Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth
Encyclopedia
Various existential risk
s could threaten humankind as a whole, have adverse consequences for the course of human civilization
, or even cause the end of planet Earth
.
, but not all are equal. Risks can be roughly categorized into six types based on the scope (personal, regional, global) and the intensity (endurable or terminal). The following chart provides some examples:
The risks discussed in this article are at least Global and Terminal in intensity. These types of risks are ones where an adverse outcome would either annihilate intelligent life on Earth, or permanently and drastically reduce its potential. Jamais Cascio
made an alternative classification system.
writes:
Biotechnology
could lead to the creation of a pandemic
, nanotechnology
could lead to grey goo
in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all living matter on Earth
while building more of themselves - in both cases, either deliberately or by accident.
It has also been suggested that physical scientists might create a device that could accidentally destroy the earth and the solar system.
and a Doomsday device
. It is difficult to predict whether it would exterminate humanity, but very certainly could alter civilizations in the event of a nuclear winter
.
.
It has been suggested that learning computers that rapidly become superintelligent
may take unforeseen actions or that robots would out-compete humanity. Because of its exceptional scheduling and organizational capability and the range of novel technologies it could develop, it is possible that the first Earth superintelligence to emerge could rapidly become matchless and unrivaled: conceivably it would be able to bring about almost any possible outcome, and be able to foil virtually any attempt that threatened to prevent it achieving its desires. It could eliminate, wiping out if it chose, any other challenging rival intellects; alternatively it might manipulate or persuade them to change their behavior towards its own interests, or it may merely obstruct their attempts at interference.
Vernor Vinge
has suggested that a moment may come when computers and robots are smarter than humans. He calls this "the Singularity
." He suggests that it may be somewhat or possibly very dangerous for humans. This is discussed by a philosophy called Singularitarianism
.
In 2009, experts attended a conference hosted by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
(AAAI) to discuss whether computers and robots might be able to acquire any sort of autonomy
, and how much these abilities might pose a threat or hazard. They noted that some robots have acquired various forms of semi-autonomy, including being able to find power sources on their own and being able to independently choose targets to attack with weapons. They also noted that some computer viruses can evade elimination and have achieved "cockroach intelligence." They noted that self-awareness as depicted in science-fiction is probably unlikely, but that there were other potential hazards and pitfalls. Various media sources and scientific groups have noted separate trends in differing areas which might together result in greater robotic functionalities and autonomy, and which pose some inherent concerns.
Some experts and academics have questioned the use of robots for military combat, especially when such robots are given some degree of autonomous functions. There are also concerns about technology which might allow some armed robots to be controlled mainly by other robots.
The US Navy has funded a report which indicates that as military robots become more complex, there should be greater attention to implications of their ability to make autonomous decisions. One researcher states that autonomous robots might be more humane, as they could make decisions more effectively. However, other experts question this.
) might cause the climate on Earth to become like Venus
, which would make it uninhabitable. In less extreme scenarios it could cause the end of civilization, as we know it. According to a UN climate report, the Himalayan
glaciers that are the sources of Asia
's biggest rivers - Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Mekong
, Salween and Yellow
- could disappear by 2350 as temperatures rise (an initial announcement of that report erroneously stated the date as 2035). Approximately 3 billion people live in the drainage basin
of the Himalayan rivers, which is almost half of the current human population (see Environmental migrant).
The Himalayan system, which includes outlying subranges, stretches across: Afghanistan
, Bangladesh
, Bhutan
, People's Republic of China
, India
, Nepal
, Burma, Cambodia
, Thailand
, Laos
, Vietnam
, Malaysia and Pakistan
. Some of the world's major river
s, Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Mekong
, Salween and Yellow River
, rise in the Himalayas, and their combined drainage basin
in India
, China
, Pakistan
, Bangladesh
, Nepal
and Myanmar
could experience floods followed by droughts in coming decades. In India
alone, the Ganges provides water for drinking and farming for more than 500 million people. The west coast of North America
, which gets much of its water from glaciers in mountain ranges such as the Rocky Mountains
, Cascade Mountains and Sierra Nevada, also would be affected. According to the California Department of Water Resources
, if more water supplies are not found by 2020, California
residents will face a water shortfall
nearly as great as the amount consumed today.
Directly linked to observed increases in the intensity and frequency of natural disasters, global warming
and climate change are now considered key drivers behind rising global humanitarian and emergency relief needs. According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA
), climate disasters are on the rise. Around 70 percent of disasters are now climate related – up from around 50 percent from two decades ago. These disasters take a heavier human toll and come with a higher price tag. In the last decade, 2.4 billion people were affected by climate related disasters, compared to 1.7 billion in the previous decade and the cost of responding to disasters has risen tenfold between 1992 and 2008. Destructive sudden heavy rains, intense tropical storms, repeated flooding and droughts are likely to increase, as will the vulnerability of local communities in the absence of strong concerted action.
Approximately 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded. In Africa
, if current trends of soil degradation continue, the continent might
be able to feed just 25% of its population by 2025, according to UNU
's Ghana-based Institute for Natural Resources in Africa.
James Lovelock
, creator of the Gaia hypothesis
, in his book The Revenge of Gaia
(2006), has suggested that the elimination of rain forests, and the falling planetary biodiversity
is removing the homeostatic
negative feedback
mechanisms that maintain climate stability by reducing the effects of greenhouse gas
emissions (particularly carbon dioxide
). With the heating of the oceans, the extension of the thermocline
layer into Arctic
and Antarctic
waters is preventing the overturning and nutrient enrichment necessary for algal blooms of phytoplankton
on which the ecosystem
s of these areas depend. With the loss of phytoplankton and tropical rain forests, two of the main carbon dioxide sink
s for reducing global warming
, he suggests a runaway positive feedback
effect could cause tropical desert
s to cover most of the world's tropical regions, and the disappearance of polar ice caps, posing a serious challenge to global civilization.
Using scenario analysis
, the Global Scenario Group
(GSG), a coalition of international scientists convened by Paul Raskin
, developed a series of possible futures for the world as it enters a Planetary Phase of Civilization
. One scenario involves the complete breakdown of civilization as the effects of global warming
become more pronounced, competition for scarce resources increases, and the rift between the poor and the wealthy widens. The GSG’s other scenarios, such as Policy Reform
, Eco-Communalism
, and Great Transition
avoid this societal collapse and eventually result in environmental and social sustainability
. They claim the outcome is dependent on human choice and the possible formation of a global citizens movement
which could influence the trajectory of global development.
were to mutate and become as transmissible as the common cold
, the consequences would be disastrous. It has been hypothesised that such an extremely virulent pathogen might not evolve
. This is because a pathogen that quickly kills its hosts might not have enough time to spread to new ones, while one that kills its hosts more slowly or not at all will allow carriers more time to spread the infection, and thus likely out-compete a more lethal species or strain. This simple model predicts that if virulence
and transmission are not linked in any way, pathogens will evolve towards low virulence and rapid transmission. However, this assumption is not always valid and in more complex models, where the level of virulence and the rate of transmission are related, high levels of virulence can evolve. The level of virulence that is possible is instead limited by the existence of complex populations of hosts, with different susceptibilities to infection, or by some hosts being geographically-isolated. The size of the host population and competition between different strains of pathogens can also alter virulence. Interestingly, a pathogen that only infects humans as a secondary host and usually infects another species (a zoonosis
) may have little constraint on its virulence in people, since infection here is an accidental event and its evolution is driven by events in another species.
is any long-term significant change in the expected patterns of average weather of a specific region (or, more relevantly to contemporary socio-political concerns, of the Earth as a whole) over an appropriately significant period of time. Climate change reflects abnormal variations to the expected climate within the Earth's atmosphere and subsequent effects on other parts of the Earth, such as in the ice caps over durations ranging from decades to millions of years. According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA
), climate disasters are on the rise. Around 70 percent of disasters are now climate related – up from around 50 percent from two decades ago. These disasters take a heavier human toll and come with a higher price tag. In the last decade, 2.4 billion people were affected by climate related disasters, compared to 1.7 billion in the previous decade and the cost of responding to disasters has risen tenfold between 1992 and 2008. Destructive sudden heavy rains, intense tropical storms, repeated flooding and droughts are likely to increase, as will the vulnerability of local communities in the absence of strong concerted action. Sea level rise may completely inundate certain areas.
