8 Jul 2025
Four new horsemen
The word apocalypse is often used to describe a devastating end to civilization. For about 2000 years people have shuddered at the Biblical concept of Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, disease, war, famine and death, that will bring an end to human progress. Sadly, these threats have not gone away. But our modern industrial society has at least four new threats to our lives and future made worse by the climate change we have created. They are drought, fire, flood and great storms. The recent flash flood in Texas sent a wall of water more than 8 metres high down the Guadalupe River, washing away everything in its path and killing more than 100 people, including children in a summer camp. In January, a series of wildfires in Los Angeles destroyed more than 18,000 homes and structures and killed least least 30 people. This summer thousands of people in western Canada had to flee out of control wildfires. There are severe droughts in a number of parts of the world casing food shortages and hunger. Climate change is shifting global rainfall patterns and causing heatwaves that dry the soil too much for plants to thrive. Scientists say that the warming climate raises the ocean temperature and this creates more destructive tropical storms. The historic horsemen were a warning of disaster. So are the new “horsemen” of climate change. Are they a sign of an impending decline possibly a collapse of modern industrial society? If we don’t curb our use of fossil fuels and other forms of environmental destruction, we are almost certainly heading for poorer times with a lower standard of living.