It's a funny thing. Either we don't want
to think about doomsday or the civilization falling,
or we want to obsess about it. Is it human nature to want
to know when the end will come? I think we all want to know. We'd love to know how
much time we have left. NARRATOR: Ancient
doomsday prophecies. Each world age was supposed
to end in a destruction. I think the Maya were saying
something about December 21st, 2012. NARRATOR: Now, prophecy
collides with modern science. There's storms on the Earth
of unprecedented proportion. No species lives forever. We are in a major
extinction right now. NARRATOR: Around the world,
people are preparing. Every single person in America
needs to be doing something to prepare for what's coming. What we fear will happen
in 2012 is gonna happen. NARRATOR: This is
"Countdown to Apocalypse." 2012, a time of unprecedented
change and turmoil throughout the world. Some are turning
to ancient prophecy to foretell their fate. Perhaps no other prediction
currently holds more power than the Maya calendar, with
its looming end date of December 21, 2012. What is the Maya
2012 thing about? It's a perfect storm. It's a coincidence of
scientific speculation. The ancient Maya predicted
that the end of December, 2012, specifically December
21, 2012, would be a time of great reckoning for us. And they said that that would be
because of the sun's behavior. [music playing] NARRATOR: The Maya were
an ancient civilization that rose to prominence deep in
the jungle of Central America. The ancient Maya
lived between about 300 BC and 900 AD in the present
nation of Guatemala and Belize and the adjoining parts of
Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador. NARRATOR: With
limited technology, they built great temples
and mastered the mapping of the stars. By 800 AD, their population had
grown to more than a million people in 6,000 cities. While they are known for
their advanced writing system and meticulous record-keeping,
much of their knowledge was lost when this ancient
civilization mysteriously vanished. It wasn't until
hundreds of years later that surviving Maya texts
began turning up in museums, and the work of
translation could begin. Then in the 1960s,
an ancient tablet, referred to as Monument 6,
or the Tortuguero Stone, was unearthed from
an archeological site in southern Mexico. Inscribed on this tablet, a date
when time seemingly runs out, December 21, 2012. To many, this stone
represents a chilling prophecy about the end of the world. However, some details
from the stone remain shrouded in mystery. Right when it gets
to the crucial part where it says what's going to
happen, the stone is broken. We call this Murphy's
law of epigraphy. NARRATOR: But what we discern
from the surviving portion of the tablet is that the Maya
calculated December 21, 2012, to be a critical point
in human history. Their prophecy in a nutshell
was that on December 21, 2012, it would be like the
birth of a new era. And like any other birth,
it would be accompanied by joy, blood, and pain. NARRATOR: Obsessed with the
cycles of the sun, moon, and stars, the Mayan
method for recording time has many modern-day
scholars in awe. The Maya were not
just astronomers. They were astrologers. And they weren't
just mathematicians. They were numerologists. And they had fabulous ability
to record things mathematically. ROBERT M. SCHOCH: They
were great observers of the sky, observers
of the stars, observers of the heavens. And they made incredibly
accurate calendars. BRUCE SCOFIELD:
They-- they found a-- a magic number in a sense
that brings together all these different sky rhythms. And so it can be used
for calculation purposes, but it also was used for
interpretive purposes as well, which is astrology. NARRATOR: The Maya believed
the keys to human faith were held within the heavens. They used their keen
astrological sense to predict events
hundreds of years into the future, including
the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1519 and the revolution
in communication, which has been fully realized
with the advent of the printing press and the world wide web. [clock ticking] Because they were
obsessed with time, there were some people that
thought that maybe time was their religion. NARRATOR: And the Maya's
pursuit of tracking time was based on their understanding
of celestial cycles and their impact
upon the planet. They understood that
patterns in the stars were closely linked to
the patterns occurring on the earth. This advanced knowledge makes
their calendar unparalleled to this day. They would keep
track of events and how many days
elapsed between them. And they could calculate
not only thousands of years but millions of years in
the future and the past. NARRATOR: The Maya