In the history of the Earth, 12 ice ages have occurred. More ice ages will be possible at an interval of 40,000–100,000 years although engineers working for Posiva, a Finnish company involved in the underground storage of nuclear waste, have built their facility to withstand an Ice Age starting as 'soon' as 20,000 years. An Ice Age would have a serious impact on civilization because vast areas of land (mainly in North America
, Europe
, and Asia
) could become uninhabitable. It would still be possible to live in the tropical regions, but with possible loss of humidity/water. Currently, the world is existing in an interglacial period
within a much older glacial event. The last glacial expansion ended about 10,000 years ago, and all civilizations evolved later.
, could be induced by the present trends of overpopulation
, economic development
, and non-sustainable agriculture
. Most of these scenarios involve one or more of the following: Holocene extinction event
, scarcity of water
that could lead to approximately one half of the Earth's population being without safe drinking water
, pollinator decline
, overfishing
, massive deforestation
, desertification
, climate change
, or massive water pollution
episodes. A very recent threat in this direction is colony collapse disorder
, a phenomenon that might foreshadow the imminent extinction of the Western honeybee. As the bee plays a vital role in pollination
, its extinction would severely disrupt the food chain
.
. Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250%. The Green Revolution in agriculture helped food production to keep pace with worldwide population growth
or actually enabled population growth. The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon
fueled irrigation
. David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture
at Cornell University
, and Mario Giampietro, senior researcher at the National Research Institute on Food and Nutrition (INRAN), place in their study Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy the maximum U.S. population for a sustainable economy
at 200 million. To achieve a sustainable economy and avert disaster, the United States
must reduce its population by at least one-third, and world population
will have to be reduced by two-thirds, says the study.
The authors of this study believe that the mentioned agricultural crisis will only begin to impact us after 2020, and will not become critical until 2050. Geologist Dale Allen Pfeiffer
claims that coming decades could see spiraling food
prices without relief and massive starvation
on a global level such as never experienced before.
Wheat
is humanity's 3rd most produced cereal. Extant fungal infections such as Ug99 (a kind of stem rust
) can cause 100% crop losses in most modern varieties. Little or no treatment is possible and infection spreads on the wind. Should the world's large grain producing areas become infected then there would be a crisis in wheat availability leading to price spikes and shortages in other food products.
last erupted 640,000 years ago, the magma
and ash ejected from the caldera
covered most of the United States west of the Mississippi river
and part of northeastern Mexico
. Another such eruption could threaten civilization. Such an eruption could also release large amounts of gases that could alter the balance of the planet's carbon dioxide
and cause a runaway greenhouse effect
, or enough pyroclastic debris and other material might be thrown into the atmosphere to partially block out the sun and cause a volcanic winter
, as happened in 1816 following the eruption of Mount Tambora
, the so-called Year Without a Summer
. Such an eruption might cause the immediate deaths of millions of people several hundred miles from the eruption, and perhaps billions of deaths worldwide, due to the failure of the monsoon
, resulting in major crop failures causing starvation on a massive scale. Supervolcanoes are more likely threats than many others, as a prehistoric Indonesian supervolcano eruption
may have reduced the human population to only a few thousand individuals, while no catastrophic bolide impact, for example, has occurred since long before modern humans evolved.
. The coastal areas of the entire world could also be flooded in case of the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
. While none of these scenarios is likely to destroy humanity completely, they could regionally threaten civilization. There have been two recent high-fatality tsunamis--after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake
and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
, although they were not large enough to be considered megatsunamis. A megatsunami could have astronomical origins as well, such as an asteroid impact in an ocean.
theories as to the universe's ultimate fate
that exclude the indefinite continuation of life
. Most involve time periods and distant futures much greater than the current 13.7-billion-year age of the universe
. A long-established and widely accepted theory is the eventual heat death of the universe
.
Calculations indicate that the Andromeda Galaxy
is on a collision course with the Milky Way
. Andromeda is approaching at an average speed of about 140 kilometres (87 mi) per second and thus impact is predicted in about 3 billion years. This merging could eject the solar system in a more eccentric orbit and an unwanted position in the merged galaxy causing our planet to become uninhabitable, even if an actual collision does not take place.
The theory of stellar evolution
predicts that our Sun
will exhaust its hydrogen core and become a red giant
in about 5 billion years, becoming thousands of times more luminous and losing roughly 30% of its current mass. Ignoring tidal effects, the Earth would then orbit 1.7 AU from the Sun at its maximum radius. This would allow the Earth to escape being enveloped by the Sun's now expanded and thin outer atmosphere, though most life, if not all, would perish due to the Sun's proximity. However, a more recent study suggests that the Earth's orbit will decay due to the effects of tidal drag, causing it to enter the Sun's expanded atmosphere and be destroyed in 7.6 billion years. Before being swallowed by the Sun, the Earth's oceans would evaporate, and the Earth would finally be destroyed by tidal forces. However, this fate is not inevitable - it appears possible to move the Earth to a more distant orbit, using repeated close encounters with asteroids.
Before this happens, Earth's biosphere
will have long been destroyed by the Sun's steady increase in brightness as its hydrogen supply dwindles and its core contracts, even before the transition to a Red Giant. After just over 1 billion years, the extra solar energy input will cause Earth's oceans to evaporate and the hydrogen from the water to be lost permanently to space, with total loss of water by 3 billion years. Earth's atmosphere
and lithosphere
will become like that of Venus. Over another billion years, most of the atmosphere will get lost in space as well; ultimately leaving Earth as a desiccated, dead planet with a surface of molten rock.
, for example, is theorized to have caused the extinction of the dinosaur
s 65 million years ago. If such an object struck Earth it could have a serious impact on civilization. It is even possible that humanity would be completely destroyed; for this to occur the asteroid would need to be at least 1 km (0.621372736649807 mi) in diameter, but probably between 3 and 10 km (2–6 miles). Asteroids with a 1 km diameter have impacted the Earth on average once every 500,000 years. Larger asteroids are less common. So-called Near-Earth asteroids are regularly being observed.
1.4 million years from now the star Gliese 710
is expected to cause an increase in the number of meteoroids in the vicinity of Earth by passing within 1.1 light years of the Sun. Some models predict that this will cause a large number of comets from the Oort cloud
to impact Earth, whereas other models predict only a 5% increase in the rate of impact.
, large planet
or black hole
, could be catastrophic if a close encounter occurred in the solar system. (Gravity from the wandering objects might disrupt orbits and/or fling bodies into other objects, thus resulting in meteorite impacts or climate change
. Also, heat from the wandering objects might cause extinctions; tidal forces could cause erosion along our coastlines.) Another threat might come from gamma ray bursts. Both are very unlikely.
Still others see extraterrestrial life
as a possible threat to humankind; although alien life has never been found, scientists such as Carl Sagan
have postulated that the existence of extraterrestrial life is very likely. In 1969, the "Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law
" was added to the Code of Federal Regulations (Title 14, Section 1211) in response to the possibility of biological contamination resulting from the US Apollo Space Program. It was removed in 1991. Scientists consider such a scenario technically possible, but unlikely.
In April 2008, it was announced that two simulations of long-term planetary movement, one at Paris Observatory
and the other at University of California, Santa Cruz
indicate a 1% chance that Mercury
's orbit could be made unstable by Jupiter
's gravitational pull sometime during the lifespan of the sun. Were this to happen, the simulations suggest a collision with Earth could be one of four possible outcomes (the others being Mercury colliding with the Sun, colliding with Venus, or being ejected from the solar system altogether). If Mercury were to collide with the Earth, all life on Earth
would be obliterated and the impact might displace enough matter into orbit to form another moon. Note that an asteroid just 15 km wide is said to have caused the extinction of the dinosaur
s; Mercury
is some 5,000 km in diameter.
