It may or it may not.
Should there be any form of deity at all(to take this from a religious perspective), he or she would not tell us when it will occur.
To take this from historical examples: should the Apocalypse occur, I believe it will be at the hands of ourselves. Self destruction is where our current path is leading us, and it has happened in many instances before.
It does seem hard to believe that life will continue forever, but like always with matters that science cannot explain, we will never know until we die or it happens.
As for the 2012 prediction, I think of it like the Y2K prediction.
Bunch of madmen believing that the date of the time is too closely related to the end of something to be a coincidence.