THE APOCALYPSE EDITION
We’re all Gonna Die
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How to Spend the Day befoe Apocalypse
The Economics Behind a Zombie Apocalypse
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Psychology Reveals the comforts of apocalypse
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Could a Robot Apocalypse really happen?
‘The Main Thread of Planet’--Overpopulation
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FAUX. Magazine- The Apocalypse Edition
But it won’t be from germ warfare, runaway nanobots, or shifting magnetic poles. A skeptical guide to Doomsday. Omigod, Earth’s core is about to explode, destroying the planet and everything on it! That is, unless a gigantic asteroid strikes first. Or an advanced physics experiment goes haywire, negating space-time in a runaway chain reaction. Or the sun’s distant companion star, Nemesis, sends an untimely barrage of comets our way. Or … Not long ago, such cosmic thrills, chills, and spills were confined to comic books, sci-fi movies, and the Book of Revelation. Lately, though, they’ve seeped into a broader arena, filling not only late-night talk radio, where such topics don’t seem particularly out of place, but also earnest TV documentaries, slick massmarket magazines, newspapers, and a growing number of purportedly nonfiction books. Everywhere you turn, pundits are predicting biblical-scale disaster. In many scenarios, mankind is the culprit, unleashing atmospheric carbon dioxide, genetically engineered organisms, or runaway nanobots to exact a bitter revenge for scientific meddling. But even if human deployment of technology proves benign, Mother Nature will assert her primacy through virulent pathogens, killer asteroids, marauding comets, exploding supernovas, and other such happenstances of mass destruction. Fringe thinking? Hardly. Sober PhDs are behind these thoughts. Citing the hazard of genetically engineered viruses, eminent astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has said, “I don’t think the human race will survive the next thousand years.” Martin Rees, the knighted British astronomer, agrees; he gives us a 50-50 chance. Serious thinkers such as Pulitzer Prize winner Laurie Garrett, author of The Coming Plague, and Bill Joy, who wrote Wired’s own 2000 article “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us,” warn of techno-calamity. Stephen Petranek, editor in chief of the science monthly Discover, crisscrosses the world lecturing on “15 Major Risks to the World and Life as We Know It.” University of Maryland arms-control scholar John Steinbruner is lobbying organizations like the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the World Medical Association to establish an international review board with the power to ban research into the Pandora’s box of biomedicine.
If we’re talking about doomsday – the end of
Beyond the superpowers, India and Pakistan
human civilization – many scenarios simply
have demonstrated nuclear capability; North
don’t measure up. A single nuclear bomb
Korea either has or soon will have it; Japan
ignitedby terrorists, for example, would be
may go nuclear if North Korea does; Iran and
awful beyond words, but life would go on.
other countries could join the club before long.
People and machines might converge in ways
Radiation-spewing bombs raining from the sky
that you and I would find ghastly, but from
would, no doubt, be cataclysmic. If you’re in the
the standpoint of the future, they would
mood to keep yourself up at night, nuclear war
probably represent an adaptation.
remains a good subject to ponder. But reversal
Environmental collapse mightmake parts
of the planet’s magnetic field?
of the globe unpleasant, but considering that the biosphere has survived ice ages, it wouldn’t
At a time of global unease, worst-case scenarios
be the final curtain. Depression, which has
have a certain appeal, not unlike reality TV. And
become 10 times more prevalent in Western
it’s only natural to focus on danger; if nature
nations in the postwar era, might grow so
hadn’t programmed human beings to be wary,
widespread that vast numbers of people would
the species might not have gotten this far.
refuse to get out of bed, a possibility that
But a little perspective is in order, If the end is
Petranek suggested in a doomsday talk
inevitable, at least there won’t be any surprises.
at the Technology Entertainment Design conference in 2002. But Marcel Proust, as miserable as he was, wrote Remembrance of Things Past while lying in bed. Of course, some worries are truly worrisome. Nuclear war might extinguish humanity, or at least bring an end to industrial civilization. The fact that tensions among the US, Russia, and China are low right now is no guarantee they’ll remain so.
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Let’sreview the various doomsday theories, from least threatening to most. If the end is inevitable, at least there won’t be any surprises.