The belief
that the Mayan civilization's Long Count calendar ends abruptly on December 21, 2012, is a misconception due to the Mayan practice of using only five places in Long Count Calendar inscriptions. On some monuments the Mayan calculated dates far into the past and future but there is no end of the world date. There will be a Piktun ending (a cycle of 13 144,000 day Bak'tuns) on December 21, 2012. A Piktun marks the end of a 1,872,000 day or approximately 5125 year period and is a significant event in the Mayan calendar. However, there is no historical or scientific evidence that the Mayas believed it would be a doomsday. Some believe it will just be the beginning of another Piktun.
The cataclysmic pole shift hypothesis was formulated in 1872. Revisited repeatedly in the second half of the 20th century, it proposes that the axis of the Earth with respect to the crust could change extremely rapidly, causing massive earthquakes, tsunamis, and damaging local climate changes. The hypothesis is contradicted by the mainstream scientific interpretation of geological data, which indicates that true polar wander
does occur, but very slowly over millions of years. Sometimes this hypothesis is confused with the accepted theory of geomagnetic reversal
in which the magnetic poles reverse, but which has no influence on the axial poles or the rotation of the solid earth.
Existential risk
Existential risks are dangers that have the potential to destroy, or drastically restrict, human civilization. They are distinguished from other forms of risk both by their scope, affecting all of humanity, and severity; destroying or irreversibly crippling the target.Natural disasters, such as...
s could threaten humankind as a whole, have adverse consequences for the course of human civilization
Civilization
Civilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
, or even cause the end of planet Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
.
Types of risks
Various risks exist for humanityWorld population
The world population is the total number of living humans on the planet Earth. As of today, it is estimated to be billion by the United States Census Bureau...
, but not all are equal. Risks can be roughly categorized into six types based on the scope (personal, regional, global) and the intensity (endurable or terminal). The following chart provides some examples:
| Typology of risk | ||
|---|---|---|
| Endurable | Terminal | |
| Global | Plate tectonics Plate tectonics Plate tectonics is a scientific theory that describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere... |
Nearby gamma-ray burst |
| Regional | Flash flooding | Permanent submersion Current sea level rise Current sea level rise potentially impacts human populations and the wider natural environment . Global average sea level rose at an average rate of around 1.8 mm per year over 1961 to 2003 and at an average rate of about 3.1 mm per year from 1993 to 2003... |
| Personal | Assault Assault In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more... |
Death Death Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury.... |
The risks discussed in this article are at least Global and Terminal in intensity. These types of risks are ones where an adverse outcome would either annihilate intelligent life on Earth, or permanently and drastically reduce its potential. Jamais Cascio
Jamais Cascio
Jamais Cascio is a San Francisco Bay Area-based writer and ethical futurist specializing in design strategies and possible outcomes for future scenarios...
made an alternative classification system.
Future scenarios
Many scenarios have been suggested. Some that will almost certainly end life on Earth are certain to occur, but on a very long timescale. Others are likely to happen on a shorter timescale, but will probably not completely destroy civilization. Still others are extremely unlikely, and may even be impossible. For example, Nick BostromNick Bostrom
Nick Bostrom is a Swedish philosopher at the University of Oxford known for his work on existential risk and the anthropic principle. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics...
writes:
Some foreseen hazards (hence not members of the current category) which have been excluded from the list on grounds that they seem too unlikely to cause a global terminal disaster are: solar flares, supernovae, black hole explosions or mergers, gamma-ray bursts, galactic center outbursts, buildup of air pollution, gradual loss of human fertility, and various religious doomsday scenarios.
Humanity
Some threats for humanity come from humanity itself.Biotechnology
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
could lead to the creation of a pandemic
Pandemic
A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic...
, nanotechnology
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
could lead to grey goo
Grey goo
Grey goo is a hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario involving molecular nanotechnology in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all matter on Earth while building more of themselves, a scenario known as ecophagy .Self-replicating machines of the macroscopic variety were originally...
in which out-of-control self-replicating robots consume all living matter on Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
while building more of themselves - in both cases, either deliberately or by accident.
It has also been suggested that physical scientists might create a device that could accidentally destroy the earth and the solar system.
Warfare and mass destruction
The scenarios that have been explored most frequently are nuclear warfareNuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
and a Doomsday device
Doomsday device
A doomsday device is a hypothetical construction — usually a weapon, or collection of weapons — which could destroy all life on a planet, particularly the Earth, or destroy the planet itself, bringing "doomsday", a term used for the end of planet Earth...
. It is difficult to predict whether it would exterminate humanity, but very certainly could alter civilizations in the event of a nuclear winter
Nuclear winter
Nuclear winter is a predicted climatic effect of nuclear war. It has been theorized that severely cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months or even years could be caused by detonating large numbers of nuclear weapons, especially over flammable targets such as cities, where large...
.
Artificial intelligence
Another category of disasters are unforeseen consequences of technologyTechnological singularity
Technological singularity refers to the hypothetical future emergence of greater-than-human intelligence through technological means. Since the capabilities of such an intelligence would be difficult for an unaided human mind to comprehend, the occurrence of a technological singularity is seen as...
.
It has been suggested that learning computers that rapidly become superintelligent
Superintelligence
A superintelligence, hyperintelligence or superhuman intelligence is a hypothetical entity which possesses intelligence surpassing that of any existing human being...
may take unforeseen actions or that robots would out-compete humanity. Because of its exceptional scheduling and organizational capability and the range of novel technologies it could develop, it is possible that the first Earth superintelligence to emerge could rapidly become matchless and unrivaled: conceivably it would be able to bring about almost any possible outcome, and be able to foil virtually any attempt that threatened to prevent it achieving its desires. It could eliminate, wiping out if it chose, any other challenging rival intellects; alternatively it might manipulate or persuade them to change their behavior towards its own interests, or it may merely obstruct their attempts at interference.
Vernor Vinge
Vernor Vinge
Vernor Steffen Vinge is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels and novellas A Fire Upon the Deep , A Deepness in the Sky , Rainbows End , Fast Times at Fairmont High ...
has suggested that a moment may come when computers and robots are smarter than humans. He calls this "the Singularity
Technological singularity
Technological singularity refers to the hypothetical future emergence of greater-than-human intelligence through technological means. Since the capabilities of such an intelligence would be difficult for an unaided human mind to comprehend, the occurrence of a technological singularity is seen as...
." He suggests that it may be somewhat or possibly very dangerous for humans. This is discussed by a philosophy called Singularitarianism
Singularitarianism
Singularitarianism is a technocentric ideology and social movement defined by the belief that a technological singularity—the creation of a superintelligence—will likely happen in the medium future, and that deliberate action ought to be taken to ensure that the Singularity benefits...
.
In 2009, experts attended a conference hosted by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence or AAAI is an international, nonprofit, scientific society devoted to advancing the scientific understanding of the mechanisms underlying thought and intelligent behavior and their embodiment in machines...
(AAAI) to discuss whether computers and robots might be able to acquire any sort of autonomy
Autonomy
Autonomy is a concept found in moral, political and bioethical philosophy. Within these contexts, it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision...
, and how much these abilities might pose a threat or hazard. They noted that some robots have acquired various forms of semi-autonomy, including being able to find power sources on their own and being able to independently choose targets to attack with weapons. They also noted that some computer viruses can evade elimination and have achieved "cockroach intelligence." They noted that self-awareness as depicted in science-fiction is probably unlikely, but that there were other potential hazards and pitfalls. Various media sources and scientific groups have noted separate trends in differing areas which might together result in greater robotic functionalities and autonomy, and which pose some inherent concerns.
Some experts and academics have questioned the use of robots for military combat, especially when such robots are given some degree of autonomous functions. There are also concerns about technology which might allow some armed robots to be controlled mainly by other robots.
The US Navy has funded a report which indicates that as military robots become more complex, there should be greater attention to implications of their ability to make autonomous decisions. One researcher states that autonomous robots might be more humane, as they could make decisions more effectively. However, other experts question this.
Climate change and ecology
It has been suggested that runaway global warming (runaway climate changeRunaway climate change
Runaway climate change describes a theoretical scenario in which the climate system passes a threshold or tipping point, after which internal positive feedback effects cause the climate to continue changing without further external forcings...
) might cause the climate on Earth to become like Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...