created many calendars to measure the cycles
of astronomical events. The calendar, which ends
on December 21, 2012, is one that measures a
cycle that started over 5,000 years ago. December 21, 2012, is the
end date of a 5,125-year block of time called the Long Count. NARRATOR: The origin date
of the Long Count calendar is in the year 3114 BC, a
period of dramatic transition for human society. BRUCE SCOFIELD: The
beginnings of Stonehenge occur around that time. The beginnings of the
Old Kingdom in Egypt occur at that time. There are a number
of events worldwide that seem to have their
origins at that point, so something must
have gone on globally. ROBERT M. SCHOCH:
Around 3100, 3200 BC, there is an indication
that something happened. It may have been
a solar outburst, but something happened. Now is this just coincidental
that it correlates pretty closely with the stars
of the Mayan calendar? I don't know. But when I see a
correlation like that, I have to suspect that
there is something to it. NARRATOR: There
are many theories about what happened to
prompt the emergence of modern civilization. But whatever
occurred, it clearly stretched beyond the border
of the ancient Maya world. BRUCE SCOFIELD: It
was probably climate. It appears that there were some
fairly rapid climate change events that occurred then. My argument would be
that climate change is a primary driver of the
evolution of human societies. NARRATOR: Global climate
change, a hot-button issue for our time, may have
had an even greater impact on the ancient world. And while the start
date of the Long Count may shed light on
past events on Earth, the end date December
21, 2012, perils an even rarer coincidence,
one that hasn't taken place for 26,000 years. [cymbals crashing] ROBERT M. SCHOCH: Something
that's very interesting is that the sun on
December 21, 2012, will be aligned with
the Milky Way galaxy. On this day, the
sun, the earth, and the plane of the galaxy,
the-- the galactic equator line up. And the fact that it happens
on the winter solstice, December 21st, a lot of people,
particularly astrologers, have said this is an
important alignment. NARRATOR: Going back
in time 26,000 years, the world was a very
different place. 26,000 years ago, when
you had the same situation, you are talking about the
height of the last Ice Age. This alignment is a unique
point in time, a unique point in history. And if the Mayans could figure
this out and develop a calendar that allowed them
to end this world age on this significant point
where there is this alignment, I mean, that just shows
how incredible they were. NARRATOR: 26,000
years ago, the earth began dramatically warming up. Is the galactic
alignment to blame? And what does that mean
for December, 2012? There are those who
believe that an alignment of the planets can cause the
sun's surface to be perturbed and there to be explosions
and things that result. And these have an
incredible effect on the surface of the earth,
heating up the atmosphere, changing climatic conditions. I believe this had a very
profound influence and effect on ancient civilizations, even
to the point of essentially wiping out certain
ancient civilizations and setting humanity into
essentially dark ages. The sun does seem to be going
into a period of instability. Solar activity is ramping up. Does this tie in with
the galactic alignment? We are coming to
the end of a cycle. We're coming, as they called
it, to the end of a world age. This has happened in the past. Each world age was supposed
to end in a different type of destruction. And I believe the Mayans
were saying to us, this is happening again. NARRATOR: Interestingly, there
is yet a third cycle that will reach its peak
on December 21, 2012, and this may be the most
dangerous one of all. Every 11 years, the sun goes
for one cycle, from maximum to maximum, meaning more
sunspots and, therefore, more solar activity and storms
that issue from the sun and might hit us. NARRATOR: When solar
activity ramps up, bursts of energy surge out
from the sun's surface that can directly impact the earth. On December 21, 2012, just
as the Mayan world age comes to an end, the sun will
be entering its most violent period. ROBERT M. SCHOCH: We're
just starting to understand that the sun is incredibly
unstable from a geologic point of view. We should be careful. We should pay attention to
it because it could have real ramifications
for our modern society if there is a major
solar outburst. LAWRENCE JOSEPH: Behavior
of the sun, end at 2012, both from contemporary science
and ancient Mayan prophecy, points to some potentially
civilization-altering events. It's enough for me. NARRATOR: The countdown
to apocalypse is on. And with ancient doomsday
