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00:00In 1973, the World One Programme said that the world would end in the year 2040.
00:06It was a computer model designed to predict how life on Earth would evolve.
00:10Back then, 2040 was still quite a long way away.
00:13Now, it's a lot closer.
00:16So, are you freaking out yet?
00:22The World One Programme was commissioned by a group known as the Club of Rome and developed
00:26by MIT scientists back in 1973.
00:29It was a computer model to show the way in which certain aspects of human civilization
00:33– including population growth, energy use, and quality of life – were trending into
00:38the future.
00:39At the time, it attracted some attention, because it saw mostly bad things ahead for
00:43us.
00:44Pollution levels, for example, were forecast to skyrocket to the point that they would
00:48end up killing off massive sections of the global population.
00:52But ultimately, it perhaps didn't worry people enough in the early 1970s.
00:56And when, in 2018, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation re-released news footage showing
01:00its original coverage of the story, the World One Programme again made headlines across
01:05the planet.
01:06This time because much of what it had predicted to happen appeared to be coming true.
01:11It suggested, for example, that the global population would rapidly grow from the seventies
01:15until at least 2020.
01:17Which it has done.
01:18It also noted how the level of natural resources available to us would steadily decline in
01:22the same period.
01:24Which rings true, as well.
01:26It predicted that the somewhat hard-to-quantify metric of quality of life would also steadily
01:30fall so that by 2020 it would match levels last seen in around 1920.
01:35The jury's out on that, but either way, the outlook from 2020 onwards wasn't good.
01:41The World One Programme foresaw that by the year 2040, pollution levels would dramatically
01:45rise beyond all other metrics.
01:48As a direct result, it predicted that the global population would dramatically fall
01:52from its 2020 peak, largely because of the pollution and a runaway human lifestyle.
01:57And finally, it said that quality of life would drop even further for those that still
02:01survived.
02:02At its bleakest, the World One Programme predicted the end of civilisation by 2040, midway through
02:08the twenty-first century.
02:10In the 1973 ABC feature, the reporter had gone on to refer to the then-unknown 2020s
02:15as a quote, highly critical period, as a specific time when living conditions could very quickly
02:20plummet.
02:22It could be argued that this general message does reflect the current state of the world,
02:26with issues around climate, population and equality tending to dominate the big questions
02:30of today.
02:31Now, we're grappling with the realities of various climatological tipping points…
02:35so much so that we're increasingly starting to look at the wider solar system for potential
02:40planets to escape to, should we need to.
02:42As a society, we're increasingly influenced by the idea that an apocalypse could be just
02:47around the corner… which is ultimately what the World One Programme claimed to be
02:51the case.
02:52Elsewhere, the Doomsday Clock is probably the most prominent measure we have for how
02:56long we've potentially got left.
02:59Managed by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, it's regularly updated to reflect current
03:03threat levels.
03:04In the year 1991, it was at seventeen minutes to midnight, the farthest from midnight it's
03:10ever been since it was created in 1947.
03:12Interestingly, at roughly this time, the early nineties, with the World One Programme, it
03:17was predicted that the population metric would surpass the quality of life metric for the
03:21first time… and also that the pollution metric would start its rapid, unsustainable
03:26rise.
03:27And, since 1991, the Doomsday Clock has generally matched the predictions of World One in that
03:33its outlook has gotten gloomier and gloomier.
03:35Crucially, in 2020, the clock was moved the closest to midnight it's ever been… at
03:40one hundred seconds, too.
03:42So, we can see that its projections do still tally with the World One Programme, and that
03:46today's era is deemed a vital time before a perceived, oncoming, imminent disaster.
03:52Among the reasons cited for the 2020 change to the clock, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
03:57highlighted a failure by world governments to lessen the threat of nuclear war… as
04:01well as a continued failure to address climate change.
04:04The stark reality, then, is that for all the modern world's advantages, we're still
04:08never without the knowledge that a horde of weapons could one day end it all in minutes.