, which would make it uninhabitable. In less extreme scenarios it could cause the end of civilization, as we know it. According to a UN climate report, the Himalayan
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
glaciers that are the sources of Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
's biggest rivers - Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Mekong
Mekong
The Mekong is a river that runs through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It is the world's 10th-longest river and the 7th-longest in Asia. Its estimated length is , and it drains an area of , discharging of water annually....
, Salween and Yellow
Yellow
Yellow is the color evoked by light that stimulates both the L and M cone cells of the retina about equally, with no significant stimulation of the S cone cells. Light with a wavelength of 570–590 nm is yellow, as is light with a suitable mixture of red and green...
- could disappear by 2350 as temperatures rise (an initial announcement of that report erroneously stated the date as 2035). Approximately 3 billion people live in the drainage basin
Drainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
of the Himalayan rivers, which is almost half of the current human population (see Environmental migrant).
The Himalayan system, which includes outlying subranges, stretches across: Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, Bhutan
Bhutan
Bhutan , officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China...
, People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
, Burma, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
, Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, Malaysia and Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. Some of the world's major river
River
A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...
s, Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Mekong
Mekong
The Mekong is a river that runs through China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. It is the world's 10th-longest river and the 7th-longest in Asia. Its estimated length is , and it drains an area of , discharging of water annually....
, Salween and Yellow River
Yellow River
The Yellow River or Huang He, formerly known as the Hwang Ho, is the second-longest river in China and the sixth-longest in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China, it flows through nine provinces of China and empties into...
, rise in the Himalayas, and their combined drainage basin
Drainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
and Myanmar
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....
could experience floods followed by droughts in coming decades. In India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
alone, the Ganges provides water for drinking and farming for more than 500 million people. The west coast of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, which gets much of its water from glaciers in mountain ranges such as the Rocky Mountains
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the southwestern United States...
, Cascade Mountains and Sierra Nevada, also would be affected. According to the California Department of Water Resources
California Department of Water Resources
The California Department of Water Resources , is a department within the California Natural Resources Agency. The Department of Water Resources is responsible for the State of California's management and regulation of water usage...
, if more water supplies are not found by 2020, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
residents will face a water shortfall
Water crisis
Water crisis is a general term used to describe a situation where the available water within a region is less than the region's demand. The term has been used to describe the availability of potable water in a variety of regions by the United Nations and other world organizations...
nearly as great as the amount consumed today.
Directly linked to observed increases in the intensity and frequency of natural disasters, global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
and climate change are now considered key drivers behind rising global humanitarian and emergency relief needs. According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA
Ocha
Ocha is a genus of moth in the family Lasiocampidae....
), climate disasters are on the rise. Around 70 percent of disasters are now climate related – up from around 50 percent from two decades ago. These disasters take a heavier human toll and come with a higher price tag. In the last decade, 2.4 billion people were affected by climate related disasters, compared to 1.7 billion in the previous decade and the cost of responding to disasters has risen tenfold between 1992 and 2008. Destructive sudden heavy rains, intense tropical storms, repeated flooding and droughts are likely to increase, as will the vulnerability of local communities in the absence of strong concerted action.
Approximately 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded. In Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, if current trends of soil degradation continue, the continent might
be able to feed just 25% of its population by 2025, according to UNU
United Nations University
The United Nations University is an academic arm of the United Nations established in 1973, which serves purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations. The UNU undertakes research into the pressing global problems of human survival, development and welfare that are the concern of...
's Ghana-based Institute for Natural Resources in Africa.
James Lovelock
James Lovelock
James Lovelock, CH, CBE, FRS is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurologist who lives in Devon, England. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling...
, creator of the Gaia hypothesis
Gaia hypothesis
The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.The scientific investigation of the...
, in his book The Revenge of Gaia
The Revenge of Gaia
The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back – and How we Can Still Save Humanity is a book by James Lovelock.- External links :* The Revenge of Gaia * , edited extract from The Guardian, 24 March 2006...
(2006), has suggested that the elimination of rain forests, and the falling planetary biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
is removing the homeostatic
Homeostasis
Homeostasis is the property of a system that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition of properties like temperature or pH...
negative feedback
Negative feedback
Negative feedback occurs when the output of a system acts to oppose changes to the input of the system, with the result that the changes are attenuated. If the overall feedback of the system is negative, then the system will tend to be stable.- Overview :...
mechanisms that maintain climate stability by reducing the effects of greenhouse gas
Greenhouse gas
A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...
emissions (particularly carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
). With the heating of the oceans, the extension of the thermocline
Thermocline
A thermocline is a thin but distinct layer in a large body of fluid , in which temperature changes more rapidly with depth than it does in the layers above or below...
layer into Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
and Antarctic
Antarctic
The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...
waters is preventing the overturning and nutrient enrichment necessary for algal blooms of phytoplankton
Phytoplankton
Phytoplankton are the autotrophic component of the plankton community. The name comes from the Greek words φυτόν , meaning "plant", and πλαγκτός , meaning "wanderer" or "drifter". Most phytoplankton are too small to be individually seen with the unaided eye...
on which the ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....
s of these areas depend. With the loss of phytoplankton and tropical rain forests, two of the main carbon dioxide sink
Carbon dioxide sink
A carbon sink is a natural or artificial reservoir that accumulates and stores some carbon-containing chemical compound for an indefinite period. The process by which carbon sinks remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is known as carbon sequestration...
s for reducing global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
, he suggests a runaway positive feedback
Positive feedback
Positive feedback is a process in which the effects of a small disturbance on a system include an increase in the magnitude of the perturbation. That is, A produces more of B which in turn produces more of A. In contrast, a system that responds to a perturbation in a way that reduces its effect is...
effect could cause tropical desert
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
s to cover most of the world's tropical regions, and the disappearance of polar ice caps, posing a serious challenge to global civilization.
Using scenario analysis
Scenario analysis
Scenario analysis is a process of analyzing possible future events by considering alternative possible outcomes . Thus, the scenario analysis, which is a main method of projections, does not try to show one exact picture of the future. Instead, it presents consciously several alternative future...
, the Global Scenario Group
Global scenario group
The Global Scenario Group was a team of environmental scholars, headed by Paul Raskin, who used scenario analysis to analyze future paths for world development in the face of environmental pressures and crises...
(GSG), a coalition of international scientists convened by Paul Raskin
Paul Raskin
Paul Raskin is the Founding Director of the Tellus Institute which has conducted over 3,500 research and policy projects throughout the world on environmental issues, resource planning, and sustainable development...
, developed a series of possible futures for the world as it enters a Planetary Phase of Civilization
Planetary Phase of Civilization
The Planetary Phase of Civilization is a concept defined by the Global Scenario Group , an environmental organization that specializes in scenario analysis and forecasting...
. One scenario involves the complete breakdown of civilization as the effects of global warming
Effects of global warming
This article is about the effects of global warming and climate change. The effects, or impacts, of climate change may be physical, ecological, social or economic. Evidence of observed climate change includes the instrumental temperature record, rising sea levels, and decreased snow cover in the...
become more pronounced, competition for scarce resources increases, and the rift between the poor and the wealthy widens. The GSG’s other scenarios, such as Policy Reform
Policy reform
Policy reform, in addition to its more general meanings, has been used to refer to a future scenario which relies on government action to correct economic market failures and to stimulate the technological investment necessary for sustainable development and the creation of a truly sustainable...
, Eco-Communalism
Eco-communalism
Eco-communalism is an environmental philosophy based on ideals of simple living, self-sufficiency, sustainability, and local economies. Eco-communalists envision a future in which the economic system of capitalism is replaced with a global web of economically interdependent and interconnected...
, and Great Transition
Great Transition
Great Transition is a vision created by the Global Scenario Group of how humanity could create a civilization that reflects egalitarian social and ecological values, affirms diversity, and defeats poverty, war, and environmental destruction....
avoid this societal collapse and eventually result in environmental and social sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
. They claim the outcome is dependent on human choice and the possible formation of a global citizens movement
Global citizens movement
In most discussions, the global citizens movement is a socio-political process rather than a political organization or party structure. The term is often used synonymously with the anti-globalization movement or the global justice movement. Colloquially the term is also used in this imprecise manner...
which could influence the trajectory of global development.
