We would hurl across entire hemispheres at the speed of sound, or be spit out into space like watermelon seeds… if watermelon seeds were capable of feeling intense terror and incredibly brief but fantastic confusion. Several notable psychics and New Age philosophers have said that this scenario is “incredibly likely in the very near future,” while respected scientists and geologists have gone on record as saying that this situation is “so retarded” that it has actually “cost them valuable IQ points just hearing about it.”
But the New Age dipshits do have a little something right: They cite the timeline for this event around the year 2012. As mentioned in the introduction to this book, 2012 is the last, best hope for apocalyptic fanboys and fangirls out there just jonesing for some rapture. This is on account of the Mayan calendar, one of the most bafflingly accurate and intricate calendar systems of the ancient world, which ends abruptly in the year 2012. The Mayans believed that the current “phase” of life will end in 2012, and that nothing will ever be the same afterward. Now, as apocalyptic prophecies go, that particular foretelling of the end-times is downright flirtatious when compared to apocalypses prophesied by the other major religions. From Christianity to Scientology, most major religious texts set up the end of the world like it’s an opportunity for a special effects bonanza: Blood, lightning, explosions, plagues, demons, spaceships; it’s like an ’80s metal video come to life, and God is going to play a bitchin’ solo before he trashes his instruments—those instruments being all life on Earth.
• Poorly outlined
• Not plausible
• Not possible
• Not unretarded
• Fuck that noise
So while some interpret it as the end of the world, others believe it’s merely the end of the world as we know it (see: Michael Stipe). It could just herald a new era of knowledge and peace unforeseen in the history of mankind, and that’s what the Mayans meant by “the end of the current cycle of life.” Some people—good, hopeful, optimistic people—would agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly. You know who doesn’t believe that? Science. For once, science and religion agree; if anything big does go down in 2012, it’s probably not going to be an interplanetary group hug.
It just so happens that 2012 very neatly syncs up with the sun’s own regular pole shift. Like clockwork, the sun’s magnetic poles shift every eleven years, peaking with an increase in electromagnetic solar storms, and if you were paying attention at the time, you’ll remember these periods as being responsible for everything from mysterious fires to fucking with your television reception. But if a sun flip occurred when the Earth’s magnetic field was weakening, the energy released by the sun could act like a catalyst, thus kick-starting the process.
It’s comforting to operate under the assumption that pole shifts take thousands of years to complete, but other evidence has recently been turned up to the contrary. Samples taken from the Steens Mountain lava beds in Oregon indicate that at the time those lava flows were active, the geomagnetic poles were moving by as much as 8 degrees a day! If it kept up at that rate, the poles could’ve completely flipped in a month. Still others believe that the field does more than turn over in chunks, as was indicated by the South Atlantic Anomaly. They think that for thousands of years during the transition, the bipolar nature of the Earth actually splits into several rogue, roving poles that wander at random across the surface of the Earth. Eight norths! Moving souths! Navigation will be useless and constantly changing! One day you’ll wake up in North America, the next day South! Brazilians will enjoy Budweiser while Wisconsinites guzzle Fanta by the case!
• Motorcycles
• Soccer games
• My heart
• Hungry lions
• Your crotch
• The Earth
