The 'pole shift' you keep hearing about does not, and cannot happen the way they say. It is being confused with something called a geomagnetic polar shift, where the Earth's magnetic poles move over a very, very long period of time, thousands of years. This has no consequences for the Earth other than human equipment like compasses having to change to work with new magnetic poles. In a few thousand years, it could mean there are two south points, or north becomes south, or east & west switch etc. This process takes thousands of years, it is NOT something that happens in one day, or even 1000 years. We would not even know it was happening, the only way we would is we would very slowly notice changes in navigation equipment, eventually resulting in that equipment needing to be reconfigured. During this process, the Earth's magnetic field (magnetosphere) remains as strong as it is now, protecting Earth from charged particles from the sun. It isn't even noticed by creatures that use the magnetic field to navigate, as the process completes, magratory animals will adapt to the new magnetic poles when flying south or the seasonal migration of animals like whales & narwals.
I will state again, a magnetic polar shift has no consequences for the Earth, none whatsoever apart from your ancestors in say 5000 years needing to alter their compasses.
The rotational (physical) poles of the Earth do not change places. Continental shift is something that happens over many millions/billions of years as land masses gradually move. This is again something which takes millions to billions of years, and again, does not and cannot happen in one day, a year or even 10 million years.
Scientists monitoring Yellowstone are not concerned about an eruption this year or anytime in the near future. Earthquakes happen every day at Yellowstone and this is very normal due to the volcanic activity of the site, which has not increased any more this year or any other recent years. As another poster points out, the likelyhood of a damaging eruption at Yellowstone is very, very VERY unlikely to pretty much a total no no. On the island in Hawaii, a volcano is erupting constantly, churning out lava, lots of people visit the island just to observe this volcano.
Volcanic activity is normal, remember the volcano in Iceland that caused aircraft travel problems for the UK and it's neighboring countries? That's still normal, even though it caused lots of probems for aviation. We did get a very low risk health warning for the North of the country, saying the very thin (almost un noticable) levels of volcanic ash could make problems like emphasema or athsma worse in people who have quite serious lung probems to start with. There were no deaths as a result of this eruption, the government in Iceland made sure those people living close to the volcano were evacuated to safe places for the duration of the eruption.
Earthquakes happen all the time too, many of which happen on land not populated by humans, so they are not even reported by the media. It's only when a quake happens in a major city and claims human property & lives that it gets a lot of cover by the media.
Tsunamis are caused by earthquakes which happen under the sea, they are NOT caused by comets, meteors or any other celestial event. As devistating as a tsunami can be, they are again a normal force of nature, and have nothing to do with the end of the world, dispite what anyone says. The Japanese tsunami was blamed on comet elenin, as the doom mongers tried to cling on to anything that would help them sell books. Elenin passed safely by Earth with absolutly no consequence apart from an amazing chance for astronomers & space scientists to gather data & knowledge about the composition of the comet. The Japanese tsunami was given so much publicity because humans had built a high risk nuclear power plant smack on a high tsunami risk coastline. This caused many more problems than the tsunami it's self, and guaranteed high levels of media coverage. This tsunami was caused by an earthquake under the Pacific ocean. It was not caused by humans or 'HAARP' like conspiracy nutters may say it was.
Human caused global warming is a problem yes, but it's effects won't be felt for many more centuries. It is a concern that could effect many generations down the line from us. Humans only have a very tiny effect on the climate though, and any damage won't cause any drastic effects on the planet for many, many more thousands of years.
