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Feature by: Jack Foley
A MAJOR survey, ahead of the release of environmental disaster
flick, The Day After Tomorrow, has revealed the British public
is pessimistic about the future survival of mankind.
The Sky Movies survey, held to co-incide with Sky Television’s
recent End of the World Week, allowed almost 2,000 people, the
length and breadth of Britain, to express their concerns about
the future of mankind, and potential Armageddon.
The results make for fascinating, if scary reading…
When will the End of the World come?
The survey revealed that the younger generation are significantly
more pessimistic about the future of the world than the previous
generations: at 15%, almost twice as many people under 30-years-old
believed we could be facing Armageddon this century, compared
with 8% of the 50+-year-olds questioned.
And a quarter of all those surveyed anticipate that the end of
the world could come within the next 500 years.
Roughly the same proportion of men (37%) and women (39%) believe
that the world may end within or around the next thousand years,
which may well mean cancelling any forthcoming millennium celebrations
being planned.
And those people in the south seem to think the future is a lot
less rosy than their counterparts in the north. 19% of southerners
think the world will end in the next 100 years, compared to just
11% of northerners questioned.
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What will cause the end of the World?
The British public thinks a premature end to the world is most
likely to come from nuclear war (16%). 13% believe that an untreatable
disease, or virus, will spreading uncontrollably across the globe,
wiping human beings out.
And 6% believe that an apocalyptic natural disaster, like that
portrayed in the new Roland Emmerich blockbuster The Day After
Tomorrow, will bring about the demise of mankind.
What would you want to do above anything else if the end of
the world was imminent?
Three quarters of all women questioned said the thing they would
want to do more than anything else in the event of the world ending,
would be to gather family and loved ones around them… compared
to only around half of the men!
Only half the Scottish contingent would try to be with their
nearest and dearest around them – compared to three quarters
across the border in the north of England.
Indeed, the second most popular male answer – at 14% - was
to have sex! (compared to just 5% of women).
Which movie character would you most like to have by your
side at the end of the World?
And when asked which movie character they’d most like to
have at their side if the end of the world were nigh, Superman
received almost twice as many votes as anyone else.
Lara Croft was, perhaps, surprisingly voted second, ahead of
James Bond and Indiana Jones, in third and fourth.
In fact, at 21%, more men voted for Lara Croft than any other
character – compared to only 2% of the women questioned!
The poll, commissioned by Sky Movies, was carried out by YouGov
between May 11 and 13, 2004 on a representative sample of 1,995
British adults throughout Great Britain
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