On Tuesday, 28 February, Mr. David Archibald – an Australian-based climate scientist and oil exploration expert – delivered a two-part guest presentation at the Institute entitled “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” The four horsemen, i.e. great challenges the world will soon have to face, are: a decreasing extraction of oil, causing growing prices of energy and, by extension, food; Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, which threatens proliferation and, perhaps, even a nuclear war in the region; rapid population growth in the Middle East and North Africa coupled with higher food imports in those regions, which spells mass starvation; and a 210-year climate cooling cycle.
Mr. Archibald suggests a three-pronged solution to tackle the energy crisis: replacing declining oil production with coal liquefaction and compressed natural gas for automotive use; employing nuclear power, rather than coal, for electric power generation; and developing much safer thorium reactors to replace uranium in nuclear energy. It should be noted that China is already actively pursuing these options.
Many Middle Eastern and North African countries have exported oil to cover their food imports. Yet, falling oil production and a brisk population growth outpacing domestic grain-growing capabilities points to a doomsday scenario in which starvation leads to conflict and general political, economic, and cultural destabilization.
Mr. Archibald – who has been recognized as “the first to realize that the length of the previous sunspot cycle (PSCL) has a predictive power for the temperature in the next sunspot cycle” – also argued that the warming of the last 150 years will be reversed as the Earth’s temperature begins to cool sharply due to lower solar activity. Contrary to the Jeremiads of the global warming alarmists, the sea levels are also falling. Global cooling may well jeopardize grain production and threaten potential famines, which will certainly impact significantly the international situation.
To view Mr. Archibald’s slideshow in its entirety, please see:
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Part 1 – Conquest and War
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Part 2 – Famine and Death
