We now have scientific proof that the earth's pole's change their magnetic polarities due to the currents of iron in the core and this effects our life substaining magnetic field which protects us from the sun's bombardment. The problem comes from the fact that the shift isn't instantanious and during that time our magnetic field is unstable and thus greatly weakened. If the shift takes too long, the sun will blow our atmosphere away. This is what happened to mars (estimated to be with in a shift that has lasted 3000 years). The magnatude of the situation and the required technology and power generation are so far beyond our capabilities there is absolutely nothing (yet) that we could do. The mayians speak of a lifting to a higher plane, but do they really mean that they all died? Is death something we should want? Be excited over? Look forward to?