TEN THINGS THAT WILL KILL YOU BEFORE CLIMATE CHANGE
Climate change is real. Man has had a hand in the change, influencing both its degree and speed. We can stop our contributions to climate change, though I doubt that the measures we are taking will have an impact that we will live to see. Future generations may however benefit.
The climate emergency, however, is not the most urgent problem facing humanity. Here are my ten things that may wipe us out before the changing climate does (not in order of probability).
Thermonuclear war: The nuclear deterrent has kept the peace among the great powers since the end of the World War (I do not subscribe to the convenience of historians that divide this massive conflict into two wars). Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is the strategy that has up to now prevented direct confrontation, though there has since been a proliferation of proxy conflicts. The arrival of cyber warfare and semi/fully autonomous weapons means that it is conceivable for a non-nuclear (or weak nuclear) state to attack a nuclear-armed one anticipating that they would be able to disable a nuclear response. This, combined with the advanced nuclear states looking for ways to spend less on defense and more on health, makes it more likely that a weakness will be perceived and an attack launched. In which event the nuclear-armed state may choose to respond with a nuclear strike if they can effect it. The way to avoid this (as I see it) is for nuclear states to maintain robust conventional forces, something which voters in liberal democracies seem increasingly unwilling to support.
Asteroid Strike: 2,958 new asteroids in “near-Earth orbit” were discovered last year (2020) alone, bringing the total number known to over 25,000. The dinosaurs did not long survive an asteroid strike. There is some evidence that suggests that an asteroid may have wiped out an advanced civilization in prehistory. This is a numbers game, and the chance of getting hit pretty hard within this century seems fairly high, from what we know. Of course, the one that will hit us will probably be the one we did not see coming.
Disease: I am talking here of the degenerative kind; the illnesses we inflict on ourselves through our lifestyle. This used to be known as the diseases of aging, but it is now quite common to suffer from these conditions from an early age. Medicine and Science are labouring to create ever more innovative and expensive treatments for these self-inflicted wounds, enabling us to die for longer, and this is seen as some kind of triumph. The real Zombie Apocalypse is that of the human race hooked up to drugs administered by robots and only being able to move with the aid of a smart wheelchair.
Pandemic: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented chaos in the world. The thing to understand is that this is not a particularly deadly virus. The global lack of resilience in populations compounded by politics has led to a higher death toll than was necessary. The lesson of this, the seventh pandemic of the century, is that our general health across all age groups is poor. There are over 1,700,000 viruses waiting to enter the human population. Chances are, at least one of them will be really nasty.
Inability to reproduce: Of all the risks discussed here, this is the most frightening to me. Men today have half the sperm count of their grandfathers. By 2045, there will be no new sperm in the world. This is due to the widespread presence of chemicals in plastics that disrupt hormone production in the foetus resulting in incomplete masculinisation, a consequence of which is a low sperm count. Turns out, there is a quick way to find out whose sperm count is low. by measuring the anogenital distance (AGD), under two inches and you are in trouble. Many other problems come to my mind caused by a failure to properly masculinise in the uterus. It will take a brave person to delve into other possible effects. Please take the time to read more here.
Famine: Nope, this is not the one resulting from drought caused by the climate emergency, rather it is as Professor Alex de Waal observes: “If you see someone starving, it is because someone has starved them.” Famine is largely a man-made phenomenon. Sometimes deliberate, but most often by accident. We are ripe for an accident on a global scale, resulting in not enough food being produced and/or not being in the places needed. This could result in mass starvation.
AI: Watch the original Terminator film from 1984. Here in a nutshell is the problem with Artificial Intelligence. It cannot think clearly. It can think logically, and we fear that it may begin to think critically (a lá Terminator). If it achieves critical thinking, then we are toast. Clear thinking depends on being able to conceive and manipulate perspectives. Can AI do this? It cannot, and as far as I am aware, no one is trying to develop perspective in AI.
Accident of Knowledge: We are working to increase our knowledge and extend our control over the natural environment constantly. I know from the longstanding example of health that we will not seek to improve natural processes, but rather to tame them and remake them into forms we find preferable. As with health, we can expect the long-term consequences to be somewhere between catastrophe and armageddon.
Nanotechnology; This is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. This poses several risks, almost all dependent on other risks such as AI. It does however bring with it a unique threat; molecular manufacturing. The short of it is, molecules manipulated to form structures and automated to reproduce (for legitimate causes) may run amok. They may just keep going, replacing the natural world.
Biotechnology; We are making a lot of stuff in laboratories, as we should. The risk here is deliberate weaponisation for warfare or terrorism, or accident. For whatever reason, some manufactured substance either does not work as advertised, has some unexpected effect, or is deliberately unleashed on us with catastrophic consequences of Biblical proportions (Old Testament).
Extraterrestrial Invasion: Long the subject of Science Fiction. Given the current state of our knowledge, the number of planets in the known universe is somewhere in the tens of billions. The earth is 4.5 billion years old, the universe 13 billion years old. The number of planets older than the earth number in the billions. If a fraction of one percent of these can support some sort of intelligent life, then there should be a lot of life out there, with a lot of time to figure out a lot of stuff. Hopefully,
they will have overcome the instincts which led to successful evolution so that when they arrive overhead it is not as conquerors or slaughterers, but rather to welcome us into the great intergalactic community. Hmmmm…...
Collapse of Civilisation: This may sound like a long shot, but a combination of some of the factors above could put a swift end to civilisation at least as we know it, and it may be fast. With the destructive forces now in existence, it is not a big step to envision a man-made mass extinction event. There is some comfort in this; the extraterrestrial superior intelligence may be delayed in their arrival by the same human afflictions from which we suffer.
Was trying to watch a football match the other day, but ended up muting the broadcast. Later it occurred to me:
“If you cannot do it, teach it, if you cannot teach it, become a professor. If you used to be able to do it, but can no longer do it and cannot teach, become a commentator. And if you can’t commentate, there is always punditry.”
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