The whole of humanity is only 20 years or so from meekly surrendering the one thing most us have craved, sought and fought for throughout our history. Our freedom. By the 2050s every person on the planet will be under surveillance, 24/7, for the whole of their lives, their every word and act automatically recorded, stored … Continue reading The End of Freedom

In the view of most thinking people, the human species is more likely to earn its end in either a nuclear Armageddon or an episode of uncontrollable global overheating. There is now a third, and more intractable, scenario by which our tenure of Planet Earth may be terminated: ecocide. Ecocide? Sounds like another greenie scare … Continue reading Averting ecocide

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”  – H.L. Mencken, On Politics: A … Continue reading Age of the Nuclear Moron

  One of the most dangerous threats to the human future in this, the Age of Perils, is ... optimism. Nowadays, if you tell the tested truth about climate science, weapons of mass destruction, global pollution, extinction or, indeed, any of the ten existential threats now closing in on humanity, you are likely to provoke … Continue reading When optimism spells disaster…

There is a palpable wrath, out there in Elderland. The Elders, it seems, are no longer happy to look on as a bunch of corporates and their political stooges pillage the planet and lay waste to our grandkids’ future. With growing resolve, resources and organisation, they are fighting back. This isn’t the ‘grey power’ that … Continue reading The Elders are rebelling

Eight nations now have sufficient weapons of mass destruction to end civilization worldwide in a nuclear winter. Far from receding, the nuclear threat to human survival has never been greater. One of the huge advances from recent climate science is a far better understanding of the world’s atmosphere. From this, leading scientists have concluded it … Continue reading Eight nations now have the power to terminate civilization

Global warming is edging perilously close to out-of-control, according to scientific reports from round the planet. This means that time is running out if we want to preserve our world in a stable, healthy and productive state, capable of feeding and supporting humanity. The great concern is the dramatic rise, over the last three years, in methane … Continue reading Early warning of a runaway climate

Humanity is in the early stages of the most significant evolution in its history: learning to think as a species. This is the linking of human minds, values, information and solutions at lightspeed and in real time around the planet, via the internet and social media. Global thought may be arriving in the nick of … Continue reading Learning to think as a species

The world faces an acute water crisis within ten years, affecting food supplies, megacities and industry globally, a leading science writer has warned. “World water use is already more than ten trillion tonnes a year. While the human population has tripled since 1950, our water use has grown sixfold,” says Julian Cribb, author of ‘Surviving … Continue reading World is facing a water crisis

Humans emit more than 250 billion tonnes of chemical substances a year, in a toxic avalanche that is harming people and life everywhere on the planet. “Earth, and all life on it, are being saturated with man-made chemicals in an event unlike anything in the planet’s entire history,” says Julian Cribb, author of ‘Surviving the … Continue reading Earth is now a ‘toxic planet’