I’ve been talking about the Great Human Die-off for years and have felt like somewhat of a crackpot for doing so. I’ve usually qualified it as just my opinion based on hearing and reading a lot of environmental science.
Now, it seems that the idea of human extinction within the time frame of those alive today is no longer such a crackpot idea.
Human Extinction Isn’t That Unlikely
The implications are huge. If you wear a seat belt to protect you in the relatively unlikely case of a car crash, you probably want to take some precautions against something that is 5 times more likely to kill you … along with every single man, woman, and child on the planet.
What are the global implications in our action on climate change, reduction of nuclear warheads, or precautions against an unforeseen pandemic? