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This is hyperbole. The scenario constructed in this report does not have a “high likelihood” of occurring in part because it requires a confluence of circumstances coming together. While it’s certainly true that climate change will be damaging to society and the environment and many of the consequences will be severe this does not equate to a high likelihood of civilisation coming to an end.

Richard Betts, Professor, Met Office Hadley Centre & University of Exeter:

Scientists who reviewed IFLScience’s story found that it failed to provide sufficient context for this report—differentiating, for example, between speculative claims and descriptions of peer-reviewed research. In particular, the story’s headline (“New Report Warns ‘High Likelihood Of Human Civilization Coming To An End’ Within 30 Years”) misrepresents the report as a likely projection rather than an exploration of an intrinsically unlikely worst case scenario.

See all the scientists’ annotations in context.

There’s a 25- to 50-year lag between the emission of atmospheric carbon and its persistent impact on temperature. This means the environmental disruption attributable to global warming we’re seeing now is the result of carbon emissions up through the 1980s. It also means we could cut off all carbon emissions today, globally, and still see another generation of warming. Beyond the environmental, economic, and human consequences, imagine the political impact of taking bold action that produces no observable benefits for 20 years, or even longer.

"Deep Adaptation" is quite unlike any other academic paper. There's the language ("we are about to play Russian Roulette with the entire human race with already two bullets loaded"). There's the flashes of dark humor ("I was only partly joking earlier when I questioned why I was even writing this paper"). But most of all, there's the stark conclusions that it draws about the future. Chiefly, that it's too late to stop climate change from devastating our world—and that "climate-induced societal collapse is now inevitable in the near term." How near? About a decade. Professor Jem Bendell, a sustainability academic at the University of Cumbria, wrote the paper after taking a sabbatical at the end of 2017 to review and understand the latest climate science "properly—not sitting on the fence anymore," as he puts it on the phone to me. What he found terrified him. "The evidence before us suggests that we are set for disruptive and uncontrollable levels of climate change, bringing starvation, destruction, migration, disease, and war," he writes in the paper. "Our norms of behavior—that we call our 'civilization'—may also degrade." "It is time," he adds, "we consider the implications of it being too late to avert a global environmental catastrophe in the lifetimes of people alive today." Even a schmuck like me is familiar with some of the evidence Bendell sets out to prove his point. You only needed to step outside during the record-breaking heatwave last year to acknowledge that 17 of the 18 hottest years on the planet have occurred since 2000. Scientists already believe we are soon on course for an ice-free Arctic, which will only accelerate global warming. Back in 2017, even Fox News reported scientists' warnings that the Earth's sixth mass extinction was underway. Erik Buitenhuis, a senior researcher at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, tells me that Bendell's conclusions may sound extreme, but he agrees with the report's overall assessment. "I think societal collapse is indeed inevitable," he says, though adds that "the process is likely to take decades to centuries." The important thing, Buitenhuis says, is to realize that the negative effects of climate change have already been with us for some time: "Further gradual deterioration looks much more likely to me than a disaster within the next ten years that will be big enough that, after that, everybody will agree the status quo is doomed." "Jem's paper is in the main well-researched and supported by relatively mainstream climate science," says Professor Rupert Read, chair of the Green House think-tank and a philosophy academic at the University of East Anglia. "That's why I'm with him on the fundamentals. And more and more people are." Read's key disagreement with Bendell is his belief that we still have time to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, saying, "I think it's hubris to think that we know the future." But that doesn't mean Bendell's premise is wrong: "The way I see it, deep adaptation is insurance against the possibility—or rather, the probability—of some kind of collapse," says Read. "'Deep Adaptation' is saying, 'What do we need to do if collapse is something we need to realistically plan for?'" When I speak to Bendell, he tells me he thinks of "Deep Adaptation" as more of an ethical and philosophical framework, rather than a prophecy about the future of the planet. "The longer we refuse to talk about climate change as already here and screwing with our way of life—because we don't want to think like that because it's too frightening or will somehow demotivate people—the less time we have to reduce harm," he says with deliberation. What does he mean by harm? "Starvation is the first one," he answers, pointing to lowering harvests of grain in Europe in 2018 due to drought that saw the EU reap 6 million tons less wheat. "In the scientific community at the moment, the appropriate thing is to say that 2018 was an anomaly. However, if you look at what's been happening over the last few years, it isn't an anomaly. There's a possibility that 2018 is the new best case scenario." That means, in Bendell's view, that governments need to start planning emergency responses to climate change, including growing and stockpiling food. He minces his words even less in his paper: "When I say starvation, destruction, migration, disease, and war, I mean in your own life. With the power down, soon you won't have water coming out of your tap. You will depend on your neighbors for food and some warmth. You will become malnourished. You won't know whether to stay or go. You will fear being violently killed before starving to death." Should people start building bunkers and buying bulletproof vests? "There's no way of getting through this unless we try together," he says. "We need to help people stay fed and watered where they live already to reduce disruption and reduce civil unrest as much as we can." Of the Silicon Valley financiers prepping for the apocalypse in New Zealand, he says: "Once money doesn't matter anymore and the armed guards are trying to feed their starving children, what do you think they'll do? The billionaires doing that are just deluded." Bendell wasn't always this gloomy about the state of the world. He once worked for WWF, one of the biggest environmental charities in the world, and in 2012 founded the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria. The