The end of the world has been put back by at least 50 years by a team of British scientists.
A doom-laden US study in 1972 predicted that the earth would run out of food and resources, becoming uninhabitable by around 2050.
Now scientists at Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute have claimed we have a little more grace – until the end of this century, or the year 2100.
To come to their conclusion, the team updated the 1970s computer model used to predict how finite the Earth’s resources are.
The researchers four decades ago failed to take into account a number of factors that mean we are safe for a few years yet.
They include the industrial sector creating less pollution and using less energy than expected based on trends in the 1970s. Industry is also doing more to clean up pollution than the earlier forecasts assumed.
They did not foresee a huge rise in the service sector and telecommunications – making the world’s economy more productive .
And innovations in agriculture have allowed more food to be grown on the world’s land.
Aled Jones, co-author of the study in journal Sustainability, said: ‘They made a good attempt in the 1970s but it might have been too pessimistic.
‘The limit is pushed back to the second half of this century.’
He added: ‘Many questions remain on exactly when planetary limits will be reached and what the consequences will be.
‘When you run the newly-calibrated World3 model forward in time, society still collapses this century based on reasonable guesses of these limits, although there is of course great uncertainty around exactly what these limits are.
‘Growth cannot continue indefinitely if it is based on material consumption, and not grounded in our understanding that the planet has limited land availability and resources.
‘Society has started to address some of the problems outlined in 1972, but we need to learn lessons from what we have already achieved and focus our efforts on avoiding these limits.’
Original News:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3172840/Scientists-use-computer-model-predict-end-world.html
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