Global pandemic
A less predictable scenario is a global pandemic. For example, if HIVHIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
were to mutate and become as transmissible as the common cold
Common cold
The common cold is a viral infectious disease of the upper respiratory system, caused primarily by rhinoviruses and coronaviruses. Common symptoms include a cough, sore throat, runny nose, and fever...
, the consequences would be disastrous. It has been hypothesised that such an extremely virulent pathogen might not evolve
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
. This is because a pathogen that quickly kills its hosts might not have enough time to spread to new ones, while one that kills its hosts more slowly or not at all will allow carriers more time to spread the infection, and thus likely out-compete a more lethal species or strain. This simple model predicts that if virulence
Virulence
Virulence is by MeSH definition the degree of pathogenicity within a group or species of parasites as indicated by case fatality rates and/or the ability of the organism to invade the tissues of the host. The pathogenicity of an organism - its ability to cause disease - is determined by its...
and transmission are not linked in any way, pathogens will evolve towards low virulence and rapid transmission. However, this assumption is not always valid and in more complex models, where the level of virulence and the rate of transmission are related, high levels of virulence can evolve. The level of virulence that is possible is instead limited by the existence of complex populations of hosts, with different susceptibilities to infection, or by some hosts being geographically-isolated. The size of the host population and competition between different strains of pathogens can also alter virulence. Interestingly, a pathogen that only infects humans as a secondary host and usually infects another species (a zoonosis
Zoonosis
A zoonosis or zoonoseis any infectious disease that can be transmitted from non-human animals to humans or from humans to non-human animals . In a study of 1415 pathogens known to affect humans, 61% were zoonotic...
) may have little constraint on its virulence in people, since infection here is an accidental event and its evolution is driven by events in another species.
Climate change and global warming
Climate changeClimate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
is any long-term significant change in the expected patterns of average weather of a specific region (or, more relevantly to contemporary socio-political concerns, of the Earth as a whole) over an appropriately significant period of time. Climate change reflects abnormal variations to the expected climate within the Earth's atmosphere and subsequent effects on other parts of the Earth, such as in the ice caps over durations ranging from decades to millions of years. According to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA
Ocha
Ocha is a genus of moth in the family Lasiocampidae....
), climate disasters are on the rise. Around 70 percent of disasters are now climate related – up from around 50 percent from two decades ago. These disasters take a heavier human toll and come with a higher price tag. In the last decade, 2.4 billion people were affected by climate related disasters, compared to 1.7 billion in the previous decade and the cost of responding to disasters has risen tenfold between 1992 and 2008. Destructive sudden heavy rains, intense tropical storms, repeated flooding and droughts are likely to increase, as will the vulnerability of local communities in the absence of strong concerted action. Sea level rise may completely inundate certain areas.
Ice age
In the history of the Earth, 12 ice ages have occurred. More ice ages will be possible at an interval of 40,000–100,000 years although engineers working for Posiva, a Finnish company involved in the underground storage of nuclear waste, have built their facility to withstand an Ice Age starting as 'soon' as 20,000 years. An Ice Age would have a serious impact on civilization because vast areas of land (mainly in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
) could become uninhabitable. It would still be possible to live in the tropical regions, but with possible loss of humidity/water. Currently, the world is existing in an interglacial period
Interglacial
An Interglacial period is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age...
within a much older glacial event. The last glacial expansion ended about 10,000 years ago, and all civilizations evolved later.
Ecological disaster
An ecological disaster, such as world crop failure and collapse of ecosystem servicesEcosystem services
Humankind benefits from a multitude of resources and processes that are supplied by natural ecosystems. Collectively, these benefits are known as ecosystem services and include products like clean drinking water and processes such as the decomposition of wastes...
, could be induced by the present trends of overpopulation
Overpopulation
Overpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth...
, economic development
Economic development
Economic development generally refers to the sustained, concerted actions of policymakers and communities that promote the standard of living and economic health of a specific area...
, and non-sustainable agriculture
Sustainable agriculture
Sustainable agriculture is the practice of farming using principles of ecology, the study of relationships between organisms and their environment...
. Most of these scenarios involve one or more of the following: Holocene extinction event
Holocene extinction event
The Holocene extinction refers to the extinction of species during the present Holocene epoch . The large number of extinctions span numerous families of plants and animals including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and arthropods; a sizeable fraction of these extinctions are occurring in the...
, scarcity of water
Water crisis
Water crisis is a general term used to describe a situation where the available water within a region is less than the region's demand. The term has been used to describe the availability of potable water in a variety of regions by the United Nations and other world organizations...
that could lead to approximately one half of the Earth's population being without safe drinking water
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
, pollinator decline
Pollinator decline
The term pollinator decline refers to the reduction in abundance of pollinators in many ecosystems worldwide during the end of the twentieth century....
, overfishing
Overfishing
Overfishing occurs when fishing activities reduce fish stocks below an acceptable level. This can occur in any body of water from a pond to the oceans....
, massive deforestation
Deforestation
Deforestation is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a nonforest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, or urban use....
, desertification
Desertification
Desertification is the degradation of land in drylands. Caused by a variety of factors, such as climate change and human activities, desertification is one of the most significant global environmental problems.-Definitions:...
, climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
, or massive water pollution
Water pollution
Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies . Water pollution occurs when pollutants are discharged directly or indirectly into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds....
episodes. A very recent threat in this direction is colony collapse disorder
Colony Collapse Disorder
Colony collapse disorder is a phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or European honey bee colony abruptly disappear. While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of apiculture, the term colony collapse disorder was first applied to a drastic rise in the number of...
, a phenomenon that might foreshadow the imminent extinction of the Western honeybee. As the bee plays a vital role in pollination
Pollination
Pollination is the process by which pollen is transferred in plants, thereby enabling fertilisation and sexual reproduction. Pollen grains transport the male gametes to where the female gamete are contained within the carpel; in gymnosperms the pollen is directly applied to the ovule itself...
, its extinction would severely disrupt the food chain
Food chain
A food web depicts feeding connections in an ecological community. Ecologists can broadly lump all life forms into one of two categories called trophic levels: 1) the autotrophs, and 2) the heterotrophs...
.
World population and agricultural crisis
The 20th century saw a rapid increase in human population due to medical developments and massive increase in agricultural productivity made by the Green RevolutionGreen Revolution
Green Revolution refers to a series of research, development, and technology transfer initiatives, occurring between the 1940s and the late 1970s, that increased agriculture production around the world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s....
. Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by 250%. The Green Revolution in agriculture helped food production to keep pace with worldwide population growth
Population growth
Population growth is the change in a population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals of any species in a population using "per unit time" for measurement....
or actually enabled population growth. The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon
Hydrocarbon
In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons from which one hydrogen atom has been removed are functional groups, called hydrocarbyls....
fueled irrigation
Irrigation
Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...
. David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, and Mario Giampietro, senior researcher at the National Research Institute on Food and Nutrition (INRAN), place in their study Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy the maximum U.S. population for a sustainable economy
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
at 200 million. To achieve a sustainable economy and avert disaster, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
must reduce its population by at least one-third, and world population
World population
The world population is the total number of living humans on the planet Earth. As of today, it is estimated to be billion by the United States Census Bureau...
will have to be reduced by two-thirds, says the study.
The authors of this study believe that the mentioned agricultural crisis will only begin to impact us after 2020, and will not become critical until 2050. Geologist Dale Allen Pfeiffer
Dale Allen Pfeiffer
Dale Allen Pfeiffer is a geologist and writer from Michigan, U.S. who has investigated and written about energy depletion and potential future resource wars. He has also written about class war, sustainability, direct action and the environment. He is also an anarchist activist and a member of the...
claims that coming decades could see spiraling food
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
prices without relief and massive starvation
Starvation
Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy, nutrient and vitamin intake. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, death...
on a global level such as never experienced before.
Wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
is humanity's 3rd most produced cereal. Extant fungal infections such as Ug99 (a kind of stem rust
Stem rust
The stem, black or cereal rusts are caused by the fungus Puccinia graminis and are a significant disease affecting cereal crops. An epidemic of stem rust on wheat caused by race Ug99 is currently spreading across Africa, Asia and most recently into Middle East and is causing major concern due to...
