We love to hear about dark things that will happen to us. Our brains remain active after our hearts stop beating? Great. Scientists claim the world is as close to destruction as it has ever been? Even better. It seems these gloomy obsessions are nothing new for humanity. Newspapers from the 1920s made some very negative predictions about the state of our then-future, which is our now-present.
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As you can probably imagine, there was one particularly bleak prediction. It stated that scientists were concerned about food supplies in the future. About 2024 specifically, it said that ‘the human family will be at the point of starvation in or near that year’. Here’s what the newspaper said and how worryingly close to reality this 1920s prediction actually is.
The newspaper’s dark 2024 prediction
Newspapers from the 1920s made several predictions about the future, with one article guessing that the average life expectancy would skyrocket to ‘at least 100’ and that a person would be a ‘comparatively young man’ at the age of 75. However, the one that really caught our eye was - unsurprisingly - the darkest.
This clipping is from 1924, a clean 100 years ago, and it set the scene as follows:
Not very many years ago men ate meat and bread principally, with few vegetables. Nowadays we have a large variety and great quantity of foodstuffs.
However, they didn’t expect this to last long: ‘Col. William Boyce Thompson has founded an Institute of Plant Research whose experts will try to counteract the food shortage which is predicted for 2024’. And then they hit us with the human family on brink of starvation bit. Pretty grim.
How close is this to reality?
Of course, it’s important to note that there are countries around the world suffering with food shortages. According to the World Food Program USA, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan and Yemen are among the countries worst affected by a lack of food.
However, in the UK we are lucky enough to have a plentiful supply of food. Yet, in December of last year, The Telegraph pulled this security into question. On 22 December 2023, the newspaper published an article about ‘alarmingly likely’ food shortages in 2024.
Talking about the effects of global conflict and climate change, food security expert Professor Chris Elliott explained:
My expectation is, as we’ve already seen in 2023 with some empty supermarket shelves for months, this will become more persistent as we go forward.
He went on to outline that ‘it’ll be about affordability but also availability, and the likelihood of empty shelves, particularly fresh produce shelves, in 2024 is alarmingly high’.
Indeed, as mentioned in the 1924 article, Col. William Boyce Thompson founded the Boyce Thompson Institute that same year. It is still running today, and their mission is ‘to improve agriculture, protect the environment, and enhance human health’.
So, we may not be starving, but we are certainly far from stable when it comes to our current food supplies faced with a rapidly growing public.
Read more:
⋙ British 'Prophet of Doom’ reveals worrying predictions for 2024
⋙ ‘Living Nostradamus’ makes new WW3 prediction: This is where he says the conflict will start
⋙ ‘Living Nostradamus’ makes chilling 2024 predictions
Sources used:
LadBible: Newspaper from 1920s predicted what 2024 would look like and some are scarily accurate
The Telegraph: Food shortages ‘alarmingly likely’ in the UK next year
