Several writers, such as Charles Hapgood or Immanuel Velikovsky, had proposed that a major shift of the Earth's crust (of 20° - 30° latitude) had taken place near the end of the last ice age.  More recently, others have championed this idea, such as Rand Flem-ath and Patrick Geryl.  Geryl, in fact, suggests a scenario similar to that seen in the 2012 movie.  He predicts a solar induced magnetic pole reversal in December 2012 that produces a catastrophic crustal shift and accompanying tidal wave reaching up to 2 kilometers in height that sweeps around the planet.  
   As described in the book Earth Under Fire (pp. 336-337), evidence against this idea may be seen from analysis of the Earth's polar ice record.  Climatic profiles constructed for ice cores penetrated in a number of Antarctic locations show that temperatures in Antarctica during the last ice age were substantially cooler than they have been during the current 11,000 year-long interglacial.  If Hapgood and Velikovsky, et al, were correct that Antarctica was formerly positioned closer to the equator during the last ice age, ice age temperatures in Antarctica should on the average have been warmer, not cooler.
   Another thing to consider is that during the transition from cool glacial to warm interglacial, temperatures on the northern ice cap abruptly rose and fell many dozens of times, as seen in the Greenland polar ice record.  Explaining these abrupt climatic shifts in terms of polar shifts forces the theory to the limits of credibility.  Keep in mind that Hapgood and Velikovsky wrote their books in the 1950's which was years before the first polar ice cores were drilled.  So at that time the data was not available to counter their theories.  For this reason we can also excuse Einsteing for having written a letter of support for Hapgood's theory.  But writers such as Flem-Ath and Geryl wrote their books at a time when ice core data was in great abundance. Those who in the face of current contradictory evidence continue to resuscitate earlier ideas that major catastrophic crustal displacements took place during the ice age should, however, not be excused.

    So, seeing that major climatic shifts cannot be explained by any kind of recurrent polar or crustal shift mechanism, the notion that one such shift would occur in the future, and in particular on December 21, 2012, seems highly unlikely.  I did view the movie 2012 and found it very well done and entertaining as a sci fi adventure movie.  But I would not lose sleep thinking that a crustal shift might take place on 2012.

Paul LaViolette