prophecies and modern science colliding, everyday people
are preparing for the worst. [music playing] ROBERT ALLEN: People
come to Sigma 3 because they're worried that
something's around the corner, and they want to be prepared and
make sure that their family is taken care of. We train people for
worst-case scenarios, basically training to
keep your ass alive. WOMAN: And now we have fire. JEREMIAH: There's always
something happening. There's always turmoil,
which in my mind makes it even more
important to be prepared. So can you guys start
looking around for some bait? We want to find grasshoppers,
crickets, worms. JEREMIAH: An asteroid strike,
earthquakes, floods, you know, massive volcanic eruptions. He's coming right out. We have to get him. You pin him down
to that rubber. MAN: Watch him. I absolutely love snake. It's great fish bait. You can actually saute
this up with a little olive oil and some onions. It's absolutely fantastic. Security out here is as
important as fire or water, all right? We can't have shelter,
water, fire, food, and not have security. People are going
to come take it. [shots fired] This is the kind of
training that civilians need to be getting to ensure
that them and their families stay alive. You can literally sleep in one
of these shelters down to 20 below with no sleeping bag
and blizzard-type conditions, and it will keep you warm. Desperate people do all
kinds of sort of crazy things. And it's best just to get
away from that environment. ROBERT ALLEN: We are always
going to have food that we can procure out here and
eat well and make sure that our family's well-fed,
no matter what happens in the world. All right, there we go. JEREMIAH: You know,
civilizations fall. It's-- it's history. Things aren't as secure as
we would like them to be, and that's-- that's just humanity,
in my opinion. [loud bang] NARRATOR: As the clock ticks
down to December 21, 2012, the end point of the
ancient Maya calendar, many are preparing for
uncertain times to come. But the vast majority
of us continue to live our lives entirely
unaware of the looming danger in our skies. LAWRENCE JOSEPH: You know,
the last thing you need to do is worry about the sun. Everybody-- we all
have enough to just get through the day, family,
finances, enough politics to make you sick. And then I went on the NASA and
European Space Agency websites and saw that the sun
indeed had been acting up over the last century,
century and a half, and particularly over
the last few decades. And the only thing that
people could agree upon was that the next climax of this
behavior, it would be in 2012. All of a sudden, I find
I'm worrying about the sun. [loud bang] Yeah, the sun, like--
like most other stars, has its own magnetic field. When you look at the sun, you
see the surface of the sun. You sometimes see
very dark spots. These dark spots, they can
release energy very rapidly, and that leads to two phenomena. One phenomenon is what's
called a solar flare. That's basically a very
sudden bright thing on a certain spot on the sun. The other phenomenon--
and that's not been known for so long, only
for about 20 years-- is what's called a coronal mass ejection. So it's basically an
explosion on the surface on the sun, where a lot
of energy is released. And that energy slings
out a lot of plasma, a lot of material from the sun,
that eventually then travels towards the earth. NARRATOR: These CMEs, or
coronal mass ejections, send powerful waves of
plasma energy off into space. If any of those waves
were aimed at the earth, there could be
disastrous consequences. The shockwave of particles
that the explosion causes hits us in less than an hour. So we get hit by a shockwave
of particles in advance and then the coronal
mass ejection, or CME, itself arrives a couple of days
later and hopefully bounces off the earth's
protective magnetic field. NARRATOR: But what if
a coronal mass ejection is strong enough to
penetrate Earth's protective magnetic shield? LAWRENCE JOSEPH: You wouldn't
notice much at first. Your cell phone probably
would stop working. The electricity in your
home would follow shortly. NARRATOR: Unlike a localized
power outage caused by bad weather on Earth, the
damage from a coronal mass ejection could destroy
electronics of every kind. Cars, airplanes, computers,
and more could all experience irreversible damage. And the devices that survive
could be left powerless, as the entire electrical
power grid is potentially fried by solar radiation. In this case,
the transformers, which are the nodal points which
hold the power grid together, would get burned out. [explosion] And replacing
transformers is not easy. The biggest ones
weigh over 100 tons, and there's a
