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Today we’re talking about the end of the world. Seriously! The passing of a tumultuous year finds us hopeful, but also curious about the apocalypse, or at least why so many of the world’s traditions, both religious and secular, equate earthly disasters with the end of days. Economists forecast financial Armageddon. Investors point to God’s vengeance. Climate scientists predict catastrophic destruction. Growing numbers point to the end of the Mayan calendar on December 21, 2012.

And then, of course, there’s the asteroids, cosmic disasters, comets crashing down to Earth, black holes threatening to swallow our universe hole, supernovas exploding, and galaxies colliding. Outer space is an incredibly violent and hostile place, and it’s little wonder we feel control slipping away. So what do we really have to fear? And what can be done to stop any of these potentially catastrophic scenarios?

Dr. Philip Plait is a renowned astronomer and author of the newly-published book Death from the Skies!, and runs the website BadAstronomy.com. And he joins us on the line with his predictions of how the world will end.

(Photo by Christian Drewing)

We’re continuing our year-end discussion on visions of the apocalypse. Not to scare you, but to explore why so many traditions invoke the end of the world in troubled times. One growing movement points precisely to the culmination of history as we know it on December 21, 2012, or 12/21/12. That is the last date on the Mayan long-count calendar and the precise day arrived at by one computer analysis of the I Ching. The theory has spread from new age circles to mainstream astronomers and media, and is even being debated in college courses.

On January 4, The History Channel airs Nostradamus: 2012, speculating on prophesies by the 16th century French apothecary. A 2012 feature film by The Day after Tomorrow director Roland Emmerich is due out next summer, and a new documentary called 2012: Science or Superstition? features the naysayers, as well as supporters who foretell not cataclysm, but the dawn of a new era of enlightened human consciousness.

John Major Jenkins is among those featured in the film. He is author of Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 among other books, and one of the leading voices of the 2012 theory. He's known for fine-tuning the galactic alignment theory relating to 12/21/12. He explains that he doesn’t regard this as a horrific collapse of the world, though, but a time of transformation and renewal.

Watch the trailer for 2012: Science or Superstition?:

(Photo by Jim G)

With the turmoil on Wall Street over the past few months, the phrase "financial Armageddon" has been thrown around quite a bit. It’s a biblical reference, of course. Armageddon, in the New Testament, is a place. It's where Jesus and the anti-Christ battle it out at the end of the world. As it turns out, financial Armageddon and Armageddon Armageddon might be related, according to scripture. Then again, they might not be. Marketplace's Sean Cole explains.

(Photo by Ricardo Wang)

On this last day of 2008, we’re looking at the end of the world. Not exactly warm and fuzzy, eh? Yet humans are fascinated by knowing about the end. The apocalypse has inspired countless tales, dating back to Noah and his Ark and the Book of Revelation. It appears in everything from Shakespeare to the Simpsons.

But the angst and imagery of the end times can perhaps be best found in music, both sacred and secular. From the hellfire hymnals of the deep South to the anarchic punk of the Lower East Side, the influence of apocalyptic fears runs rampant. That pervasive dread that inspires so many artists is the focus of the forthcoming book Apocalypse Jukebox. The book’s co-authors, Edward Whitelock and David Janssen, live in Barnesville, Georgia and teach English at Gordon College.

We tend to think of doomsday prophets warning that "the end is near." But as you write in your introduction, as far as the American character is concerned, "the end is here," and always has been. We discuss how the use of the atomic bomb during World War Two spurred a sub-genre of music dubbed "atomic country," and how popular sentiment toward the bomb changed in the 50s and 60s, and how that manifested in pop music. We also discuss the apocalyptic undertones of musicians ranging from John Coltrane to Love and Arthur Lee, and from Devo to Sleater-Kinney.

For the past several days people across the country have been firing up the video games they got over the holidays.
But while they shoot bad guys or pretend to be a rock and roll star, their electric bills are taking a hit...
Mark Brush has the story.