World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader for his work. So how did he end up writing a paper that determined that civilization—and environmental sustainability as we currently understand it—is doomed? "Since the age of 15, I've been an environmentalist," he tells me. "I've given my life professionally and personally. I'm a workaholic, and it was all about sustainability." Once he sat down with the data, however, he realized that his field was quickly becoming irrelevant in the face of oncoming climate catastrophe. "It would mean not getting super excited about the expansion of your recycling program in a major multinational," he says. "It's a completely different paradigm of what we should be looking at." What he didn’t expect was for the paper to take off online. "It was aimed at those people in my professional community and why we're in denial," he says. "When I put it out there, I didn’t expect 15-year-olds in schools in Indonesia to be reading it with their teachers." He says that "Deep Adaptation" has been downloaded over 110,000 times since it was released by IFLAS as an occasional paper. "Someone in the alternative economics and bitcoin crowd told me, 'Oh, everyone's talking about deep adaptation in London at all the dinner parties,'" he laughs. Researchers from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), an established progressive think-tank, consulted Bendell's paper in the process of writing its new report, "This is a crisis: Facing up to the age of environmental breakdown." Laurie Laybourn-Langton, its lead author, told me via email: "I appreciated the frankness of the report in facing up to issues that so many in research and policy communities seem unwilling to. We don't subscribe to the view that social collapse is inevitable, however." He explains: "This is partly because it's so hard to predict the outcomes of the complex and uncertain process of environmental shocks interacting with social and economic systems. We simply don't know. That said, they shouldn’t be disregarded as a potential outcome, and so we are calling for greater levels of preparedness to these shocks." Not everyone was so taken with the paper. Bendell submitted it to a well-respected academic journal for publication, with little success. Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal (SAMPJ) told me that the paper was in need of "major revisions" before it would be ready for publication. Bendell ended up publishing it through IFLAS and his blog. "The academic process is such that I took that as an effective rejection," he explains, saying that the reviewers wanted him to fundamentally alter his conclusions. "I couldn't completely rewrite the paper to say that I don't think collapse is inevitable. It was asking for a different paper." Emerald, the scholarly publisher that owns SAMPJ, says it takes issue with how Bendell frames its reception of its paper on his blog: "the study on collapse they thought you should not read—yet." A spokesperson told me: "The decision was arrived at based on the merit of the submitted article and the double blind peer review process integral to academia and the advancement of knowledge. SAMPJ, and [editor Carol Adams] are proud members of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and adhere to the highest ethical standards in publishing. We see no evidence that the decision of Major Revision was politically motivated. "Emerald requested the author correct their blog post to reflect the facts. This request was unfortunately ignored. The post continues to imply the paper was rejected because it was deemed too controversial. The paper was not rejected, and was given a Major Revision due to the rigorous standards of the scholarly output of the journal." Bendell says he did reply to Emerald's request to amend his blog post—but only if they would consider telling him the decisions of those who reviewed his paper. (Under the double blind peer review, reviewers' decisions are anonymous.) "That title can be read in a number of ways," he says. "It is a paper that the reviewers didn't want you to read. They didn't want it published." Climate gloom and doom is nothing new—doomsday preppers have been stockpiling their freeze-dried food rations for decades now. But Bendell's paper appears to have hit a unique nerve, especially given that the average scientific paper is estimated to be read by only three or so people. Rupert Read tells me that he was sent it simultaneously by three other academics when it was published. But it hasn’t trended on Twitter. It hasn't been pushed by a celebrity. It was briefly mentioned in a Bloomberg Businessweek article, but that's it. "Deep Adaptation" is that unique social phenomenon: an academic paper that has gone viral through word of mouth. Nathan Savelli, a 31-year-old high school life coach from Hamilton, Canada, was recommended the paper by a local environmental activist. Reading it sent him spiraling into depression. "I guess in some ways it felt like I was diagnosed with a terminal illness," he tells me. "If I'm being honest, it was a mix of heartbreaking sadness and extreme anger." Savelli felt so low that he sought help from a climate grief support group organized by 350.org, the global grassroots climate movement. "I had attended counseling in the past for other issues, but never a group session, and thought it might be something helpful for me," he tells me. Did it help? "I'm not sure I'd say it alleviated my grief, but it was definitely comforting to be around people who understood what I was feeling." And therein lies the problem with "Deep Adaptation:" if you accept that the paper is entirely correct in its prediction of collapse, how do you move on with your life? How do you even get out of bed in the morning? "I'm aware of what difficult emotions it triggers," Bendell acknowledges. "I do believe that if you’ve come across this [paper], then absolutely some grief and despair is very natural. Why isn't that OK? We all die in the end. Life is about impermanence." On his blog, he lists several sources for psychological support, including several groups on Facebook and LinkedIn that discuss collapse and offer help to those struggling to come to terms with the conclusions of his paper. But, Bendell adds, reading the paper has been "transformative" for some. "People find a new boldness about living life on their own terms—actually connecting to their heart's desire. How do they wish to live, and why don't they live that way now rather than postponing it?" In one case, it even helped prompt one high-ranking academic to quit her job and the city. In December of 2017, Dr. Alison Green left her post as the pro vice-chancellor of Arden University. She had read the IPCC report warning that the world is nowhere near averting global temperature increases, as well as the 1,656-page National Climate Assessment on how climate change is now dramatically affecting our lives—and then she read Bendell's paper.