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In 1972, John Maddox, editor emeritus of Nature, published a prescient book called The Doomsday Syndrome. In it, Maddox argues that most apocalypticclaims are dubious, inflated, or have such a low likelihood that rational people need not think about them. Worrying about nutty or improbable threats, he adds, only distracts the political system from dangers or problems that are entirely confirmed. Thus Bill Clinton sat in the White House wringing his hands about thepreposterous sci-fi thriller The Cobra Event, in which nearly everyone in New York City drops dead from an unstoppable supergerm, when he should have been worrying about al Qaeda, a confirmed threat to New York. Thus we fret about proliferating nanobots or instant cosmic doom when we ought to be devoting our time and energy to confirmed worries like 41 million Americans without health insurance. A high-calorie, low-exertion lifestyle is far more likely to harm you than a vagrant black hole. The time and energy spent worrying would be more usefully applied to separating serious risks from long shots. For example, if there’s a magnetic pole shift in Earth’s near-term future, it’s difficult to imagine what anyone might do about it. But an asteroid on an intercept course might be stopped. So perhaps NASA ought to take more seriously research into how to block a killer rock. The probability of one arriving soon might be small, but the calamity it caused would be terminal.
Yes, the world could end tomorrow. But if it doesn’t, its problems will continue. It makes far more sense to focus on mundane troubles that are all too real...
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HOW TO SPEND THE DAY BEFORE THE APOCALYPSE BY SARAH WALKER
In these hectic days leading up to the Apocalypse, it’s important that you make every second count. Even though scientists and Mayans tell us that Armageddon won’t be for another year, Crazies tell us that it will happen in a few months! And who knows if the Vikings had a specific date for their Apocalypse prophecy that we don’t know about. It could happen tomorrow! Therefore, I have composed a detailed itinerary for you so that you may live this day like it’s your last. Because, bad news, tomorrow you die. However, good news, you will ascend into heaven and probably have a better time there than you did on Earth. That is, if we are to believe What Dreams May Come, which scientists, Mayans and Crazies alike agree is the most accurate portrayal of heaven on film. If you haven’t seen the movie, I don’t want to ruin it, just in case you somehow see it before tomorrow, but two words: Robin Williams. Excited? Me too! But, before we (spoiler alert!) go frolicking through a field made of paint, let’s live it up! 6 am: Wake up. Make sure your alarm is set so it plays “Alive” by P.O.D., your favorite song of all time. This beautiful day needs a soundtrack and you don’t want to miss a moment of it. That being said, you’ll appreciate it a lot more if you get a bit more sleep. Turn off “Alive” by P.O.D. 12 pm: Wake up for real this time. You feel great! You should eat something to fortify yourself for the big day ahead. Use the only food items left in your fridge and cupboard to make a sandwich, composed of two pieces of Swiss cheese, the tail end of a family size bin of Supremely Spicy hummus you bought last night and two ends of bread. Wrap it in cellophane because you will be taking it with you into the shower. 12:15 pm: Take a forty-five minute shower. Remember, water conservation doesn’t matter anymore, because tomorrow there will be no people, or showers, or Earth. That also means that you can use ALL of your fancy body wash that you had been using sparingly. Take care to only unwrap the cellophane on your sandwich for each individual bite, there’s nothing
worse than a soggy sandwich. Except maybe the forthcoming Apocalypse. 1:00 pm: This is your last chance to do the things you’ve always wanted to do, but never had the courage. So it’s finally time to watch The Royal Wedding in the nude. Let yourself air dry, cue up the DVR, and watch four of the eight hours of coverage and relive the pageantry of a traditional Church of England wedding ceremony. Whilst doing this, you should be drinking Earl Gray tea spiked with whiskey and eating an entire tin bucket of three types of popcorn. (One third salty popcorn, one third cheese popcorn and one third dessert caramel popcorn). Finish it. What, are you going to save it for the cockroaches that survive our fiery demise? They don’t deserve your popcorn. 5:00 pm: Dress yourself in your favorite outfit, which would be elastic-waisted hot pants, a loose fitting T-shirt with holes in the armpits, an ascot and fauxfur-lined house slippers. Go to the dog park and imagine what it would be like if the little dog wearing the sweater had been with Seal Team 6. Consider that a
tiny dog dressed in pink with titanium teeth might have been more frightening in its own way. Reflect on the fact that it’s sort of annoying that we took Osama down so close to the End of the World. It’s like, what’s the point? But then it’s like, you get the point. Look around you and say, out loud, “We all get the point!” so people look at you strangely. Congratulations, you are the center of attention for the last time in this lifetime. 6:30 pm: Leave the dog park, go home and look at Facebook for a few hours. You could call your Mom, but you could always write on her Facebook wall instead. Wow, turns out her joining Facebook was actually useful in the end. Write “Bye, Mom. Thnx 4 Everything <3 CU in Heaven w/ Robin Williams.” 9:00 pm: Now that all of your loose ends are tied up, consider that you might want to have sex before you die, but then consider that you have four more hours of the Royal Wedding left on DVR. The answer is clear. Take off all of your clothes, turn on the television, and wait for sweet oblivion.