04:13And then, there's the increasing risk that the general conditions of Earth could turn
04:16against us, too… with devastating consequences.
04:20So, with all of this in mind, how far should we really be preparing for the end of days
04:24within the near future?
04:26As part of the original ABC feature on the World One prediction, expert analysts from
04:30the Club of Rome had suggested that international blocks could be one of the best ways forward.
04:35And to some degree, we have seen the international map evolve in this way, particularly with
04:40the United States, China and the European Union.
04:43The same analysts also called for the world's biggest polluters to significantly reduce
04:48their output, though, and the results here haven't been as straightforward.
04:52Thankfully, in recent years, we have seen a greater emphasis on climate issues than
04:56perhaps ever before in international law, with the Paris Agreement tying most of it
05:00together, since the First Nations signed it in 2016.
05:04But in most cases, we're yet to see whether the various ecological targets set by countries
05:08all over the world will be met… and there have already been some high-profile withdrawals
05:13from the Paris Agreement, most notably the United States which withdrew in 2020 but rejoined
05:18in 2021.
05:19According to data from the Union of Concerned Scientists, there is, then, still great reason
05:24to be, well, greatly concerned.
05:26The Union estimates that 28% of CO2 emissions now come from China, the US is second with
05:32around 15%.
05:34At the time of the World One Programme, however, the United States had been highlighted as
05:38the greatest producer of pollutants in the world… so, we can see how, just in this
05:43one instance, the landscape has changed in the years between 1973 and now.
05:47Interestingly, though, the US is still ranked within the top five countries for carbon emissions
05:52per capita, while China falls outside the top ten for this particular measure.
05:56But, in general, it really matters not which country is contributing what.
06:01From an international perspective, it's clear that global carbon emissions are continuing
06:04to rise year on year… and that's bad news for everyone.
06:08Nevertheless, it's not all doom and gloom.
06:11And again, the situation has changed considerably since the results of the World One Programme
06:15were first made public, with more and more modern services, companies and initiatives
06:20aiming to push humanity into a cleaner and safer future.
06:24According to the International Energy Agency's Global Energy Review 2020, for example, almost
06:2928% of the world's electricity generation now comes from renewable power sources.
06:34And while the growth rate for renewables has slightly dropped since 2018, the percentage
06:39share that renewables have in the total energy market has continued to increase.
06:44During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the IEA also claimed that renewable energy
06:49had emerged as the, quote, most resilient energy source against lockdown measures.
06:54Those who worked on the World One predictions in the 1970s called for global action to try
06:59to combat the alarming trends that their programme had unearthed.
07:02So, perhaps this recent increase in the uptake of renewables is an example of such action
07:06taking place.
07:08The big question now is, are we too late?
07:11And if not, can we continue making steps in the right direction?
07:14For now, few scientists or authorities would confidently claim that the world really will
07:19end in the year 2040.
07:20And in fairness, even the World One Programme didn't forecast total extinction for humankind.
07:26That's the total breakdown of human civilization and a catastrophic drop in population.
07:31Still, it should be unnerving to all of us that so far, our recent history has so closely
07:36mirrored what an MIT computer predicted would happen in 1973.
07:40And therefore, its predictions for the next twenty years can't be discarded.
07:44Instead, they serve as a dire warning for everyone on Earth.
07:48According to the study, there could be dark days ahead for us… but the hope for many
07:51in science and technology is that all is not lost.
07:55If yet.
07:56What do you think of the World One prediction?
07:58Will it continue to come true so that the world ends within twenty years?
08:02Or is the outlook brighter now than it was back then?
08:04We've certainly seen supposed dates for the end of the world come and go before now,
08:09but even if we do survive to see 2041, perhaps this is one foreboding forecast that we should
08:15be paying attention to.
08:17What do you think?
08:18Is there anything we missed?
08:19Let us know in the comments, check out these other clips from Unveiled, and make sure you
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