Assuming we make it to 2020, what sort of world will it be? Well I’ve made it through 4 decades pretty unscathed so far and while I can still vaguely remember talk of the ‘4 minute warning’, fall-out shelters and nuclear apocalypse as a child, the threat of such an horrific end to mankind certainly seemed to have retreated during the course of my life.

But then, last weekend I read a very stark article in the Times by James Lovelock, a respected scientist now approaching his nineties and the man who formulated the Gaia hypothesis, which proposes that the world on which we live can be thought of as a single organism that takes action to protect itself from harm and repair itself where needed.

Maybe at his age, Mr Lovelock is understandably contemplating the end of his own existence and, despite the advances in medical science, is unlikely to see any of his prophecies for this century come to fruition. But reading his words I couldn’t help feel that he will indeed be heading off to a better place than the one he will be leaving behind.

While estimates and projections for the potentially devastating impact of global warming usually stretch out to the end of this century and beyond, James Lovelock’s hypothesis has Mother Earth ridding itself of much of the human population a lot quicker. In essence he is saying that as us, and the animals we breed to support and sustain us, account for the majority of greenhouse gas production in the world then Gaia will act to reduce our numbers to a sustainable level in order to ensure the Earth’s survival. Sustainable in Mr Lovelock’s assessment means losing 90% of the current human population by the end of the century.

So how will this come about? Primarily because the projected rises in global temperatures will mean that very little of our landmass will be habitable and, more importantly, be able to provide the food we need.

He observes that the events we see in terms of freak weather, melting icecaps, rising sea levels and pressures on resources illustrate that the situation is already unstoppable and the majority of ‘green’ initiatives are deeply flawed and possibly counter-productive in the longer term. He is a long-term advocate of nuclear power as the only real sustainable and practical source of energy for a power hungry world.

Judging by James Lovelock’s timeline, we will be seeing serious and undeniable consequences of global warming by 2020, with the UK increasingly becoming a haven from relentlessly rising temperatures and their devastating effects.