Time and again we are exposed to another article that tells us how long we, as the human race, have before there will be a cataclysmic disaster. Another such paper was prepared in Australia this week, and reported in global media such as The New York Post. This time, the authors have pushed the goalposts out to 2050 this week, which is a relief – most of the time we only have 10-20 years!
There have been a litany of such forecasts, such as this one from the UN in 1989:
It does make you wonder whether any of those who create this prose bother to look at any scientific data before wasting newspaper column-centimetres on these stories.