Does Jim Laughter Know Something We Don't About Polar Cities?

The countdown is on to year 2080, the year in which Jim Laughter's new
sci-fi climate thriller "Polar City Red" takes place in Alaska
as survivors of climate chaos at that time try to eke out a life in
the wilderness. It's fiction but it's based on facts, lots of facts.

A publication called "An Encyclopedia of claims, frauds and hoaxes of
the occult and supernatural" lists 44 distinct “end of the world”
predictions that all have gone unfulfilled.

But "Polar City Red" is
not that kind of book. It's speculative fiction, yes, and a good yarn.
But it is about
what might happen to the human race if we don't take care now to mend our ways.

But even though 2012 is not the year to worry about, that doesn’t stop
speculation -- and denial from climate denialsts like Marc Morano
and Anthonty Watts -- from occurring.

Laughter's book treats you to a feast of death and destruction.

Buddy Doyle of Boston said he is not impressed with the premise behind
the cli-fi thriller.

"I think it's ridiculous," he said. " I'm not that kind of a believer
in that kind of thing."

End times predictions come from many sources. However, "Polar City
Red" is not about the end of times. It is about survival and hope.

That mad eccentric poet the 16th Century Frenchman Nostradamus, who
followers credit with predicting the rise of Napoleon and the 9-11
terrorist attacks, say he forecast a comet will strike the Earth or
pass closely in 2012, with cataclysmic repercussions. He also
predicted Polar Cities in the far north, too.

Critics say Nostradamus' prophecies are often dead wrong, or are so
vague as to have no value in predicting events in advance.

But the doomsday dialogue is alive and well.

Among the eye-popping theories, polar cities will spring up in the
Arctic, a mysterious planet will enter the solar system and disrupt
planetary orbits, causing earthquakes and tidal waves, and that the
earth's magnetic field is about to flip, leaving us vulnerable to
solar flares.


Lawrence Joseph. author of ''Apocalypse 2012'', puts it this way: "
My great fear is the domino effect, where one thing leads to another,
leads to another and we plunge into chaos."

Chris Highlen, with the University of St. Francis, sees no scientific
evidence that mass chaos is just around the corner.

He says: " We've had millions of years of earth's history and nothing
has wiped out life on earth yet, so I don't think we need to worry
about polar cities particularly. It could happen tomorrow, it could
never happen."

"Mainline churches don't subscribe to the notion that polar cities
ideas going around the Internet since 2006 have any special
apocalyptic significance. But that doesn't mean churches will
necessarily ignore the subject altogether," he adds.

Just in case Nostradamus is right, Chris Highlen downloaded an
application for his phone that counts down the hours and minutes to
the release date of Jim Laugher's "Polar City Red" -- and to other
horrors or hoaxes.