The Economics Behind a Zombie Apocalypse by Addison Tighe
What are the economics of a zombie apocalypse?
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An understandable question. When most people think of a zombie apocalypse they tend to think about the brutality of the violence, or the the inginuity of building zombie fortifications, and especially the power of the human spirits will to survive. That stuff may be interesting to some (probably most people), but the truely interesting part (to some at least... maybe just me) is how a zombie apocalypse comes about. Think about it. How could slow moving, stupid, zombies take over eclipse world to the point where the end of human society as we know it life as we know it comes about? There are a few things that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make sense about a zombie apocalypse that must be either taken into account and explained, or ignored. How most of the people on earth get bitten before people
started to deal with the problem? How did the plauge Zombie spread over every continent? How did modern day doctors and scientist not make a cure? Do all the militaries on earth just fail to stop these, as previouslly mentioned, slow moving, stupid undead creatures that basically amount to target practice? Well, these unexplained factors make it really hard to economically determine how a zombie apocalypse could happen, especially if your idea of a zombie apocalypse is caused by a biological outbreak in the modern day. Thats why the scenario I propose is less based on zombie movies and books that depict the colapse of modern society, and instead cements itself in a historical/fantasy acpect based on the traditional folklore of the zombies that appear alongside in African shamans. In the scenario I promose; the setting of the zombie apocalypse is a fictional world, with
similair technology and societies based off classic Greek poleis. What are poleis? Poleis (singular, polis) are city-states,
Necropolis: a city of the dead and dying. which are territories that a based around a city and its surrounding areas. Historic examples include Argos, Athens, Rhodes, and Sparta. The polis in this scenario will be called Necropolis, meaning city of the dead. A fitting name for a city that involves the zombie apocalypse. Now, in this fictional world, there are other polis, that Necropolis may or may not be on good terms with, and may or may not be constantlly at war with. These polis donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really matter, as the assumtion of this scenario is that zombies will topple Necropolis, and the Spartan like warriors of these other city-states will not have the technological means to fend off the coming zombie apocalypse. But where do these zombies come
from? well Necropolis isn’t just an unfortunate name. This is where an element of fantasy enters the scenario. Necropolis is is the city of the dead because they already have zombies in the city. These zombies are not a disease that infects people, but are instead simple reanimated corpses, that, similair to African folklore, serve a class of priestlike shamans. These shamans are known as necromancer, and through there use of zombies as labour, have acended to a form of aristrocracy in Necropolis. In this scenario, zombies are used by the city-state for a lot of the purposes that would be filled by either slaves or a working class. The work a zombie is used for include, but are not limited to: farming, construction, cleaning, and gaurdwork. Another big part of Necrololis is the use of zombies as foot-soldiers when they go to war. As you can imagine, this makes Necropolis quite the powerhouse among the poleis, as having an undead army give you a significant advantage to living (at least for now) soldiers. Having an army that feels no fear and no pain,
while threating to consume there enemy to add them to their ranks makes for quite the formidable threat. Necropolis’s army, allow them to strong diplomatic connections, and allows them to generate a lot of resources such as gold and iron that can be easily defended and traded saftley since no one is willing to challange the might of the undead army commanded by Necroplean generals. This makes Necropolis a very wealthy polis, with necromancers being at the top, while a relatively les wealthy class of merchants, traders, and artisan enjoy luxuries similair to the aristocrates of other poleis. even the small amount of labourers and farmers that work in the polis are better off than there counterparts in other poleis. There however a large amount of impoverished people who can nnot maintain work since the increasing amount of zombies slowly kicks out the
Mum, where do zombies come from? labouring class. These citizens crowd
