“Kapan kiamat terjadi?” barangkali sudah menjadi bahan pembicaraan manusia selama berabad-abad silam. Berbagai versi bermunculan, di berbagai bangsa dan juga agama. Namun baru akhir-akhir ini, manusia memprediksi bahwa ia yang akan menciptakan kiamatnya sendiri. Dan kiamat yang menanti manusia, justru muncul dari kekuatan yang telah manusia bangun untuk menaklukan alam.
Sebuah pembahasan menarik yang dikemukakan oleh Professor Frank Fenner menjelaskan bahwa, manusia kemungkinan akan musnah dalam waktu dekat. Hitungannya bahkan tidak lebih dari 100 tahun lamanya. Berikut kutipan singkat pembahasan yang dimuat dalam physorg.com:
(PhysOrg.com) — Eminent Australian scientist Professor Frank Fenner, who helped to wipe out smallpox, predicts humans will probably be extinct within 100 years, because of overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change.
Fenner, who is emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, said homo sapiens will not be able to survive the population explosion and “unbridled consumption,” and will become extinct, perhaps within a century, along with many other species. United Nations official figures from last year estimate the human population is 6.8 billion, and is predicted to pass seven billion next year.
Fenner told The Australian he tries not to express his pessimism because people are trying to do something, but keep putting it off. He said he believes the situation is irreversible, and it is too late because the effects we have had on Earth since industrialization (a period now known to scientists unofficially as the Anthropocene) rivals any effects of ice ages or comet impacts.