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LEADER

Editorial
Acting editor Graham Lawton
Managing editor Rowan Hooper
Head of production Julian Richards
Art editor Craig Mackie
Editor at large Jeremy Webb
News
Chief news editor Niall Firth
Editors Penny Sarchet, Jacob Aron,
Jon White, Chelsea Whyte
Reporters (UK) Andy Coghlan,
Jessica Hamzelou, Michael Le Page,
Timothy Revell, Clare Wilson,
Sam Wong, (US) Leah Crane, Aylin Woodward, MATTHEW CHATTLE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
(Aus) Alice Klein
Features
Chief features editor Richard Webb
Editors Catherine de Lange, Gilead Amit,
Catherine Brahic, Julia Brown, Daniel Cossins,
Kate Douglas, Alison George,
Joshua Howgego, Tiffany O’Callaghan,
Sean O’Neill History beckons
Culture and Community
Editors Liz Else, Mike Holderness, Simon Ings,
Collapse isn’t imminent but we need to take it seriously
Frank Swain
Subeditors
Managing subeditor Eleanor Parsons
Vivienne Greig, Tom Campbell, THE idea that we are living in a history, it will go the way of political agenda: reining in
Hannah Joshua, Chris Simms
historic, even apocalyptic, age all civilisations. Recent corporations, regulating free
Design exerts a powerful pull on the political events and long-term markets and imposing
Kathryn Brazier, Joe Hetzel,
Dave Johnston, Ryan Wills human mind. Eschatology – environmental trends offer little environmental legislation.
the theology of end times – is a comfort; artificial intelligence For them, climate change was
Picture desk
Chief picture editor Adam Goff religious concept, but crops up in and synthetic biology add a less of an inconvenient truth
Kirstin Kidd, David Stock many other systems of thought. more urgent threat. than a convenient one.
Production Marxism and neo-liberalism were But extraordinary claims The point is not that the
Mick O’Hare, Melanie Green , both driven by an“end-of-history” require extraordinary evidence, activists’answers are wrong.
Alan Blagrove, Anne Marie Conlon
narrative. Scientific thinking isn’t and as yet the warnings of Business as usual is a sure way
Contact us immune either: the technological impending collapse don’t add up to climate catastrophe. It is that
newscientist.com/contact
singularity has been called to a compelling reason to stock up they prematurely politicised
General & media enquiries
Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1202 eschatology for geeks, and the on bottled water and canned food. the science and hence provoked
enquiries@newscientist.com study of existential risk even has Nonetheless, we ought to give pushback from people on the
UK its own centre at the University them a fair hearing. Unlike earlier other side of the fence.
25BedfordStreet,London,WC2E 9ES
Tel+44(0)2076111200 of Cambridge. You don’t have to civilisations, we have ways to Evidence for an impending
AUSTRALIA believe in the four horsemen to civilisational collapse is much
Level 11, Suite 3, see the apocalypse coming. “For some activists, climate weaker, but is already being
100 Walker Street,
NorthSydney,NSW2060 How credible are these worries? change was a golden politicised in a similar way. The
Tel+61(0)294228559
The end of the world itself is a opportunity to further causes being offered are familiar
US given, but is so far off as not to be their political agenda”
210 Broadway #201 bugbears of the left: inequality,
Cambridge, MA 02139 worth fretting about. However, population growth and resource
Tel +1 781 734 8773
the end of the world as we know identify subtle trends and the depletion. The proposed answers
it – aka Western civilisation – is means to intervene. are equally predictable and
a different matter. There is an But those making the case for contentious.
emerging strand of respectable action need to be canny. There is The risk is that this new and
scientific thought that says its already ample scientific evidence important science is turned into
decline and fall has started of one real but avoidable threat yet another culture war. Before
already, or soon will (see page 28). to civilisation. And yet our efforts proposing divisive solutions,
What are we to make of such to avert it verge on the pitiful. scientific eschatologists need to
© 2018 New Scientist Ltd, England
claims? There seems little reason That threat, of course, is climate concentrate on nailing the basic
New Scientist is published weekly
by New Scientist Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. to doubt that Western civilisation change. One of the reasons we’re facts. Otherwise, historians of the
New Scientist (Online) ISSN 2059 5387 will eventually collapse. Unless it struggling to deal with it is that future may judge us harshly for
Registered at the Post Office as a is immune – by accident rather some activists saw it as a golden reading the danger signs but
newspaper and printed in England
by William Gibbons (Wolverhampton) than design – to the forces of opportunity to further their failing to act. ■
20 January 2018 | NewScientist | 5