) can cause 100% crop losses in most modern varieties. Little or no treatment is possible and infection spreads on the wind. Should the world's large grain producing areas become infected then there would be a crisis in wheat availability leading to price spikes and shortages in other food products.
Supervolcano
When the supervolcano at YellowstoneYellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, although it also extends into Montana and Idaho...
last erupted 640,000 years ago, the magma
Magma
Magma is a mixture of molten rock, volatiles and solids that is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and is expected to exist on other terrestrial planets. Besides molten rock, magma may also contain suspended crystals and dissolved gas and sometimes also gas bubbles. Magma often collects in...
and ash ejected from the caldera
Yellowstone Caldera
The Yellowstone Caldera is the volcanic caldera located in Yellowstone National Park in the United States, sometimes referred to as the Yellowstone Supervolcano. The caldera is located in the northwest corner of Wyoming, in which the vast majority of the park is contained. The major features of...
covered most of the United States west of the Mississippi river
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
and part of northeastern Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
. Another such eruption could threaten civilization. Such an eruption could also release large amounts of gases that could alter the balance of the planet's carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
and cause a runaway greenhouse effect
Runaway greenhouse effect
A runaway greenhouse effect is not a clearly defined term, but is understood to mean an event analogous to that which is believed to have happened in the early history of Venus, where positive feedback increased the strength of its greenhouse effect until its oceans boiled away...
, or enough pyroclastic debris and other material might be thrown into the atmosphere to partially block out the sun and cause a volcanic winter
Volcanic winter
A volcanic winter is the reduction in temperature caused by volcanic ash and droplets of sulfuric acid obscuring the sun and raising Earth's albedo after a large particularly explosive type of volcanic eruption...
, as happened in 1816 following the eruption of Mount Tambora
Mount Tambora
Mount Tambora is an active stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, on the island of Sumbawa, Indonesia. Sumbawa is flanked both to the north and south by oceanic crust, and Tambora was formed by the active subduction zone beneath it. This raised Mount Tambora as high as , making it...
, the so-called Year Without a Summer
Year Without a Summer
The Year Without a Summer was 1816, in which severe summer climate abnormalities caused average global temperatures to decrease by about 0.4–0.7 °C , resulting in major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere...
. Such an eruption might cause the immediate deaths of millions of people several hundred miles from the eruption, and perhaps billions of deaths worldwide, due to the failure of the monsoon
Monsoon
Monsoon is traditionally defined as a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation, but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with the asymmetric heating of land and sea...
, resulting in major crop failures causing starvation on a massive scale. Supervolcanoes are more likely threats than many others, as a prehistoric Indonesian supervolcano eruption
Toba catastrophe theory
The Toba supereruption was a supervolcanic eruption that occurred some time between 69,000 and 77,000 years ago at Lake Toba . It is recognized as one of the Earth's largest known eruptions...
may have reduced the human population to only a few thousand individuals, while no catastrophic bolide impact, for example, has occurred since long before modern humans evolved.
Megatsunami
Another possibility is a megatsunami. A megatsunami could, for example, destroy the entire East Coast of the United StatesEast Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...
. The coastal areas of the entire world could also be flooded in case of the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet
West Antarctic Ice Sheet
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is the segment of the continental ice sheet that covers West Antarctica, the portion of Antarctica on the side of the Transantarctic Mountains which lies in the Western Hemisphere. The WAIS is classified as a marine-based ice sheet, meaning that its bed lies well...
. While none of these scenarios is likely to destroy humanity completely, they could regionally threaten civilization. There have been two recent high-fatality tsunamis--after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake
2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami
The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tohoku, also known as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, or the Great East Japan Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.0 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST on Friday, 11 March 2011, with the epicenter approximately east...
and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake...
, although they were not large enough to be considered megatsunamis. A megatsunami could have astronomical origins as well, such as an asteroid impact in an ocean.
Distant future
There are a number of cosmologicalCosmology
Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...
theories as to the universe's ultimate fate
Ultimate fate of the universe
The ultimate fate of the universe is a topic in physical cosmology. Many possible fates are predicted by rival scientific theories, including futures of both finite and infinite duration....
that exclude the indefinite continuation of life
Life
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...
. Most involve time periods and distant futures much greater than the current 13.7-billion-year age of the universe
Age of the universe
The age of the universe is the time elapsed since the Big Bang posited by the most widely accepted scientific model of cosmology. The best current estimate of the age of the universe is 13.75 ± 0.13 billion years within the Lambda-CDM concordance model...
. A long-established and widely accepted theory is the eventual heat death of the universe
Heat death of the universe
The heat death of the universe is a suggested ultimate fate of the universe, in which the universe has diminished to a state of no thermodynamic free energy and therefore can no longer sustain motion or life. Heat death does not imply any particular absolute temperature; it only requires that...
.
Calculations indicate that the Andromeda Galaxy
Andromeda Galaxy
The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Andromeda. It is also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224, and is often referred to as the Great Andromeda Nebula in older texts. Andromeda is the nearest spiral galaxy to the...
is on a collision course with the Milky Way
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...
. Andromeda is approaching at an average speed of about 140 kilometres (87 mi) per second and thus impact is predicted in about 3 billion years. This merging could eject the solar system in a more eccentric orbit and an unwanted position in the merged galaxy causing our planet to become uninhabitable, even if an actual collision does not take place.
The theory of stellar evolution
Stellar evolution
Stellar evolution is the process by which a star undergoes a sequence of radical changes during its lifetime. Depending on the mass of the star, this lifetime ranges from only a few million years to trillions of years .Stellar evolution is not studied by observing the life of a single...
predicts that our Sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
will exhaust its hydrogen core and become a red giant
Red giant
A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass in a late phase of stellar evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius immense and the surface temperature low, somewhere from 5,000 K and lower...
in about 5 billion years, becoming thousands of times more luminous and losing roughly 30% of its current mass. Ignoring tidal effects, the Earth would then orbit 1.7 AU from the Sun at its maximum radius. This would allow the Earth to escape being enveloped by the Sun's now expanded and thin outer atmosphere, though most life, if not all, would perish due to the Sun's proximity. However, a more recent study suggests that the Earth's orbit will decay due to the effects of tidal drag, causing it to enter the Sun's expanded atmosphere and be destroyed in 7.6 billion years. Before being swallowed by the Sun, the Earth's oceans would evaporate, and the Earth would finally be destroyed by tidal forces. However, this fate is not inevitable - it appears possible to move the Earth to a more distant orbit, using repeated close encounters with asteroids.
Before this happens, Earth's biosphere
Biosphere
The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. It can also be called the zone of life on Earth, a closed and self-regulating system...
will have long been destroyed by the Sun's steady increase in brightness as its hydrogen supply dwindles and its core contracts, even before the transition to a Red Giant. After just over 1 billion years, the extra solar energy input will cause Earth's oceans to evaporate and the hydrogen from the water to be lost permanently to space, with total loss of water by 3 billion years. Earth's atmosphere
Atmosphere
An atmosphere is a layer of gases that may surround a material body of sufficient mass, and that is held in place by the gravity of the body. An atmosphere may be retained for a longer duration, if the gravity is high and the atmosphere's temperature is low...
and lithosphere
Lithosphere
The lithosphere is the rigid outermost shell of a rocky planet. On Earth, it comprises the crust and the portion of the upper mantle that behaves elastically on time scales of thousands of years or greater.- Earth's lithosphere :...
will become like that of Venus. Over another billion years, most of the atmosphere will get lost in space as well; ultimately leaving Earth as a desiccated, dead planet with a surface of molten rock.
Meteorite impact
Earth has collided with several large asteroids in recent geological history. The Cretaceous-Tertiary asteroidCretaceous-Tertiary extinction event
The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, formerly named and still commonly referred to as the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, occurred approximately 65.5 million years ago at the end of the Maastrichtian age of the Cretaceous period. It was a large-scale mass extinction of animal and plant...
