Matt Ridley discussed humanity’s relationship with the apocalypse:

• In 1968 it was predicted that the world would run out of food and that famine would kill hundreds of millions in ten years.
• Since 1922 it has been predicted that the world will run out of energy. Yet the world has continued to innovate and discover new sources of energy.
• There are four horsemen in the Biblical Apocalypse and our perceptions of Apocalypses in the present also revolve around four themes:
  • Chemicals. DDT, air pollution, sulphur dioxide, and CFCs were all meant to be our end. They weren’t.
  • Disease. Swine Flu, SARS, Bird Flu, Ebola…the list goes on. Oprah once warned her viewers that 1 in 5 Americans would die of AIDS by 1990.
  • People. There are too many of us for the planet to support. We must kill most of us to save a few of us. Yet our population has grown and living standards appear to be…improving.
  • Resources. Oil, metals, and just about everything have been predicted to run out. They haven’t.
• And what about the latest apocalypse scenario? Climate change? The answer is somewhere in the middle – it won’t be our end – but we should do something about it all the same.

The full article is extremely long, and covers the outline provided above in much fuller details. It’s something we’re told about every day, especially in the year 2012. It’s well worth a read.

Source: Wired