A professor famous for predicting the imminent demise of the human race at regular intervals since the 1970s has predicted the imminent demise of the human race.
Paul Ehrlich, who is the Bing Professor of Population Studies at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, says it's definitely on this time. In a tinned statement issued on Friday, the arm-waving prof lays it on the line:
There is no longer any doubt: We are entering a mass extinction that threatens humanity's existence ... the window of opportunity is rapidly closing ...
"[The study] shows without any significant doubt that we are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event," Ehrlich said ...
"If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover, and our species itself would likely disappear early on," said lead author Gerardo Ceballos.
The original article can be found at The Register, with coverage of the cited study coming from ScienceMag.org
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2015, @07:08PM
I'm ready for my mad max style of living. When is this going down?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2015, @08:57PM
I feel like its in Nevada. Burning man is about to get a whole lot more interesting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 24 2015, @09:53PM
It may not get as bad as "Waterworld" immediately, but the Earth's population continues to balloon geometrically and the land mass available is disappearing (as the ice on mountains and at the poles melts and turns into seawater and is not replaced by new snowpack of equal volume).
Some Pacific islands are noticeably losing usable land mass to the rising ocean.
When there is a storm surge, coastal Bangladesh is inundated by salt water.
Miami Beach is barely above sea level; same for a big swath of the USA from Brownsville, Texas to Eastport, Maine--to include a scad of major seaports.
...then again, at current precipitation rates, it may not be long till parts of California resemble the driest parts of the Australian Outback.
-- gewg_