You’ll be relieved to know the year 2007 doesn’t figure particularly large in end-of-the-world prophecies. It merits just three mentions in the comprehensive list of more than 200 apocalyptic dates on the Christian website www.bible.ca — the same as for 1533 and 1836, and far short of the support for 1000, 2000 or even 1997.
Not that there’s any room for complacency; 2007 may not be the end, but according to many doomsayers, including Nostradamus and the long-gone Mayans, it’s close enough for things to start getting pretty weird. But then we don’t need dead occultists to tell us that.
The best that can be said about the major forecasts for the coming year is that they may not happen. At least not until next year.
The irony is that almost all of them will be our own doing.
Nuclear war
This is probably among the least of our problems. Which says quite a lot about our other problems. Of course, if it did happen, it would blow all our other problems out of the water. But it probably won’t happen. Not this year, anyway. What will happen is that more countries will insist on their right to have nuclear bombs. Is everyone feeling safer now?
Bird flu
It’s hard to keep panicking about a global pandemic that has been imminent for more than three years. But according to the microscope folk it’s just a matter of time. Soon, they say, the H5N1 avian flu virus will mutate into a form that can be transmitted easily between humans. And then we die. They can’t develop a vaccine until the mutation occurs, by which time it will be too late. The plague will sweep the world and then burn out after three or four months. All we can do is get used to washing our hands like Howard Hughes and stock up on essential supplies. Be prepared.
Terrorism
It’s risky pooh-poohing the War on Terror, because you just don’t know whether some dreadful atrocity is about to occur and make you look stupid. Then you remember the dastardly liquid bomb plot in the United Kingdom aimed at blowing 10 planes out of the sky and causing ”mass murder on an unimaginable scale”.
Widespread panic and disruption followed: breast milk was banned from all flights, 26 Muslims were arrested — and then, a few months later, the ban on fluids was quietly dropped, as were charges against most of the accused, including the so-called mastermind. And the rest still haven’t been brought to trial. Not that we shouldn’t expect trouble. You don’t have to be an oracle to know that civilians will continue to be bombed, shot, hacked to death, kidnapped and raped in the name of various righteous causes during the current year.
The oil price
Which of the following statements is more likely: ”The oil price will go up and then down and then up again” or ”The oil price will go down and then up and then down and then up again”? Whichever way you look at it, the world is running out of the fuel on which the modern economy depends. How much of the stuff is left is impossible to tell, because you can’t trust anything said by the people who know the answer. We already have at least one oil war on our hands. Things can only get worse.
Global warming
This year is expected to be the hottest on record. Who knows? Who cares? Alpine ski lodges may be going to the wall, polar bears may be dying off, tropical storms may be getting fiercer and Australia and the Horn of Africa may be gasping for rain, but most of the human race remains unconcerned. So far, the heating has been relatively gradual. But scientists say temperatures are fast approaching a point at which they will begin to rise so fast, we’ll be frizzled before we can say eina!
Acts of god (or whatever)
The depressing thing is that even if we get our act together, wean ourselves off oil, reverse global warming, find a cure for all known diseases and achieve world peace, we could still be taken out by something completely beyond our control. It might be an asteroid or a radioactive flash from a passing supernova or something no one’s thought of yet.
But we’ve already got enough to worry about …
Hilary Venables is a freelance writer based in Cape Town