But the purpose of this chapter is finding and assessing threats that pose a direct existential risk to humanity. Even at such extreme levels of warming, it is difficult to see exactly how climate change could do so. Major effects of climate change include reduced agricultural yields, sea level rises, water scarcity, increased tropical diseases, ocean acidification and the collapse of the Gulf Stream. While extremely important when assessing the overall risks of climate change, none of these threaten extinction or irrevocable collapse.

Crops are very sensitive to reductions in temperature (due to frosts), but less sensitive to increases. By all appearances we would still have food to support civilization.85 Even if sea levels rose hundreds of meters (over centuries), most of the Earth’s land area would remain. Similarly, while some areas might conceivably become uninhabitable due to water scarcity, other areas will have increased rainfall. More areas may become susceptible to tropical diseases, but we need only look to the tropics to see civilization flourish despite this. The main effect of a collapse of the system of Atlantic Ocean currents that includes the Gulf Stream is a 2°C cooling of Europe—something that poses no permanent threat to global civilization.

Unable to demonstrate that observed climate trends are due to anthropogenic climate change — or even that these events are particularly unusual or concerning — climate catastrophists will often turn to dire predictions about prospective climate phenomena. The problem with such predictions is that they are almost always generated by climate models driven by highly complex sets of assumptions about which there is significant dispute. Worse, these models are notorious for failing to accurately predict already documented changes in climate. As climatologist Patrick Michaels of the Competitive Enterprise Institute notes:

During all periods from 10 years (2006-2015) to 65 (1951-2015) years in length, the observed temperature trend lies in the lower half of the collection of climate model simulations, and for several periods it lies very close (or even below) the 2.5th percentile of all the model runs. Over shorter periods, such as the last two decades, a plethora of mechanisms have been put forth to explain the observed/modeled divergence, but none do so completely and many of the explanations are inconsistent with each other.

The most likely levels of global warming are very unlikely to cause human extinction.15 The existential risks of climate change instead stem from tail risk climate change – the low probability of extreme levels of warming – and interaction with other sources of risk. It is impossible to say with confidence at what point global warming would become severe enough to pose an existential threat. Research has suggested that warming of 11-12°C would render most of the planet uninhabitable,16 and would completely devastate agriculture.17 This would pose an extreme threat to human civilisation as we know it.18 Warming of around 7°C or more could potentially produce conflict and instability on such a scale that the indirect effects could be an existential risk, although it is extremely uncertain how likely such scenarios are.19 Moreover, the timescales over which such changes might happen could mean that humanity is able to adapt enough to avoid extinction in even very extreme scenarios. The probability of these levels of warming depends on eventual greenhouse gas concentrations. According to some experts, unless strong action is taken soon by major emitters, it is likely that we will pursue a medium-high emissions pathway.20 If we do, the chance of extreme warming is highly uncertain but appears non-negligible. Current concentrations of greenhouse gases are higher than they have been for hundreds of thousands of years,21 which means that there are significant unknown unknowns about how the climate system will respond. Particularly concerning is the risk of positive feedback loops, such as the release of vast amounts of methane from melting of the arctic permafrost, which would cause rapid and disastrous warming.22 The economists Gernot Wagner and Martin Weitzman have used IPCC figures (which do not include modelling of feedback loops such as those from melting permafrost) to estimate that if we continue to pursue a medium-high emissions pathway, the probability of eventual warming of 6°C is around 10%,23 and of 10°C is around 3%.24 These estimates are of course highly uncertain. It is likely that the world will take action against climate change once it begins to impose large costs on human society, long before there is warming of 10°C. Unfortunately, there is significant inertia in the climate system: there is a 25 to 50 year lag between CO2 emissions and eventual warming,25 and it is expected that 40% of the peak concentration of CO2 will remain in the atmosphere 1,000 years after the peak is reached.26 Consequently, it is impossible to reduce temperatures quickly by reducing CO2 emissions. If the world does start to face costly warming, the international community will therefore face strong incentives to find other ways to reduce global temperatures.

