Since January 27, the human race is two and a half minutes from midnight, that point of no return in which, according to scientists who periodically update the symbolic Clock of the Apocalypse, will take place our "total destruction and catastrophic" . Climate change and the still-present threat of nuclear war would be the most likely causes of the fatal outcome. It is the closest that humanity has ever been to disappear from the face of the Earth.
We will know that the end is near when the present age, the so-called Anthropocene - characterized by the transforming action of man on the planet (almost never for good) - gives way to the next, baptized by the researcher Andrew Glikson as Plutoceno. Temperatures will be much higher, perhaps similar to those of the Pliocene (between 2.6 and 5.3 million years ago), when they exceeded in 2 degrees those of the pre-industrial period; or to those of the Miocene (between 5.3 and 23 million years ago), when they were still 2 degrees higher and the sea level was between 20 and 40 meters higher than at present.
Under these conditions, according to Glikson, people living near the coast or valleys will be forced to flee to higher ground to survive, perhaps as well as trying to overcome the ravages of nuclear war. In the most extreme scenario, evolution would ensure that only animals best prepared to withstand heat and radiation survived.
Surviving such adverse omens, which seem to match the expectations of experts like Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, chief climate advisor to the German government, requires an effort from humanity on several fronts. According to Glikson, the first step is to stop engaging in destructive wars and begin to fight for the future of the planet.
Replenishing large forests, growing huge stretches of algae in the oceans (capable of absorbing CO2), or developing a biocarbon capable of combating carbon dioxide emissions are some of the researcher's proposals to delay or prevent the arrival of the feared Plutocene.
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