This is a story running in the news, even on the BBC website, which is scaring a few people. There isn't any prediction of an accelerating population collapse. Indeed our population is increasing and is expected to level off some time between 2050 and 2100 and AFAIK nobody is saying our population will collapse in 2050 except these two CEOs in their interview.

This is another article I'm writing to support people we help in the Facebook Doomsday Debunked group, that find us because they get scared, sometimes to the point of feeling suicidal about it, by such stories. Do share this with your friends if you find it useful, as they may be panicking too.

This is me according to the Daily Express. End of world: Scientist’s terrifying warning of apocalypse asteroid - ‘Would boil oceans!’ It is nonsense! I gave no warning, and as a science blogger I am not the person to issue a warning either. I wrote an article to HELP scared people who panic about such things. It was awful and many are panicking and it is not impossible someone has committed suicide over this.

This is something puzzles and scares some people. Why is most of the Amazon jungle still untouched by fire? Isn't there a risk that the Brazilian wildfires sweep across the entire Amazon and destroy all the remaining tropical forest? However, we get wildfires in Brazil every year, and this hasn’t happened before. In 2005 for instance there were many more fires than today, yet only a small part of the Amazon burnt. So why is that?

I will also cover some other things that scare people, for instance many are scared we will run out of oxygen - no - this can't happen even if we burnt all the biomass on Earth, or even if all plant life magically stopped producing oxygen for thousands of years. Or they worry about the effect on the Paris agreement:

Short summary: we have had wild fires for many years now in the Amazon, even in the tropical rainforest - mainly started by humans for forest clearing and ranching. It is not enough to impact significantly on the Paris agreement pledges yet, though it is important in the long term if this continues for decades. It does of course have major and immediate impacts on forest residents, nature services and the biodiversity in Brazil.

This is me according to the Daily Express. End of world: Scientist’s terrifying warning of apocalypse asteroid - ‘Would boil oceans!’ It is nonsense! I gave no warning, and as a science blogger I am not the person to issue a warning either. I wrote an article to HELP scared people who panic about such things. It was awful and many are panicking and it is not impossible someone has committed suicide over this.

Elon Musk has just tweeted about his "Nuke Mars to terraform it" idea. He talked about that some years back, in 2015 when many people responded with articles saying it is impossible. Now he is tweeting again.

This is surely just a joke. He can't be serious. Even 3000 nuclear bombs a day exploding over Mars as in his "minisuns" idea is likely not enough.

Here is his throwaway remark about it in 2015. It was reasonably clear he was not putting forward a serious worked out future plan for Mars. But is there any potential in the idea?