The latest presidential poll shows that Donald Trump holds a lead over Joe Biden by the smallest of margins. The poll, conducted for shows Trump as the choice for 46% of those polled compared to 45% who said they would vote for Biden. The 1 percentage point Trump advantage remains if independent Robert F. Kennedy is added to the poll with Trump the pick for 41%, Biden at 40%, Kennedy at 4% and 15% who said they were not sure or did not plan to vote.

Trump’s 1-point margin is almost identical to that he enjoys in that has the presumptive Republican nominee at 41.1% compared to Democrat Biden’s 39.9%. Kennedy is polling at 9.9%. Ninety-five percent of the average of all polls tracked by fall within that range, the site noted. Among recent polls tracked by the site, Trump is leading in all but one, a head-to-head Emerson College poll conducted May 21-23 that shows the two leading candidates tied. When Kennedy is factored in, however, Trump’s lead jumped to 5 percentage points in the poll.

Though Trump’s leads in the battleground states are narrow, the polls underscore alarm about Biden’s support. Even small gaps could make a big impact, as presidential elections have in recent cycles increasingly trended toward close races decided by just a handful of states. Candidates need 270 electoral votes to win. Biden won in 2020 with 306; Trump won in 2016 with 304; former won in 2012 with 332 and in 2008 with 365, winning states like Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio in the process. But Indiana, Iowa, Ohio and Florida have become more solidly red in the last two presidential races, leaving fewer states up for grabs and potentially turning a close race into a true landslide.

In a national poll by Morning Consult conducted from Friday to Sunday, Trump held a 1-point lead over Biden (44 percent to 43 percent). The poll surveyed 10,404 registered voters and had an unweighted margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.

Mr. Biden trails in polling averages in all six plausibly decisive states, with deficits ranging from one to six percentage points. In the two where he is closest, Wisconsin and Michigan, Democratic candidates' margins have under-performed the final polls by an average of six percentage points during the past two elections. And even if he wins both, he would still need one more swing state to secure the 270 electoral votes necessary for re-election. "Our 2024 forecast deploys rigorous statistical methods, but ultimately reflects the data that go into it. Donald Trump leads polls nationally and in every swing state. Unless and until that changes, the model will make Trump at least a narrow favorite," said Dan Rosenheck, data editor.

poor polling numbers about the possibility of a blowout victory by former in November, even as he grapples with his own political challenges in the wake of a conviction in a New York hush money trial. A blowout wouldn’t look like the landslide reelection of President over Democrat in 1984. But it could mean Trump winning more Electoral College votes than expected by flipping most if not all of the states Biden won in 2020 — and even by turning some .

In another poll conducted by Emerson College and The Hill, it has been found that Trump has an edge over Biden in Arizona (47%-43%), Georgia (45%-41%), Michigan (46%-45%), Nevada (46%-43%), Pennsylvania (47%-45%), and Wisconsin (47%-44%). Interestingly in all these six states, Trump's lead has either remained the same or grown after he was convicted by a Manhattan jury on 34 felony charges.

Multiple polls indicate Trump leading Biden in key swing states

At a time when Donald Trump is facing a jail term in the hush money case, he remains more popular than his rival Joe Biden. Though inflation and unemployment remain the key factors, he maintains an edge over the president in seven swing states. A new survey held six months before the 2024 US Presidential Election shows that the former president will beat the incumbent if elections are held today. According to the Ipsos poll data released Thursday, Trump will beat Biden 37% to 35% overall in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada. These are swing states. A swing state is a state that could reasonably be won by either the Democratic or Republican candidate in a statewide election or residential election, by a swing in votes.

