Australian journalist's New Year's message: "At an 8C rise, humans go down to a few million and must retreat to Antarctica"

Australian Sunday Herald Sun's gaming writer Alice Clark heralds in the new year:

At the rate that we're going, large portions of land will be under water in about 20 years.

If we do nothing to stop the ice shelf in western Antarctica from falling into the sea, 15 per cent of our city by the bay will be just a bay by 2040. While global warming won't end the world, it will make it largely uninhabitable for humans. We're experiencing species loss at the highest rate in 63 million years.

If temperatures rise 6C, the human population will decline to two billion and we will also lose most species, including trees.

At an 8C rise, humans go down to a few million and must retreat to Antarctica. It is possible for humans to continue living underground if the planet gets too hot, but there isn't very good phone reception down there. -

Once we run out of easy access to food and (especially) water, we will start killing each other over corn and wells and you just know that the nukes will rain from the sky. 

The growing gap between rich and poor is another thing that could end the world.

When there are a few people who are disgustingly rich, a large group of people who are extremely poor, and a larger group of people who earn enough to be kind of OK but have no security, this ends in resentment, crime, famine, war and the French Revolution.

Since we've come a long way from muskets and swords, any large uprising of the 99 per cent is going to trigger an epic war that will reduce the world to a post-apocalyptic wasteland. And that's on top of global warming.

This Alice in Wonderland should take a break from gaming in order to prepare for a return to reality.