A Computer Predicted The End of the World In 2040... Will It Happen?

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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

08:22subscribe and ring the bell for our latest content.

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