the streets, their presence tolerated by the necromancers and merchants, because... well, you need to get your corpses from somewhere. Now, I have described what zombies do in Necropolis, but I haven’t said where all the corpses for these zombies come from (and this will be important so pay attention). for a necromancer to raise a zombie you need a corpse, and this is one of the caveates about living in the Superpower that is Necropolis, because your corpse, is property of the state once you die. A citizen of Necropolis can’t be suprised if they see there recently departed father or brother building the new library, or if they see there late daughter guarding a prominent Necromancer. But zombies need to eat to, so your corpse might not even become a zombie, but instead it could be used to make a mulch made partially of human meat. This mulch is produced on mass, and making it is one of the most popular and safe jobs among the lower class (since zombies would just eat the human meat). To make zombies you need corpses,
and to maitain zombies you need corpse. This demand is the basis for the problem that will cause the zombie apocalypse in this scenario. As the zombie population increases, the amount of corpses needed is also increased, which will require either: a) more corpses from outside the poulation, or b) a culling of the zombie population.
Eating people, walking slow. Zombie things. One more thing needs to be explained in this scenario before we can get to the actual apocalypse. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve covered what zombies do, and where they come from. The only thing left is how zombies work. Zombies are similair to the ones in movies, with a few key differences with those zombies and the zombies in this scenario, and I will explain these differences through some frequently asked questions. Do zombies eat people? Yes, zombies do eat people, but no as much as movie zombies. There is a mathematical breakdown below, but a basically zombies need to eat human flesh, but the flesh can be spread out to be served in a mulch with woods chimps, water, and other organic matter not being used. But they do need at least 15% of there diet to be people. A necromancer can only have so much control over a zombie, and this gets harder to control if the zombie is craving flesh, with incidence of hungry zombies turning on there masters and going on a rampage, but these have become less common as necromancers become more experienced.
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Are zombies infectious? Yes, but not though a bite. Because the zombies need to create more zombie for a zombie apocalypse to realistically happen, in this scenario, zombies can spread without necromancers. But the infectiousness of our zombies is not through bite, but through corpses that have been killed by zombies raising on ther own. Fast or slow? Our zombies are slow zombies. You can most likely tell that I like my zombies
slow and dumb as slow zombies create a more interesting dynamic when examing how a zombie apocalypse can
So... the apocalypse? Yes, we now come to the apocalypse, and how the zombies destroy Necropolis, eventually spreading to the other poleis, and ending human life in our scenario. This is where we examine the economics of a zombie apocalypse, or more accurately, the ecomomics that cause the zombie apocalypse. If you look closely, you can see the fatal flaw in this society. On the backs of zombies the necromancers gain power and get richer, which in turn makes the merchant class richer, and Necropolis in general becomes rich, and if you can stand the smell of zombies, it becomes a great place to live for most people. All you have to do is maintain the zombies, and you can maitain this wealth. But the problem? Maintaining these zombies require corpses, which you can provide as long as your population can maitain this. However, as the number of zombies increase, this destroys what makes up most of the population: the working class. Since zombies take these jobs, it leaves them starving on scraps, and they die off. At first this mass death of the working class just increases the number of zombies and food for zombies, and it only reinforces what the rich necromancers are doing. This creates what is known as economics as a bubble.
Bubble, boom, burst. CRASH! A bubble is created when the people in charge think that there situation is just going to get better. This causes them to take more and more risks until the bubble bursts. A bubble busting could be a financial market crashing, but, in this case the bubble bursting is what causes the zombie apocalypse (in this scenario). Eventually, the necromancers run out of corpses to feed the zombies, and its to late to fight back once the inevitable happens. As established, without a food source, the zombies can not be
controlled by the necromancers, and Necropolice falls. Theoretically, there are things that the necromancers could have done to prevent this, such as limiting the number of zombies being created, or make some number of human labourers a mandatory thing. I suggest you think up ways to save Necropolis in a different scenario. What would you have done to prevent the zombie apocalypse?