The lack of enthusiasm for the two major candidates is evident in other ways. Only 6 percent of Deciders say they would be “enthusiastic” if Biden were reelected while 15 percent say they would be “enthusiastic” with a Trump victory. More say they would feel at least “satisfied” with a Kennedy victory than say the same for Biden or Trump.

The survey did not ask people to pit Biden versus Trump in a hypothetical ballot test of the kind that many polls do. Instead, respondents were asked how likely they were to support each of the candidates separately. The results find 44 percent of Deciders say they are considering voting for Trump, compared with 38 percent saying the same for Biden. If Kennedy makes the ballot as an independent, 39 percent say they would consider voting for him. A far-smaller 10 percent of Deciders say they would “definitely” vote for Kennedy, which is closer to polls that ask a traditional vote choice question.

We’re devoting today’s newsletter to the campaign both because of the debate and because of the release this morning of . Those averages combine survey results from many pollsters, both for the U.S. as a whole and for seven battleground states. I recommend reading my colleague Nate Cohn’s description of the averages . As Nate explains, Biden began to rise in the polls around the time of his State of the Union address in March. He then rose further after Trump’s felony conviction last month. The two are now essentially tied in the national polls, around 46 percent, when Robert F. Kennedy is excluded from the question. With Kennedy included, Trump leads Biden, 41 percent to 40 percent, with Kennedy at 8 percent and the remaining electorate undecided. In both the two-way and three-way race, Trump leads in the states likely to decide the outcome. “While he often leads by only a point or two, he does nonetheless hold the edge in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia — states that would be enough for Mr. Trump to win the Electoral College and therefore the presidency,” Nate writes. “Of course, the election will not be held today and the polls will not be exactly right.”

President Joe Biden's odds of winning a second White House term in November took a tumble with leading bookmakers after Thursday's presidential debate, during which the Democratic incumbent appeared to lose his train of thought at several points. The debate in Atlanta, Georgia, which was hosted by CNN without a studio audience, reportedly raised fresh concerns among Democrats about the 81-year-old's mental fitness to serve another four years in office. On Thursday, before the debate, Bet365 gave Biden a 13/8 (38.1 percent) chance of winning November's election but this slumped to 10/3 (23.1 percent) as of 3 a.m. ET on Friday, according to betting website Oddschecker. Over the same period, Biden's odds of victory slumped from 13/8 (38.1 percent) to 3/1 (25 percent) with Sky Bet, 15/8 (34.8 percent) to 3/1 (25 percent) with William Hill and 13/8 (38.1 percent) to 7/2 (22.2 percent) with Betfair. Betfair spokesperson Sam Rosbottom told Newsweek: "Biden's disastrous head-to-head with Trump has seen punters rapidly lose faith that the incumbent president has another five years in him. "The two men were neck-and-neck back in April; now, despite Trump's varying legal and financial headaches, he has the punters' firm backing to be the next U.S. president."

Nate Silver, political pollster and founder of FiveThirtyEight released his highly anticipated forecasting model for the 2024 presidential election. According to , the presumptive Republican nominee, , is currently favored to defeat President in a “When the model was finally done on Sunday night, it turned out that Trump was favored by a slightly larger degree than I’d anticipated at Manifest — although Biden retains highly viable paths to victory,” Trump and Biden will face off on Thursday in the . Silver detailed the complexities of creating such a model, emphasizing the numerous choices required in statistical modeling. He explained that even seemingly straightforward decisions, like calculating a polling average, involve many parameters, including which polls to include and how to weigh them.

June 28 (Reuters) - A group of U.S. voters who were unable to choose between and before Thursday's presidential debate delivered their verdicts after the contest and it was almost universally bad news for Biden. Of the 13 "undecideds" who spoke to Reuters, 10 described the 81-year-old Democratic president's performance against Republican candidate Trump collectively as feeble, befuddled, embarrassing and difficult to watch. Gina Gannon, 65, a retiree in the battleground state of Georgia, voted for Trump in 2016 before ditching him for Biden in 2020. "Joe Biden looked very weak and confused right from the start. It concerns me that our global enemies see Joe Biden in this manner. I was shocked and dismayed. I hate to see our president acting that way on TV and in front of the world," Gannon said. She added: "I am absolutely voting for Donald Trump now." Presidential debates typically have limited influence on voters, but Biden and Trump are in a tight race and the election will likely be decided by just thousands of votes in a handful of swing states. Both candidates need to win over the relatively small number of voters who have not yet decided who to vote for.