Global Warming, nuclear war, pandemic, asteroid collision, self-aware artificial intelligence, a Donald Trump presidency: take your pick, because they all might destroy us in the next century, according to a new report from the U.K. based Global Challenges Foundation.
The report measures that the human race as a whole has an estimated 0.1 percent risk of human extinction in a given year, which sounds negligible, but when the figure is extrapolated to account for an entire century, it all adds up to roughly 9.5 percent, which is unfathomably high for a species that has managed to exist without destroying itself for about 200,000 years. It’s even more startling when you consider industrialization didn’t start occurring until the 1800s, which is more or less to blame for climate change.
Beyond nuclear annihilation, and Earth becoming a giant furnace (which, if we do nothing, is imminent), the report also delves into studying the risks of pandemics. The Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-1920 killed between 3 to 5 percent of the entire Earth’s population. Compare that to World War II, the bloodiest conflict of our time, which killed only around 1 percent of the world’s population. The implicit message here is probably this: please vaccinate your children. And also to never leave the house again at the risk of catching some virus like the one in World War Z.
“We don’t expect any of the events that we describe to happen in any 10-year period. They might—but, on balance, they probably won’t,” Sebastian Farquhar, the director of the Global Priorities Project, told The Atlantic. “But there’s lots of events that we think are unlikely that we still prepare for.”
Quite frankly, when you consider all the things that could go wrong, it’s almost amazing that we as humans have even made it this far.
Consider the Cuban Missile Crisis, where off the coast of Florida, Soviet subs mistakenly assumed that the nuclear exchange had begun and began prepping for launch. The order for the launch of the nuclear torpedoes required the consent of the three officers on board, and all but one man, Vasili Arkhipov, approved the order, thus preventing a nuclear war. If those missiles launch, Earth as we know it would currently be ash. That was in October 1962. Fifty years later and we’re still in a constant state of trying not to blow ourselves up. (Except North Korea, of course, who seem to be trying to do just that.)
Interestingly enough, the report also briefly discusses artificial intelligence, biological warfare and even geo-engineering, but these are all marginal dangers when compared to existing threats like pandemics and nuclear holocaust.
So, knowing all this, what should we do? Farquhar suggested to The Atlantic that we have some kind of committee or democratic institution to represent the future generations, which seems reasonable enough. Often climate change gets thrown on the back burner, since it isn’t an "imminent threat" (it totally is, but not to most politicians) and therefore not worth expending the political capital when there are other issues to address that can yield quicker results. A separate committee comprised of members of states or nations entirely focused on future generations would at least be a step in the right direction.
He also mentions two very simple policies: reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing nuclear stockpiles. The results of these types of policies may not pay dividends now, but they definitely will later. But hey, it’s only the entire human race at stake.