Where to now? This may seem unrealistic, and I admit it is. Sure the zombies are far-fetched, but also, would the people in charge, even if theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re necromancers, really let there polis fall like in this scenario? Well, you can look at real world econmic crisis for the answer. This article is loosely inspired by my own research and interest in the 2008 U.S. housing crisis that ruined the American economy, along with the economy of other countries connected to americans housing market. The complacency to missmanagement for more power and money exhibited in the necromancers is similair to haow some (including me) see the bankers and regulators that crashed the market. If you had fun reading this, and you are looking for something along the line that happened in this scenario, I suggest researching the financial crisis. Or if you liked the zombies, I have recommendations.
Recommendations If you liked this article, whether for the zombies or the economics, I have some recommendations for you. Zombie Movie: Zombieland, The Apocalypse Issue
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Shaun of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead, Day of the Dead. Ecomnomic Movies: The Big Short, Freakonomics, Too Big to Fail, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Corporation
PSYCHOLOGY REVEALS THE COMFORTS OF APOCALYPSE By Daisy Yuhas
December 21 2012, according to much-hyped misreadings of the Mayan calendar, marked the end of the world. It’s not the first “end is nigh” proclamation—and it’s unlikely to be the last. That’s because, deep down for various reasons, there’s something appealing—at least to some of us—about the end of the world.
Enjoy the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy University of Minnesota neuroscientist Shmuel Lissek, who studies the fear system, believes that at its heart, the concept of doomsday evokes an innate and ancient bias in most mammals. “The initial response to any hint of alarm is fear. This is the architecture with which we’re built,” Lissek says. Over evolutionary history, organisms with a better-safe-than-sorry approach survive. This mechanism has had consequences for both the body and brain, where the fast-acting amygdala can activate a fearful stress response before “higher” cortical areas have a chance to assess the situation and respond more rationally. But why would anyone enjoy kindling this fearful response? Lissek suspects that some apocalyptic believers find the idea that the end is nigh to be validating. Individuals with a history of traumatic experiences, for example, may be fatalistic. For these people, finding a group of like-minded fatalists is reassuring. There may also be comfort in being able to attribute doom to some larger cosmic order— such as an ancient Mayan prophecy. This kind of mythology removes any sense of individual responsibility. There’s an even broader allure to knowing the precise end date. “Apocalyptic beliefs make existential threats—the fear of our mortality—predictable,” Lissek says. Lissek, in collaboration with National Institute of Mental Health neuroscientist Christian Grillon and colleagues, has found that when an unpleasant or painful experience, such as an electric shock, is predictable, we relax.
“The anxiety produced by uncertainty is gone”. Knowing when the end will come doesn’t appeal equally to everyone, of course—but for many of us it’s paradoxically a reason to stop worrying. This also means people can focus on preparing. Doomsday preppers who assemble their bunker and canned food, Lissek believes, are engaged in goal-oriented behaviors, which are a proven therapy in times of trouble.
The Power of Knowledge Beyond the universal aspects of fear and our survival response to it, certain personality traits may make individuals more susceptible to believing itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the end of the world. Social psychologist Karen Douglas at the University of Kent studies conspiracy theorists and suspects that her study subjects, in some cases, share attributes with those who believe in an impending apocalypse. She points out that, although these are essentially two different phenomena, certain apocalyptic beliefs are also at the heart of conspiracy theories. For example, the belief that government agencies know about an impending disaster and are intentionally hiding this fact to prevent panic.
“One trait I see linking the two is the feeling of powerlessness, often connected to a mistrust in authority,” Douglas says. Among conspiracy theorists, these convictions of mistrust and impotence make their conspiracies more precious—and real.
“People feel like they have knowledge that others do not.”
Relatively few studies exist on the individuals who start and propagate these theories. Douglas points out that research into the psychology of persuasion has found that those who believe most are also most motivated to broadcast their beliefs. In the Internet age, that’s an easier feat than ever before.
Lessons from Dystopia Steven Schlozman, drawing both from his experiences as a Harvard Medical School child psychiatrist and novelist (his first book recounts a zombie apocalypse) believes it’s the postapocalyptic landscape that fascinates people most. “I talk to kids in my practice and they see it as a good thing. They say, ‘life would be so simple—I’d shoot some zombies and wouldn’t have to go to school,’” Schlozman says. In both literature and in speaking with patients, Schlozman has noticed that people frequently romanticize the end times.