three-year waiting list on the world market for them. No electricity means
not just no telecom. In many cases, no water and fuel
because the pumps are electric. No refrigeration, no
fresh food, no medicine, very limited law enforcement
and military security, no banking for months or years. This is a crisis of
fantastic proportion. We are incredibly dependent
upon electronic equipment. With a major solar
outburst, a lot of that delicate electronic
equipment could be damaged. We know that this will
happen because it has happened. There was the
Carrington event in 1859. There was a solar
flare at that time that was witnessed actually. JIMMY RAEDER: Carrington
was a solar physicist and observed the sun. And he also observed a few
things for the first time. One was that there was a
explosion on the sun, what we call a solar flare. He observed that. And he also observed that
about two days later, there was a geomagnetic
storm on the earth. NARRATOR: When the solar
outbursts of the Carrington event struck in 1859, telegraph
systems, the most sophisticated electronic technology of
the time, were knocked out. That was much
larger than anything that we have observed
in modern times. Some people have speculated
that a storm like that, if it happened today,
could, for example, seriously disrupt the power grid. If that were to hit
today, it would probably knock out our electrical power
grid for months and years. I think it would shake
up the world, a lot. NARRATOR: In the years
since the Carrington event, mankind has become entirely
dependent on electricity and the technology it powers. Without it, civilization
would come to a crashing halt. We're laid bare to this-- this terrible, terrible threat. And if we have to go without
electricity for months or years, civilization
will fall. People say, Larry,
isn't that like being in a pre-electric age. I say, no, much worse
because those folks knew how to live without electricity.
We don't. This is a profoundly
serious vulnerability, and we will get hit,
maybe very soon. NARRATOR: And the Carrington
event is not the only time that solar activity
has shaken our world. On March 13, 1989, the entire
Canadian province of Quebec experienced a 12-hour
blackout caused by a CME. And in 2003, South
Africa was also rocked by the effects of
a coronal mass ejection. LAWRENCE JOSEPH: The 2003
event came on Halloween, you know, trick or treat, and
knocked out 14 transformers and disabled the power
grid in South Africa. Its electricity supply was
crippled for a couple of years because of this. This kind of event is going
to happen more and more. And certainly what we
fear will happen in 2012 is going to happen. [music playing] We're living in a
very fragile world. Our technology is
keeping the lights on. The slightest glitch
in our technology, and a whole year's
crops be destroyed, that would be a disaster. And if we have a two-week
power outage in New York City, oh, it's going to be the
end of the world in America. NARRATOR: Unfortunately, the
periodic cycle of the sun is making this possibility
more likely now than ever. And like the Maya, who
understood the sun's power, modern man is about to
experience it firsthand. The sun is, at this point,
ramping up again and becoming more active. LAWRENCE JOSEPH: That's the
solar climax, when the sun will be at its stormiest and
wildest and most tumultuous. We're seeing more
evidence of solar flares. The sun is showing
unusual activity. LAWRENCE JOSEPH: The sun
is having a breakdown. It's behaving as though
it were ill or crazy. If we had something along
the lines of the solar outburst that we see at the end
of the last Ice Age, we really don't
know what to expect. But what we can predict is
that on December 21, 2012, our solar system will be in
exactly the same position and alignment that it
was in 26,000 years ago, when the earth underwent
cataclysmic climate changes at the end of the last Ice Age. ROBERT M. SCHOCH: I think it's
foolish not to be prepared to deal with things that
we know from history and pre-history have happened
before and, therefore, could happen again. NARRATOR: Scientists now realize
how damaging solar outbursts can be for modern life. But a more frightening scenario
is still to come, one in which these same solar storms ignite
a chain reaction on Earth, fundamentally altering
our climate, geography, and the world as we know it. As December 21, 2012,
approaches and our sun enters its most turbulent
cycle, scientists are all too aware
of the devastation that solar storms can wage upon
the earth, storms so severe that they can disable our power
grids and paralyze our planet. People around the world
are heeding the warnings and preparing for the worst. Items like these
