The strangest thing about this post-apocalyptic obsession is that the post-apocalypses we see are almost always beautiful. It's an odd kind of wishful thinking. A clean slate is always romantic, after all.
In America it takes an apocalypse to get anyone to pay much attention to anything but their craven self-interest. Talking points continue to argue that the post-Lehman, AIG implosion crisis that led to TARP was not really a meltdown, but just a few days of pain.
Every year is fraught with unpredictable hazards, but, more than any year in recent memory, 2011 features a large number of recognizable threats that could precipitate a larger global crisis.
The word apocalypse does not actually mean the end time or disaster but revelation. It comes from the Greek apokaluptein, to uncover. As a storyteller, I can relate.