Mankind's Survival Prospects

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32126, 23 October 1969, Page 15

Mankind's Survival Prospects

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) BRUSSELS, Oct. 22. Mankind might have less than a 50-50 chance of surviving until 1980, according to President Nixon’s adviser on urban affairs, Dr Daniel Moynihan.

He told the Atlantic assembly in Brussels yesterday that some years ago the American scientist, Leo Szilard, had estimated the half life of mankind at between 10 and 20 years. The American physicist, Hohn Platt,

would argue that the situation was worse today, Ke said. (The term “half life” is employed in physics to describe the rate of deterioration of a radioactive substance. For example, if a piece of uranium has a half life of 10 years, it will comprise only 50 per cent of its present purity by the end of that period.) “I think multiplication of domestic and international crises today will shorten that short half life,” Dr Moynihan said. “In the continued absence of better ways of heading off these multiple crises, our half life may no longer be 10 or 20 years, but more likely five to 10 years, or less.

“We may have even less than a 50-50 chance of living until 1980.” . Referring to President Nixon’s suggestion made last April-r-that N.A.T.O. members should collaborate on solving environmental problems, Dr Moynihan said that this would be a new dimension of the alliance which was increasingly urgent and necessary. Pollution, nutrition, population growth, the effect of technology and the automobile on modern man could be topics for the proposed N.A.T.O. committee on the challenges of modern society to tackle. Since the Second World War, man had lived with the

possibility of a nuclear holocaust, but he had recently discovered that this would be only the most spectacular of fates that might await him, Dr Moynihan said. “The perils of the modern age are wondrous and protean, and if anything, accumulating. “An ecological crisis is surely upon us—and developing at a quite extraordinary rate.”

By the year 2000, the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere—the result of burning fuels such as oil and coal—might be expected to show a 25 per cent increase. This might raise the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere by 7 degrees Fahren-

heit and the consequent melting of ice-caps was likely to increase the sea-level by 10ft In another area, the population trend was heading “very possibly” to both cultural and biological catastrophe. “And yet our situation, if sorely pressed, is anything but hopeless,” Dr Moynihan said. “To the contrary, we may be approaching the levelling out point of a great ‘S’ curve.”

j “If we get through the next !30 years or so we may just I have accomplished that great transformation, whence we would enter a new period of stability offering the utmost promise for mankind.”