little saws right here are completely essential. You know, one of the
things that we teach is that when you want
to pack equipment, it's much better to pack tools
and carry that kind of weight than it is to carry a bunch of
food and water, which is things that we can procure
from the land. I think something
big is coming. I think most people around
the country feel it. No one can really put
their finger on it, and people are trying to
figure out what it could be. You've been shown
shelters, water procurement, edible plants, medicinal
plants, and now this, the-- the use of a firearm. That's another
foundational skill. When people are
put in a situation, like if the lights
and the electricity and their form of
transportation goes down, they get really desperate. And it would be best to have
already some preparations and get out to the wild
places as fast as you can, away from all that. So as people start
fleeing the city, they're going to start
out pretty normal. But after a few days, they
really start getting desperate. So the people
coming to your camp are going to be potentially
more and more dangerous every single day. So this would be a great
place for an observation post because this is the most likely
route of entry for someone. All right. Come back here, just
right on the trail, just start building this up
a little more, all right? You're going to want to let your
weapon rest pretty naturally, set on your body in
the general direction that it's going to
be facing, all right? It needs to be
something that's fast. So if you get surprised, you
can just come right up with it. Don't ever have it more
than an arm's length away. OK. What I'm trying to
do for people is just get them prepared and ready to
deal with the reality of post disaster. And the reality is people
are victimizing one another. NARRATOR: In these final days
before December 21, 2012, buzz about the Mayan
prophecy is heating up. People around the world are
preparing for difficult days ahead before it's too late. ROBERT M. SCHOCH:
This is the generation when we need to be aware. We need to be prudent. We need to be paying
attention to what's happening in the skies, what's
happening on Earth, what changes may be occurring. NARRATOR: And in the same way
the Maya look to the heavens to forecast their future, modern
man is now doing the same. Since our sun will be emitting
high levels of activity at the end of the year, experts
are concerned about the impact that these solar storms
may have upon the planet. And now just when we
need protection the most, a rare and dangerous planetary
transformation may be underway. Some people say that the
magnetic poles will reverse. And the magnetism of the
earth is what protects us. NARRATOR: More than 600 miles
above the earth's surface lies a magnetic field
known as the magnetosphere, extending thousands
of miles into space. It protects us from solar
radiation and cosmic radiation. NARRATOR: Held in place by the
magnetic anchors of our north and south poles,
the magnetosphere is Earth's only defense against
dangerous solar radiation. ROBERT M. SCHOCH:
There are studies indicate the field of Earth--
the magnetic field of Earth-- has been declining over the
last 100, 150 years or so. So there's been a lot of
concern in some circles that the magnetosphere,
if it's affected, if there are holes in the
magnetosphere, that could allow radiation and particles down-- all the way down potentially
to the surface of the earth. NARRATOR: One possible cause
of the weakening magnetic field may be a process
known as pole shift, a natural geological phenomenon
in which the magnetic poles of the earth slowly migrate. However, some worry that this
is a sign that the earth is undergoing something much
more troublesome, a full pole reversal, in which the North
and South Poles actually switch place. The net effect for us is
that the-- the earth's magnetic field weakens, and the
protective character of it diminishes. It happens periodically
in the earth. And it usually takes, they
say, 2,000 to 3,000 years to complete. NARRATOR: The consequence
of this pole reversal and subsequent collapse of
the earth's magnetosphere would prove catastrophic. For humans, this could lead to
radical increases in cancer. For the planet,
rapid climate change and massive seismic activity. LAWRENCE JOSEPH: The
implications, if-- if we're going through
a pole shift, are many. We are more exposed to CMEs
and to solar radiation, meaning our-- our power grid
is that much more vulnerable to being blown out. [explosion] Animals depend on the
earth's magnetic field as kind of an
internal GPS system. They use the magnetic
field to navigate. NARRATOR: If the
creatures of Earth lose their ability
to navigate properly, it could have
