by Michael Snyder, End Of The American Dream:

Are we on the verge of the worst times in all of human history? We live at a moment when prominent leaders in the scientific world and in the religious world are both urgently warning that humanity could soon be facing a nightmarish apocalyptic future. Weather patterns are rapidly changing, the crust of our planet is becoming increasing unstable, “superbugs” that are resistant to antibiotics threaten to completely render our best medical treatments obsolete, the number of global terror attacks continues to rise year after year, and thanks to weapons of mass destruction humanity now has the capability of completely destroying itself several times over. They often disagree about why it will happen, but an increasing number of scientific and religious leaders have come to the exact same conclusion that the future of humanity is very bleak.

Despite the fact that technology is increasing at an exponential rate, many top thinkers in the scientific community now believe that there is a very good chance that the human race will be facing extinction by the end of this century. The following comes from an outstanding Salon article…

The late microbiologist Frank Fenner, for example, whose virological work helped eliminate smallpox, predicted in 2010 that “humans will probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction, and climate change.” Similarly, the Canadian biologist Neil Dawe reportedly “wouldn’t be surprised if the generation after him witness the extinction of humanity.” And the renowned ecologist Guy McPherson argues that humanity will follow the dodo into the evolutionary grave by 2026.

Those are some very sobering words.

Perhaps you have never heard of any of those guys before, but I know that virtually all of you have heard of Stephen Hawking. According to Hawking, we have now reached “the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity”…

“Now, more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together. We face awesome environmental challenges: climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans. Together, they are a reminder that we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity. We now have the technology to destroy the planet on which we live, but have not yet developed the ability to escape it.”

The last 100 years have been unlike any other era in human history. We have constructed towering cities all over the planet, we have developed remarkable technologies that have enabled us to make the impossible more than possible, and the population of this planet has shot up to a staggering 7 billion people.

But in order to feed our exploding population, we are going to need another miracle. According to Megan Clark, the head of Australia’s national science agency, more food will need to be produced over the next 50 years than has been produced throughout the rest of human history combined…

“It is hard for me to comprehend that in the next 50 years we will need to produce as much food as has been consumed over our entire human history,” she said.

“That means in the working life of my children, more grain than ever produced since the Egyptians, more fish than eaten to date, more milk than from all the cows that have ever been milked on every frosty morning humankind has ever known.”

These are the types of things that keep scientific thinkers up late at night. At this moment, great famines are already hitting places such as Venezuela and Yemen, and this trend is only going to accelerate in the years ahead.

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