SPECIES: These are in trouble

The Internet lists Amur Leopards, Black Rhinos and Bornean Orangutans as the three most endangered species in the world. World climate change history convinces me that Homo sapiens should be added to the list.

World population 2,000 years ago was estimated at 285 million.

By year 1000, Vikings planted colonies in Iceland and Greenland. Those colonies were wiped out during the Little Ice Age — 1315 to 1880.

Before the Little Ice Age started, world population was about 410 million.

From 1348 to 1351, Black Death dropped world population to about 373 million.

By year 1500, world population climbed to 490 million. When the Little Ice Age ended in 1880, world population was about 1.5 billion. Only 140 years later, it reached 7.7 billion.

If the coming Ice Age is similar to prior ones during the last 450,000 years, it will lead to the greatest human disaster in history.

Most humans lived in Africa 50,000 years ago. About 20,000 years ago, humans crossed from Asia in Alaska. During the last 10,000 years, humans moved into areas north of the Arctic Circle.

An Ice Age will force billions of people who moved north to migrate south into countries that are already overpopulated. Home Sapiens will be decimated by war and starvation.

BOB LAUNHARDT

Pinehurst