serious repercussions for their migration patterns,
disrupting the ecosystem in ways we can't even imagine. For us, for our
maintaining our civilization, our daily life, it
could be terrible. The idea that a
polar reversal happens is actually
geologically supported. NARRATOR: Scientists have
calculated that a pole reversal usually occurs
every 300,000 years. However, the earth hasn't
experienced a pole reversal in nearly 800,000 years. We are long overdue
for a polar reversal. I would say that certainly the
magnetic field is weakening, and the North Pole is
traveling very quickly. So something is happening. NARRATOR: In fact, scientists
have now tracked the migration of the North Pole, which is
moving toward Russia at a rate of 40 miles per
year, accelerating 30% in the last decade alone,
giving proof to the idea that a polar reversal
may very well be underway just as this storm cycle of
the sun kicks into high gear. LAWRENCE JOSEPH: You want
to cross your fingers about something, hope
that this is normal, and it doesn't indicate
that there's any pole shift. It's scary to think
of the timing. As the earth's magnetic
field deteriorates, the solar activity accelerates. It's just bad luck. [loud bang] NARRATOR: Without the
protection of our magnetosphere, the life-giving sun becomes
a ticking time bomb. JEREMIAH: There
are so many things going on right
now in our country and in the world that it--
it wouldn't take very much of a spark to ignite
any one of those into a large-scale
type of situation. That's why I'm here. You know, I-- I want to be prepared
for anything. NARRATOR: With the countdown
to apocalypse in full swing, preparedness could be the
difference between life and death. When these are real-life
issues that you're only going to work out after trying it. You don't want your first
time to be real life. He's going to
push the trigger-- [snap] --and he's dead. You know, a lot of people
accuse you of being paranoid. I say, I'm not paranoid. I'm not afraid of anything. I don't do what I do
because I'm scared. It's the exact opposite. I do it because I
don't have to fear now. NARRATOR: As the clock ticks
down to the end of 2012 and the Mayan calendar
comes to an end, a rare convergence of
celestial cycles, foretold by the ancient Maya, has
some modern scientists taking notice. On December 21st, a once in
every 26,000-year galactic alignment will take place. The last time this
alignment occurred, the earth's temperature
rose dramatically at the end of the last Ice Age. These planetary events coincide
with our sun's most volatile cycle, when it will be throwing
off waves of harmful radiation that could have
disastrous effects. [explosion] And all at a time when Earth's
magnetic defense shield may be compromised. [gong shakes] The sun, in many ways,
controls events on Earth in ways we never imagined. In late August, early
September, 2005, was one of the wildest
weeks in the history of recorded solar activity,
the second-heaviest week of solar storms
to hit the earth. The sun is going wild. There's storms in the sun
of unprecedented proportion. There's storms on the
earth, Katrina, Rita, Wilma, storms on the sun,
storms on the earth. Was there a connection? NARRATOR: As the
earth is barraged by record-breaking
storms and heat waves, scientists are worried about
the possible domino effect that could be triggered
by solar radiation, starting with the melting
of Earth's polar ice caps. One forecast is that by
the end of the 21st century, the Greenland ice sheet
will melt and maybe the West Antarctic ice sheet. If both of those go, we've got
a 40-foot rise in sea level. ROBERT M. SCHOCH: This melting
of glaciers, which are miles thick, releases pressure
from the surface of the earth and then causes volcanic
and earthquake activity. So it's sort of, if you put
your hand on a sofa cushion, and then you take
your hand away, the cushion is going to rebound. NARRATOR: Is the
melting of the polar ice caps behind the string of
devastating earthquakes that recently
struck Japan, Chile, and left over 100,000
dead in Haiti? At the same time, where
is this water going? It's being melted. It's being vaporized. It's going into the atmosphere,
so it has to come down again. So we have now incredible rains. It's like a chain of
events or dominoes. One falls over, hits another
one, causes that to fall over. NARRATOR: Solar storms leading
to the collapse of the power grid, setting America
back to the 1700s. Degradation of the magnetosphere
destroying the protective layer between Earth and the sun. Global warming causing droughts,
extinctions, even earthquakes and volcanoes. Is there no end to this
chain of destruction? LAWRENCE JOSEPH: It's this
series of events triggering other events triggering