“They imagine surviving, thriving and going back to nature”.
Schlozman recently had an experience that eerily echoed Orson Welles’s 1938 The War of the Worlds broadcast. He was discussing his book on a radio program and they had to cut the show short when listeners misconstrued his fiction for fact. He believes the propensity to panic is not constant in history but instead reflects the times. In today’s complicated world with terrorism, war, fiscal cliffs and climate change, people are primed for panic. “All of this uncertainty and all of this fear comes together and people think maybe life would be better” after a disaster, Schlozman says. Of course, in truth, most of their postapocalyptic dreams are just fantasies that ignore the real hardships of pioneer life and crumbling infrastructure. He points out that, if anything, tales of apocalypse, particularly involving zombies, should ideally teach us something about the world we should avoid— and how to make necessary changes now.
S
cience fiction seems pretty clear about the connection between artificial intelligence and the end of the world as we know. However, the robot apocalypse cannot happen today or even in the near future. Robots are simply not networked enough to allow for a mass uprising, nor are they complex enough to pose a threat. At best, all some faulty and/or hacked computer system could do is wiped out your Call of Duty records, hack your email, and bring down the power grid and steal your financial information. You know, small things compared to the sci-fi vision of combat human-form exoskeletons charging down your street with blazing plasma rifles in a 40-watt range. While the computerization of society and the robotization of the military allows for great tools for an robot apocalypse, there is one key ingredients needed: an artificial intelligence capable of unleashing an robot apocalypse with the desired scale and coordination to undo the human race. There could more localized variants of the classic sci-fi revolt of the robots scenario, like machines at a plant going haywire or the computer system onboard a long-range starship freaking out and singing â&#x20AC;&#x153;Daisyâ&#x20AC;?, or a driverless car being used as a battering ram, but the SKYNET scenario will take computer systems with integration and networking abilities that we just do not yet possess.
Consider that there fully intelligent animals, like dolphins, cats, dogs, and cattle, and all of these animals have suffered greatly at the hands of humans with crimes that should warrant violent separation. Last time I checked, cows are not killing humans for making hamburgers out of them, and armed dolphins are not marching down the streets of Tokyo. Yet. While the robot apocalypse is not on the horizon, what about the far future? Back in 1965, British mathematician I.J. Good wrote that an “ultraintelligent machine” could be the last invention of mankind. This machine would be natural faster, more logically, effective at its goals, and have a greater pool of data to make decisions from than the average human, but would this make the uber-smart computer a danger to mankind? Would an AI matrix conspire to kill humanity? Computers are tasked with carrying out instruction programmed by humans, and working on that task until it is accomplished. In the pages of the Dark Horse Ghost in the Shell manga graphic novel, the Fuchikoma mecha suits that Section 9 uses have an impressive A.I. ability, and every once and while, they test the waters of these intelligence machines by “gifting” one of these suits to get the idea to lead a revolt of the robots against their fleshy masters.
the Apocalypse Issue 4
Controllor Illustrated by Qian Ren
Most of the time, the Fuchikomas realize that there is no benefit to a revolt of the robots and that they need humans, and enslaving humans would be more complex than the current situation. Any machine intelligence would also know that it needs humans for certain tasks and there would have to be some benefit to wiping out humans and if that goal could be accomplished. Unlike with humans, robots and computers have a great deal of follow-through and focus on assigned tasks. It seems to me, that an overarching machine intelligence would almost needed to be told to kill humans rather than arrive at that conclusion on
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its own. After all, why would we program an AI matrix with the same flawed human emotions. Would we program something better to allow for it to make better decisions than we make as a species? I think the real robot apocalypse would come if a computer was not programmed correctly or that safe-guards were not installed, or someone used to achieve their wet dream of world domination.
结局并不总是悲伤 “ The end is not always sad.”
THE NOODLE HOUSE The best 2-minute noodles ever.
