Stealing the breath of life
When you suffocate or drown, every fibre of your being cries out for the breath of life, oxygen. It is the body’s ungovernable response to the extinguishing of your flame.
Recent articles in The Human Future
11 November 2025
The black work of big oil
Now is the sinister time of year when the Barons of Big Oil gather together, under the auspices of the United Nations and with the blessing of most world leaders, to celebrate the 350 million needless deaths they plan to cause between now and 2050 in the name of profit.
4 November 2025
Death by plastic
“Mummy...Daddy, what are clouds made of?” Almost every parent has fielded the innocent, eager question, perhaps explaining about mist, fog, water vapour, raindrops. Today, if you said that, you’d be wrong.
19 October 2025
Tipping, tipping, tipping... the dominoes fall
Dying reefs, shrinking icesheets, withering forests and collapsing currents are the latest symptoms of an Earth system enduring dangerous trauma, according to the Global Tipping Points Report 2025.
17 October 2025
Climate change causing oceans to decline at alarming rate
Climate change and human activity are causing the health of the world’s oceans to decline at an alarming rate, the UN has warned.
10 October 2025
The Earth uncloaked – A catastrophe in slow motion
Woodman, spare that tree! Touch not a single bough! In youth it sheltered me, And I'll protect it now. – GP Morris 1837
7 October 2025
World water in crisis
Almost two-thirds of the world’s rivers are in a dire condition, either drying up or supercharged with floodwaters, according to the latest report on the emerging global water crisis by the World Meteorological Organisation.
1 October 2025
'Died of a delusion' – the fate of modern civilisation?
The collapse of modern human civilisation is inevitable. Anyone who doesn’t accept that knows no history.
24 September 2025
Devouring the earth may decide our future
Every day, the food you eat and resources you use cost the planet at least 12 kilos of lost topsoil.
17 September 2025
Australia issues ‘terrifying’ climate warning
More intense global warming will bring terrifying impacts to human health, infrastructure, the environment, national security and the economy, the Australian Government has warned.
13 September 2025
Can we save a 'livable Earth'?
In reshaping the world for prosperity, humanity has undermined the very foundations of progress.
4 September 2025
Military experts warn of climate wars
“Accelerating climate disruption is the greatest threat to the human future: our safety and well-being, our homes and communities, and how and where we live and work,” a group of leading Australian military and security experts says.
4 September 2025
Where have all the flowers gone?
One of my most memorable interspecies encounters was many years ago with an orangutan in a nature reserve in Sabah on the island of Borneo.
Catch up on other sections
More from The Human Future
14 April 2025
There is no future without children
27 November 2024
A triumph for greed over commonsense and humanity
15 October 2024
The deafening silence in the eye of the hurricane