other events catastrophe. NARRATOR: With
these great forces of nature aligned against
us, it seems fair to ask, is there any hope. About 30% of global
warming is attributable to the hyperactivity of the
sun over the last century and a half and particularly
over the last few decades. It doesn't negate our need to
curb greenhouse gas emissions. If anything, it makes it more
important to me because we cannot control the
sun's doing, right? Which means we have to
redouble our efforts to-- to-- to
control what we can. NARRATOR: But despite
our best efforts, the end of life on Earth may
come sooner rather than later, whether we like it or not. We're in what's being
called the Sixth Extinction. I mean, extinction events occur. The last really big one was
65 million years ago, when a-- an asteroid about 10 kilometers
in diameter hit Mexico-- [explosion] --and basically took
out the dinosaurs. NARRATOR: The crater
from the impact that killed the
dinosaurs lies just off the coast of the Yucatan
Peninsula, coincidentally the backyard of
the ancient Maya. The Maya, I feel but certainly
can't prove it scientifically, that they inherited some
sense of the possibility of catastrophe that could
be awakened by some signal. NARRATOR: During each of the
previous five extinctions, 50% or more of all animal
species disappeared. In fact, 98% of all animal
life that ever lived on Earth is now extinct. According to scientists,
50,000 species now disappear every year,
a rate hundreds of times faster than the
historical average. BRUCE SCOFIELD: Humans cutting
down forests, polluting waters, burning fossil fuels,
changing climate, and we are now living in a
time when species are going extinct at a very rapid
rate due to human-- well, essentially
human infestation. NARRATOR: When a species
vanishes from a food chain, its predators starve, and
its prey overpopulate. This could result in insect
swarms, agricultural collapse, and a shockwave
of global famine. And what's left behind could
be a desolate wasteland, one modern Americans may
find hard to imagine. Cultures and societies can
reach a peak and then collapse, so it's hard to say
what will happen. NARRATOR: And the very
destiny of modern man may be mirroring the fate of
the Maya, whose civilization suffered a massive
demise around 900 AD. Everything collapsed. It was so bad that they
abandoned their cities. The great Maya civilization,
who were so in tune with cycles, maybe missed the one cycle-- the climate cycle--
that killed them. They were in a
fragile ecosystem that they stressed to its limit,
and there was a bad drought or something that
caused a tipping point. And these people
suffered collapses that were cataclysmic. NARRATOR: And the cause
of the Maya downfall may hold a chilling lesson
for our modern world. BRUCE SCOFIELD: The Maya,
like other human cultures, ruthlessly consumed
their resources and eventually have to
pay the cost for that. LAWRENCE JOSEPH: They
overforested and underplanned and overpopulated. And, you know, that's-- that's
clearly a parable for us these days. NARRATOR: Will mankind heed the
lesson of the Mayan collapse before it's too late? History shows that the mighty
Maya civilization, credited by some for foretelling
the end of the world, failed to anticipate the
threats that destroyed its own. MARK VAN STONE: It must
have been tremendous. It must have been cataclysmic. You don't abandon
a city lightly, and they abandoned 6,000 cities. NARRATOR: 600 years later,
the Spanish conquistadors sailed in, laying waste
to the cultural remnants of this once great society. MARK VAN STONE: Their
libraries were destroyed. Few books survived. Literature was
collected up and burned. They destroyed
everything because they called it lies of the devil. NARRATOR: But in the
eyes of most scholars, the Spanish merely completed
the destructive process the ancient Maya set off
hundreds of years earlier. [music playing] I think they might have fallen
victim to a-- a cycle that led to the desertification of
their-- their territory. MARK VAN STONE:
It must have been a time of tremendous starvation
and was probably caused by messing with
their environment and just filling up too
many people on the landscape and not having a backup,
not having a cushion. I think that an important
warning that we should take from this is that we're doing
the same thing the Maya did. We're stressing our
environment beyond its limits, and we don't have
any wiggle room. We don't have any cushion. NARRATOR: Global population has
nearly doubled in the last 50 years, increasing the risk
of disease, global famine, and the competition
for resources that can lead to war and genocide. BRUCE SCOFIELD: What we're
doing is we're overpopulating. We're basically fulfilling
