One of the current paranoid and alarmist propaganda circulating the globe is the alleged end of the world in 2012, as prophesied by the ancient Maya. The Mayan calendar will supposedly ‘run out’ on December 21, 2012. Also, it is said that the Maya had a talent for astronomy. To top that, ‘some say the Maya knew another secret: the Earth’s axis wobbles, slightly changing the alignment of the stars every year. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun’s lowest point in the horizon. That will happen on Dec. 21, 2012, when the sun appears to rise in the same spot where the bright center of galaxy sets.’

A Hollywood’s movie entitled “2012” will even open next month, to cash in on the collective concern that has been scaring people. The movie is said to depict ‘earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House,’ as disasters to occur on the Maya-prophesied end of the world by said year.

Guatemalan Apolinario Chile Pixtun, a Mayan elder, refutes the rumor, saying that ‘doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.’ Even some of the Mayan descendants today do not have any idea what 2012 is all about. “If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn’t have any idea,” said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. He adds, “That the world is going to end? They wouldn’t believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain.”

If there is any significant foreboding for modern day humans, it lies in the warning behind scientific researches pointing to the notion that the Maya civilization collapsed due to their unrelenting deforestation of their land. Environmental degradation may not readily cause panic that can merit a Hollywood movie production, but it is a far more real danger than all of the Maya did not realize.

In truth, the Maya truly gave us good warning. The environmental cause of the collapse of their civilization may just be the same reason for our real end of the world.

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Via TIME