THE PRODIGAL SON RETURNS
RAPTURE 2016
‘The main threat to The planet’
Overpopulation
By Science Editor, Steve Connor Climate change and global pollution cannot be adequately tackled without addressing the neglected issue of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s booming population, according to two leading scientists. Professor Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, and Professor John Guillebaud, vented their frustration yesterday at the fact that overpopulation had fallen off the agenda of the many organisations dedicated to saving the planet. The scientists said dealing with the burgeoning human population of the planet was vital if real progress was to be made on the other enormous problems facing the world.
â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk aboutâ&#x20AC;?
Professor Guillebaud said. “Unless we reduce the human population humanely through family planning, nature will do it for us through violence, epidemics or starvation.” Professor Guillebaud said he decided to study the field of human reproduction more than 40 years ago specifically because of the problems he envisaged through overpopulation. His concerns were echoed by Professor Rapley, an expert on the effects of climate change on the Antarctic, who pointed out that this year an extra 76 million people would be added to the 6.5 billion already living on Earth, which is twice as many as in 1960. By the middle of the century, the United Nations estimates that the world population is likely to increase to more than nine billion, which is equivalent to an extra 200,000 people each day. Professor Rapley said the extra resources needed to sustain this growth in population would put immense strains on the planet’s life-support system even if pollution emissions per head could be dramatically reduced. “Although reducing human emissions to the atmosphere is undoubtedly of critical importance, as are any and all measures to reduce the human environmental ‘footprint’, the truth is that the contribution of each individual cannot be reduced to zero. Only the lack of the individual can bring it down to nothing,” Professor Rapley says in an article for the BBC website. “So if we believe that the size of the human ‘footprint’ is a serious problem - and there is much evidence for this - then a rational view would be that along with a raft of measures to reduce the footprint per person, the issue of population management must be addressed.” Professor Rapley says the explosive growth in the human population and the concomitant effects on the environment have been largely ignored by many of those concerned with climate change. “It is a bombshell of a topic, with profound and emotive issues of ethics, morality, equity and practicability,” he says. “So controversial is the subject that it has the Cinderella of the great sustainability - rarely visible in public, or even in
become debate private.
“In interdisciplinary meetings addressing how the planet functions as an integrated whole, demographers and population specialists are usually notable by their absence.’’ Professor Guillebaud, who co-chairs the Optimum Population Trust, said it became politically incorrect about 25 years ago to bring up family planning in discussing the environmental problems of the developing world. The world population needed to be reduced by nearly two-thirds if climate change was to be prevented and everyone on the planet was to enjoy a lifestyle similar to that of Europeans, Professor Guillebaud said. An environmental assessment by the conservation charity WWF and the Worldwatch Institute in Washington found
that humans were now exploiting about 20 per cent more renewable resources than can be replaced each year. Professor Guillebaud said this meant it would require the natural resources equivalent to four more Planet Earths to sustain the projected 2050 population of nine billion people. “The figures demonstrate the folly of concentrating exclusively on lifestyles and technology and ignoring human numbers in our attempts to combat global warming,” he said. “We need to think about climate changers - human beings and their numbers - as well as climate change.” Some environmentalists have argued that is not human numbers that are important, but the relative use of natural resources and production of waste such as carbon dioxide emissions. They have suggested that the planet can sustain a population of nine billion people or even more provided that everyone adopts a less energy-intensive lifestyle based on renewable sources of energy rather than fossil fuels. But Professor Guillebaud said: “We urgently need to stabilise and reduce human numbers. There is no way that a population of nine billion - the UN’s medium forecast for 2050 - can meet its energy needs without unacceptable damage to the planet and a great deal of human misery.”
Crowded Earth •
The human population stands at 6.5 billion and is projected to rise to more than 9 billion by 2050.
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In less than 50 years the human population has more than doubled from its 1960 level of 3 billion.
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China is the most populous country with more than 1.3 billion people. India is second with more than 1.1 billion.
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By about 2030 India is expected to exceed China with nearly 1.5 billion people.
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About one in every three people alive today is under the age of 20, which means that the population will continue to grow as more children reach sexual maturity.
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Britain’s population of 60 million is forecast to grow by 7 million over the next 25 years and by at least 10 million over the next 60 years, mainly through immigration.
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This is equivalent to an extra 57 towns the size of Luton (pop 184,000)
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By the time you have finished reading this column, an estimated 100 babies have been born in the world.