• Question: Do you believe that humanity will bring an end to all life on Earth?

    Asked by lycy to Daniel, Greg, Lowri on 17 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Lowri Evans

      Lowri Evans answered on 17 Mar 2016:


      If we discovered tomorrow that there was an asteroid on a collision course with Earth and – because physics is a fairly simple science – we were able to calculate that it was going to hit Earth on 3 June 2072, and we knew that its impact was going to wipe out 70% of all life on Earth, governments worldwide would marshal the entire planet into unprecedented action. Every scientist, engineer, university and business would be enlisted: half to find a way of stopping it, the other half to find a way for our species to survive and rebuild if the first option proved unsuccessful.

      We are in almost precisely that situation now, except that there isn’t a specific date and there isn’t an asteroid. The problem is us. We’re not doing enough about the situation we’re in. The biggest and most important experiment on Earth is the one we’re all conducting, right now, on Earth itself. We need to accept that there is a limit to how many people our Earth can support. The question is, is it seven billion (our current population), 10 billion or 28 billion? I think we’ve already gone past it. Well past it.

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