, for example, is theorized to have caused the extinction of the dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
s 65 million years ago. If such an object struck Earth it could have a serious impact on civilization. It is even possible that humanity would be completely destroyed; for this to occur the asteroid would need to be at least 1 km (0.621372736649807 mi) in diameter, but probably between 3 and 10 km (2–6 miles). Asteroids with a 1 km diameter have impacted the Earth on average once every 500,000 years. Larger asteroids are less common. So-called Near-Earth asteroids are regularly being observed.
1.4 million years from now the star Gliese 710
Gliese 710
Gliese 710 is a variable orange dwarf star in the constellation Serpens Cauda, with visual magnitude 9.66 and a mass of 0.4–0.6 solar masses....
is expected to cause an increase in the number of meteoroids in the vicinity of Earth by passing within 1.1 light years of the Sun. Some models predict that this will cause a large number of comets from the Oort cloud
Oort cloud
The Oort cloud , or the Öpik–Oort cloud , is a hypothesized spherical cloud of comets which may lie roughly 50,000 AU, or nearly a light-year, from the Sun. This places the cloud at nearly a quarter of the distance to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun...
to impact Earth, whereas other models predict only a 5% increase in the rate of impact.
Other cosmic threats
A number of other scenarios have been suggested. Massive objects, e.g., a starStar
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
, large planet
Planet
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
or black hole
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime from which nothing, not even light, can escape. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will deform spacetime to form a black hole. Around a black hole there is a mathematically defined surface called an event horizon that...
, could be catastrophic if a close encounter occurred in the solar system. (Gravity from the wandering objects might disrupt orbits and/or fling bodies into other objects, thus resulting in meteorite impacts or climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
. Also, heat from the wandering objects might cause extinctions; tidal forces could cause erosion along our coastlines.) Another threat might come from gamma ray bursts. Both are very unlikely.
Still others see extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
as a possible threat to humankind; although alien life has never been found, scientists such as Carl Sagan
Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books...
have postulated that the existence of extraterrestrial life is very likely. In 1969, the "Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law
Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law
The Extra-Terrestrial Exposure Law was the popular name for a United States administrative regulation promulgated in 1969 to prevent the spread of biological contamination from space. Implemented before the Apollo 11 mission, it provided the legal authority for a quarantine period for the...
" was added to the Code of Federal Regulations (Title 14, Section 1211) in response to the possibility of biological contamination resulting from the US Apollo Space Program. It was removed in 1991. Scientists consider such a scenario technically possible, but unlikely.
In April 2008, it was announced that two simulations of long-term planetary movement, one at Paris Observatory
Paris Observatory
The Paris Observatory is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centres in the world...
and the other at University of California, Santa Cruz
University of California, Santa Cruz
The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...
indicate a 1% chance that Mercury
Mercury (planet)
Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits...
's orbit could be made unstable by Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
's gravitational pull sometime during the lifespan of the sun. Were this to happen, the simulations suggest a collision with Earth could be one of four possible outcomes (the others being Mercury colliding with the Sun, colliding with Venus, or being ejected from the solar system altogether). If Mercury were to collide with the Earth, all life on Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
would be obliterated and the impact might displace enough matter into orbit to form another moon. Note that an asteroid just 15 km wide is said to have caused the extinction of the dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
s; Mercury
Mercury (planet)
Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits...
is some 5,000 km in diameter.
Other scenarios
- Peak oil: Fossil fuels attain a level of scarcity before an economically viable replacement is devised, leading firstly to economic strain, followed by the collapse of modern agriculture, then to mass starvation.
- Antibiotic resistanceAntibiotic resistanceAntibiotic resistance is a type of drug resistance where a microorganism is able to survive exposure to an antibiotic. While a spontaneous or induced genetic mutation in bacteria may confer resistance to antimicrobial drugs, genes that confer resistance can be transferred between bacteria in a...
: Natural selectionNatural selectionNatural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....
would create super bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics, devastating the world population and causing a global collapse of civilization. - Gulf Stream shutdownShutdown of thermohaline circulationShutdown or slowdown of the thermohaline circulation is a postulated effect of global warming.There is some speculation that global warming could, via a shutdown or slowdown of the thermohaline circulation, trigger localised cooling in the North Atlantic and lead to cooling, or lesser warming, in...
: There is some speculation that global warmingGlobal warmingGlobal warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
could, via a shutdown or slowdown of the thermohaline circulation, trigger localized cooling in the North Atlantic and lead to cooling in that region. This would affect in particular areas like IrelandIrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, the Nordic countriesNordic countriesThe Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic which consists of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their associated territories, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland...
, and BritainUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
that are warmed by the North Atlantic driftNorth Atlantic DriftNorth Atlantic Drift is:* An ocean current that continues from the North Atlantic Current* An album by Ocean Colour Scene: North Atlantic Drift this doesn't make any goddamn sense....
. - Mutual assured destructionMutual assured destructionMutual Assured Destruction, or mutually assured destruction , is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two opposing sides would effectively result in the complete, utter and irrevocable annihilation of...
: A full scale nuclear warNuclear warfareNuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
could kill billions, and the resulting nuclear winterNuclear winterNuclear winter is a predicted climatic effect of nuclear war. It has been theorized that severely cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months or even years could be caused by detonating large numbers of nuclear weapons, especially over flammable targets such as cities, where large...
would effectively crush any form of civilization. - OverpopulationOverpopulationOverpopulation is a condition where an organism's numbers exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. The term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment, the Earth...
: Some scenarios of simultaneous ecological (food & water production) and economical (see f.e. below) collapses with overpopulation are presumed to lead to a global civil war, where the remaining habitable areas are destroyed by competing humans (so called 'Mad MaxMad MaxMad Max is a 1979 Australian dystopian action film directed by George Miller and revised by Miller and Byron Kennedy over the original script by James McCausland. The film stars Mel Gibson, who was unknown at the time. Its narrative based around the traditional western genre, Mad Max tells a story...
'-scenario). - FamineFamineA famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...
: As of late 2007, increased farming for use in biofuelBiofuelBiofuel is a type of fuel whose energy is derived from biological carbon fixation. Biofuels include fuels derived from biomass conversion, as well as solid biomass, liquid fuels and various biogases...
s, along with world oil prices spiking to more than $140 per barrel, had pushed up the price of grain used to feed poultry and dairy cows and other cattle, causing higher prices of wheat (up 58%), soybean (up 32%), and maize (up 11%) over the year. Food riot2007–2008 world food price crisisWorld food prices increased dramatically in 2007 and the 1st and 2nd quarter of 2008 creating a global crisis and causing political and economical instability and social unrest in both poor and developed nations. Systemic causes for the worldwide increases in food prices continue to be the subject...
s have recently taken place in many countries across the world. An epidemicEpidemicIn epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
of stem rust on wheatWheatWheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
caused by race Ug99 is currently spreading across AfricaAfricaAfrica is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
and into AsiaAsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
and is causing major concern. Scientists say millions of people face starvation. - Experimental accident: Investigations in nuclear and high energy physics could conceivably create unusual conditions with catastrophic consequences. For example, scientists worried that the first nuclear test might ignite the atmosphere. More recently, others worried that the RHIC or the Large Hadron Collider might start a chain-reaction global disaster involving black holes or false vacuum states. These particular concerns have been refuted, but the general concern remains.
- DysgenicsDysgenicsDysgenics is the study of factors producing the accumulation and perpetuation of defective or disadvantageous genes and traits in offspring of a particular population or species. Dysgenic mutations have been studied in animals such as the mouse and the fruit fly...
: Widespread occurrence of defective or disadvantageous human genes could cause a catastrophic decline in the quality of human life, or its total cessation. - HypercaneHypercaneA hypercane is a hypothetical class of extreme hurricane that could form if ocean temperatures reached around , which is warmer than the warmest ocean temperature ever recorded. Such an increase could be caused by a large asteroid or comet impact, a large volcanic, supervolcanic eruption, or very...
: A theoretical hurricane the size of a continent. The theory estimates that ocean temperatures would have to reach almost 50°C before storms of this size could occur. - Colony collapse disorderColony Collapse DisorderColony collapse disorder is a phenomenon in which worker bees from a beehive or European honey bee colony abruptly disappear. While such disappearances have occurred throughout the history of apiculture, the term colony collapse disorder was first applied to a drastic rise in the number of...
