Polar Shift to happen in 2012

Are you kidding me?  Not the 2012 part.  I do understand the posibility of a polar shift due to x-class solar flares hitting the earth mutiple times with a short period of time. 

So it won't be a horribly destructive event?

Well, I don't know how much specific help I can be other than to second the opinion that there will probably not be a doomsday in 2012. I'm not technically schooled in physics, etc. But I've done a fair bit of reading (moderate home-schooling on subjects of interest) and can say there's a lot that seems to not be as it should be, according to many science pundits.

There's so much we simply don't know about solar physics, terrestrial physics and the sun-Earth relationship. Anyone claiming to have "all the answers" would probably have a lot of convincing to do. Also, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence (or at least evidence with a very high confidence factor that can be understood and the same conclusions arrived at independently by others).

As Maireid says, the doom-sayers and charlatans are a dime a dozen, especially online. I realize that some of my ideas occasionally fall a bit outside the "mainstream" line, but generally try to restrain myself from going too far down the rabbit hole.

One thing that I will say is that the current solar cycle hasn't met with expectations thus far. Scientists have predicted that the coming cycle would be a strong one, with heavy-duty X-class flares, CMEs, etc. However, scientists also know that a slow start to a cycle generally means that it will be a weaker cycle. So far, this one appears to be dragging its feet in getting started, as noted by the lack of any significant sunspot activity (a good indicator of solar cycle transitions and strength). If the current sunspot cycle continues to drag its feet (so to speak), this may be a very weak cycle indeed.

Maireid has asked me to make a slightly more public summary of some comments I had given her privately (slightly, again further outside the mainstream POV, but possibly with implications for the sun and sunspot cycle and thus possibly with implications by corollary for the Earth as well). I'm still working on pulling together a few resources for it, but hope to have something up in the next couple days as I have time.

I'll simply say that the theory has to do with the sunspot cycle and the sunspots' cyclical magnetic flips. Each sunspot cycle, if I recall correctly, has sunspots of the opposite "polarity" of the prior cycle. Each "cycle" lasts about 11-12 years (it apparently varies a bit). However, a FULL cycle (if we're talking about a somewhat sinusoidal pattern where we come back to the original starting point) is probably more like 22 years (to get back to the magnetic polarity of the first cycle)... Think of it as a sine curve where the positive section from 0 to Pi is the first solar cycle with a "positive" polarity and from Pi to 2Pi equates to the second solar cycle with a "negative" polarity. Thats a way-way-oversimplification to the point of absurdity, but hopefully you get the idea.

Anyway, magnetic fields are directly related to electric currents, so it's necessary to start thinking about space (which is full of magnetic fields) in terms of electrodynamics (the study if electric charges in motions). This is a conceptual leap for astronomers who are still embedded in old school trains of thought that came out of outdated notions of the "void" or "vacuum" of space (some call this "Victorian era" thinking or "oil lamp physics", a bit too denigratingly).

Recent decades have shown that space is full to the brim with plasma. 99.999% of the visible matter in the universe is in the plasma state, in fact. If we had known that sooner rather than later, astronomy (as a field of research) might look a lot different than it does today. Plasm is high conductive, and we already have several pieces of evidence that electric currents flow through it in specific reliable instances. Though it's not widely talked about on account of the aforementioned assumptions / biases of the astronomical community. Namely, that "space is a near-perfect vacuum" (nope, it's full of plasma) thus "currents can't flow through it" (nope, the plasma is highly conductive and quite capable of transferring currents) and even if they did "they don't *do* anything" (Io's "flux tube[s]" [a million Amp current] connect to auroral footprints on Jupiter, "magnetic flux ropes" [a 650,000 Amp current] connecting the sun and Earth in an electrical circuit power the auroras). I'd beg to differ with the assessment that electric forces do nothing (as you can see). But I'll save that for a later comment and possibly a longer opinion article or two.

I'm of the opinion that electric fields and electric currents really need to be acknowledged and studied with respect to the sun, Earth and the solar-terrestrial connection (as well as in other aspects of astronomy / cosmology) before any more prognostications of doom and gloom get made. It may be that such a study will lead to its own scientific prognostications on the survival or doom of us all, but that'll be for them to decide, I suppose. I'll leave off there for now, with the promise of a fuller exegesis or two to come.

MG, i was crafting my note as you were publishing yours!! Similar sentiments :)