| Is this the end of the world? The earth shakes in Asia and a generation of children is lost. The wind flails America and a city is destroyed. A giant wave rises in the Indian Ocean and whole islands are drowned along with swathes of coastland. The sea is turning to acid, the air is choking us, the polar ice caps are melting. Famine, pestilence and plague used to be dread words from the Bible; now they are reasons for compassion fatigue. Bird flu threatens to sweep across the globe, killing millions of people. No wonder some people believe we are living in the End Times. ....Nuclear war also remains a good bet for global destruction, however much we prefer not to talk about it. It is no longer just superpowers that have a finger on the deadly button. But the climatologists, the scientists who predict the future and try to get our leaders to listen, believe that the most likely apocalypse involves a longer, more painful death for humankind. This, according to them, is one way our world may end: it starts with the rising intensity and frequency of the hurricanes, floods and droughts we are experiencing now. Famine and chaos increase in the poorest and most unprepared countries, killing thousands of people at first, then millions as infrastructures collapse and civil wars rage. As some nations see their coastlines disappear and others become deserts, a huge wave of migration begins. The developed countries cannot cope with the influx of environmental refugees. Major wars are fought over religion, oil and water supplies, causing destruction and the breakdown of societies. Meanwhile sea life is dying as the oceans are poisoned, crops are failing as the weather goes mad and more people starve. Melting polar ice causes the collapse of the Gulf Stream, a channel of water that provides as much heat in winter as the sun. Without it there is a big freeze. Britain and most of Europe are completely shut down. With humanity reeling, the melting ice caps finally disappear. This causes a massive increase in sea levels that wipes out nations and sends huge tidal waves to swallow even major cities like New York and London. Across the planet, much land that is not frozen is flooded or barren. The remnant of humankind is in serious trouble. The end of the species really is nigh. It won't happen tomorrow. The ice caps may have started melting, but it could easily take a thousand years for them to go. We are not experiencing the apocalypse quite yet, although it may have begun.... |
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