: The reduction or extinction of pollinating insects would result in the loss of most flowering plants and as a consequence a large number of agricultural crops. - Geomagnetic reversalGeomagnetic reversalA geomagnetic reversal is a change in the Earth's magnetic field such that the positions of magnetic north and magnetic south are interchanged. The Earth's field has alternated between periods of normal polarity, in which the direction of the field was the same as the present direction, and reverse...
: The magnetic poles of the Earth shifted many times in geologic history. The duration of such a shift is still debated, theories exist that say that during that time, the magnetic field around the Earth would be weakened or nonexistent, threatening electrical civilization or even several species by allowing radiation from the sun, especially solar flares or cosmic background radiation to reach the ground. - VerneshotVerneshotA verneshot is a hypothetical volcanic eruption event caused by the buildup of gas deep underneath a craton...
: A hypothetical volcanic eruption event caused by the buildup of gas deep underneath a cratonCratonA craton is an old and stable part of the continental lithosphere. Having often survived cycles of merging and rifting of continents, cratons are generally found in the interiors of tectonic plates. They are characteristically composed of ancient crystalline basement rock, which may be covered by...
. Such an event may be forceful enough to launch an extreme amount of material from the crustCrust (geology)In geology, the crust is the outermost solid shell of a rocky planet or natural satellite, which is chemically distinct from the underlying mantle...
and mantleMantle (geology)The mantle is a part of a terrestrial planet or other rocky body large enough to have differentiation by density. The interior of the Earth, similar to the other terrestrial planets, is chemically divided into layers. The mantle is a highly viscous layer between the crust and the outer core....
into a sub-orbital trajectoryTrajectoryA trajectory is the path that a moving object follows through space as a function of time. The object might be a projectile or a satellite, for example. It thus includes the meaning of orbit—the path of a planet, an asteroid or a comet as it travels around a central mass...
. Named after Jules VerneJules VerneJules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
.
Historical fictional scenarios
Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727) studied old texts and surmised that the end of the world would happen no earlier than 2060, although he was reluctant to put an exact date on it.The belief
2012 Doomsday prediction
The 2012 phenomenon comprises a range of eschatological beliefs that cataclysmic or transformative events will occur on December 21, 2012. This date is regarded as the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar...
that the Mayan civilization's Long Count calendar ends abruptly on December 21, 2012, is a misconception due to the Mayan practice of using only five places in Long Count Calendar inscriptions. On some monuments the Mayan calculated dates far into the past and future but there is no end of the world date. There will be a Piktun ending (a cycle of 13 144,000 day Bak'tuns) on December 21, 2012. A Piktun marks the end of a 1,872,000 day or approximately 5125 year period and is a significant event in the Mayan calendar. However, there is no historical or scientific evidence that the Mayas believed it would be a doomsday. Some believe it will just be the beginning of another Piktun.
The cataclysmic pole shift hypothesis was formulated in 1872. Revisited repeatedly in the second half of the 20th century, it proposes that the axis of the Earth with respect to the crust could change extremely rapidly, causing massive earthquakes, tsunamis, and damaging local climate changes. The hypothesis is contradicted by the mainstream scientific interpretation of geological data, which indicates that true polar wander
True polar wander
True polar wander is a solid-body rotation of a planet or moon with respect to its spin axis, causing the geographic locations of the North and South Poles to change, or "wander". In a stable state, the largest moments of inertia axis is aligned with the spin axis, with the smaller two moment of...
does occur, but very slowly over millions of years. Sometimes this hypothesis is confused with the accepted theory of geomagnetic reversal
Geomagnetic reversal
A geomagnetic reversal is a change in the Earth's magnetic field such that the positions of magnetic north and magnetic south are interchanged. The Earth's field has alternated between periods of normal polarity, in which the direction of the field was the same as the present direction, and reverse...
in which the magnetic poles reverse, but which has no influence on the axial poles or the rotation of the solid earth.
See also
- Doomsday eventDoomsday eventA doomsday event is a specific, plausibly verifiable or hypothetical occurrence which has an exceptionally destructive effect on the human race...
- Existential riskExistential riskExistential risks are dangers that have the potential to destroy, or drastically restrict, human civilization. They are distinguished from other forms of risk both by their scope, affecting all of humanity, and severity; destroying or irreversibly crippling the target.Natural disasters, such as...
- Extinction eventExtinction eventAn extinction event is a sharp decrease in the diversity and abundance of macroscopic life. They occur when the rate of extinction increases with respect to the rate of speciation...
- Human extinctionHuman extinctionHuman extinction is the end of the human species. Various scenarios have been discussed in science, popular culture, and religion . The scope of this article is existential risks. Humans are very widespread on the Earth, and live in communities which are capable of some kind of basic survival in...
- Last Days on EarthLast Days on EarthThe Last Days on Earth is a 20/20 science special which aired on ABC in August 2006 and has been aired on The History Channel. The show counts down the seven most likely ways in which the world could end, including gamma ray bursts, machine rule, asteroids, super volcanoes, nuclear war, pandemic...
- Malthusian catastropheMalthusian catastropheA Malthusian catastrophe was originally foreseen to be a forced return to subsistence-level conditions once population growth had outpaced agricultural production...
- Near-Earth supernovaNear-Earth supernovaA near-Earth supernova is an explosion resulting from the death of a star that occurs close enough to the Earth to have noticeable effects on its biosphere.-Effects on the planet:...
- PandemicPandemicA pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic...
- Peak food
- Planetary boundariesPlanetary boundariesPlanetary boundaries is the central concept in an Earth system framework proposed by a group of Earth system and environmental scientists led by Johan Rockström from the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Will Steffen from the Australian National University...
- Planetary managementPlanetary managementPlanetary management is intentional global-scale management of Earth's biological, chemical and physical processes and cycles . Planetary management also includes managing humanity’s influence on planetary-scale processes...
- Snowball EarthSnowball EarthThe Snowball Earth hypothesis posits that the Earth's surface became entirely or nearly entirely frozen at least once, some time earlier than 650 Ma . Proponents of the hypothesis argue that it best explains sedimentary deposits generally regarded as of glacial origin at tropical...
- Societal collapseSocietal collapseSocietal collapse broadly includes both quite abrupt societal failures typified by collapses , as well as more extended gradual declines of superpowers...
- Ultimate fate of the universeUltimate fate of the universeThe ultimate fate of the universe is a topic in physical cosmology. Many possible fates are predicted by rival scientific theories, including futures of both finite and infinite duration....
Further reading
- Derrick JensenDerrick JensenDerrick Jensen is an American author and environmental activist living in Crescent City, California. Jensen has published several books questioning and critiquing modern civilization and its values, including A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, and Endgame. He holds a B.S...
(2006) EndgameEndgame (Derrick Jensen books)Endgame is a two-volume work by Derrick Jensen, published in 2006, which argues that civilization is inherently unsustainable and addresses the resulting question of what to do about it. Volume 1, The Problem of Civilization, spells out the need to immediately and systematically destroy civilization...
. ISBN 1-58322-730-X - Jared DiamondJared DiamondJared Mason Diamond is an American scientist and author whose work draws from a variety of fields. He is currently Professor of Geography and Physiology at UCLA...
(2005). Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. ISBN 0-670-03337-5 - John Leslie (1996). The End of the World. ISBN 0-415-14043-9
External links
- Last Days On Earth (TV documentary) ABC News 2-hour Special Edition of 20/20 on 7 real end-of-the-world scenarios (Wed. Aug 30 2006)
- "What a way to go" from The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
. Ten scientists name the biggest danger to Earth and assesses the chances of it happening. April 14, 2005. - "Confronting the New Misanthropy", by Frank FurediFrank FurediFrank Furedi is professor of sociology at the University of Kent, United Kingdom. He is well known for his work on sociology of fear, therapy culture, paranoid parenting and sociology of knowledge....
in SpikedSpiked (magazine)Spiked is a British Internet magazine focusing on politics, culture and society from a humanist and libertarian viewpoint.- Editors and contributors :...
, April 18, 2006 - Ted.com (video) - Stephen Petranek: 10 ways the world could end