Thought for the Day

In 1960, a prediction was made that today 13th November sixty six years later was going to be the end of the world. This prediction wasn’t made by some lone cult leader holed up in a remote farmhouse with a few followers, but by a group of respected scientists, concerned about population growth and birth rates. The title of the article published in Science Magazine on 4th November 1960 was arresting: Doomsday Friday 13th November AD 2026. It wasn’t a calculation to see when humanity would run out of food, but their prediction instead was that due to sheer numbers, human beings would be ‘squeezed to death.’
Striking in the article is their use of imagery more often associated with religion. They speak of paradise and doom, all underpinned by serious mathematical calculation.
They predicted that by today’s date, there would have been great progress – resulting in living conditions that would come close to what they described as paradise. There would be “no environmental hazards, unlimited food supply”, and no war. In these conditions, our fate as a population – they argued - would be entirely determined by just two things… fertility and mortality.
The article was contested from the start by demographers but its influence continued to be felt; it was cited for example in a court case concerning abortion in 1971, 2 years before Roe v Wade. And it wasn’t until as recently as1993 that its predictions of human population growth and the reality began to part company.
The irony of their argument was that it was the very paradise conditions they predicted that would produce the circumstances for doomsday. But neither has yet come to pass. Although, yes there is enough food in the world to feed everyone, we don’t share it equally. The environmental hazards they predicted would be gone – are not gone at all, as COP 31 delegates in Turkey are debating this week. And all the while, more people are living longer but are being born at a slower rate than before.
I find it sobering to read their article today, on the day they predicted that I, and many others, would die. The themes they addressed in good faith are the deepest of our existence: our birth and our death; our ability to cooperate as well as compete; our capacity for imagining a better world that doesn’t inevitably mean the survival of only the strongest, with the weakest condemned to perish.
Today I’m living the day they warned would be the last for everyone. This is the day others have both dreamed of and dreaded. Prayed for and feared. The very best of human endeavour is needed now to ensure we don’t just avoid doomsday but avoid making real our own paradise lost.

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