Apocalypse Soon

I was impressed to see Salon publish this unusually accurate and candid assessment of the prospects for the human race:

It’s the End of The World and We Know It: Scientists in Many Disciplines See Apocalypse, Soon

Bravo and Wall of Fame honors to Phil Torres and Salon for bravely giving us the truth, even though we obviously can’t handle it.

“…apocalyptic beliefs about the end of the world…are increasingly common among some of the leading scientists today.”

Torres reminds us of what Stephen Hawking wrote in a commentary last year in the UK Guardian:

“…we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity. We now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it.”

Torres importantly then points out:

“There is not a single point here that is inaccurate or hyperbolic.”

Torres catalogues a number of serious threats to continued human life on Earth, at least as we know it. I won’t enumerate them here. And he does leave out a few. There are more. I know you’ll want to read the piece. He then warns:

“…considerations like these have led a number of other notable scientists to suggest that the collapse of global society could occur in the foreseeable future.”

He also remind us:

“scientists largely agree that human activity has pushed the biosphere into the sixth mass extinction event in the entire 4.5 billion year history of Earth.”

Wouldn’t it be funny if this sixth mass extinction culminates in the extinction of the human race?

Maybe that’s not so funny.

“…microbiologist Frank Fenner…predicted in 2010 that ‘humans will probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction, and climate change’….biologist Neil Dawe reportedly ‘wouldn’t be surprised if the generation after him witness the extinction of humanity’….ecologist Guy McPherson argues that humanity will follow the dodo into the evolutionary grave by 2026.”