our biotic potential, like all other
organisms, and we're reproducing as much as we can. Our behavior is dangerous. NARRATOR: And that's not all. According to the
International Energy Agency, the world's potential for oil
production peaked in 2006. As a result, the
ever-increasing future demand will lead to higher energy
costs in dollars and lives. I would think that
the 21st century is going to make or break the human
species in one form or another. NARRATOR: But what about
the Maya prophecy of 2012? Recent findings
have cast doubt on whether December 21 of
this year truly represents the end of our world. Archaeologists have recently
excavated new Maya calendars in Guatemala that seem to
calculate time beyond 2012. The discovery has many
relieved, but it has yet to answer the question
on minds everywhere. What significance
did the Maya really see in the December 21st date? And what does it
mean for us today? ROBERT M. SCHOCH: December
21, 2012, I see that as more-- I call it a metaphor-- as an indication that
something could be occurring. Maybe it's the
beginning of something that's going to happen. I think they did
us a great favor. They gave us a head start. They pointed us in a direction
that we needed to look. They said, the
behavior of the sun is going to cause something
major at the end of December, 2012. Whether or not we believe
in the Maya prophecies, whether or not you look at
them allegorical or literally, after 2012, after this year,
we're in for some serious pain. No one will know when the banks
are going to collapse again, but they will collapse. No one knows when the gas
is going to get shut off, but there will be
times and places where the gas is shut off. These things are
going to happen. We're in for some nasty times. [explosions] NARRATOR: And perhaps the most
serious threat hanging over us today is the disruption
of energy that makes modern life possible. LAWRENCE JOSEPH: Electricity
suckles the civilization. [thunder] And yet, for some reason,
we have not protected our electricity supply. We're-- we're looking
for a comeuppance. We're looking for a
slap upside the head. The odds are, to me,
are better than 50/50 that, within our lifetime,
the power grid will go down. We have to get a
sustainable society going. It seems very hard to do. But if we don't do it, we're
going to pay the price. At the very least, it's
going to cost a lot of lives. And in the meantime,
make some plans. Go off grid. Have back-up systems
that are not vulnerable. Do some work, minimize the
risk, minimize the damage, so that we're not-- we're not
left flailing like, you know, electrocuted fish on the dock. This happens to be
the water hemlock plant. Bar none, this plant will kill
you deader than a doornail if you eat it. LAWRENCE JOSEPH: People who
are going off grid and taking their destiny into
their own hands, there's a lot to admire
about them, and not only just sort of words of
praise but acts of imitation. The future of life
on Earth is grand and wonderful and many
splendored things, to borrow a phrase
from John Donne. The future of our civilization
ain't looking so good. [rifle shot] I think we're riding for a fall. [loud bang] NARRATOR: If human civilization
is truly on the ropes, the world may soon be
divided between the prepared and the dead. Back in Arkansas, the
teachers and students at Sigma 3 Survival School
have made their choice and are busy preparing for the
future we hope we'll never see. So this shelter
will essentially help you to live longer amounts
of time in the wilderness. For survivalists, this
is definitely a mansion. This is going to be a lot
better than any kind of little lean-to or basic shelter that
most people throw together. Building a structure
like this can really help you to appreciate, when you
have the right kind of survival training skills, what you can
really do and how comfortable that you can be. It's not just about surviving. When you come out here,
you need to thrive, to have the right
psychological state of mind to be out here longer term. I do believe in
being prepared. Sigma 3 is teaching me how
to take care of myself, to be more self-sufficient,
to work as a team. ROBERT ALLEN: Every
single person in America needs to be doing something
to prepare for what's coming because you don't have
to be a rocket scientist to see that trouble's
right around the corner. [music playing] NARRATOR: Nothing is
permanent, a lesson passed across the
miles and centuries from an ancient Meso-American
tribe with its eyes on the stars to modern-day
Americans prepping to survive in a broken society. What will the world look
like after December 21, 2012? Time will tell, as the
cycles of the heavens align and the Maya world
age comes to an end.
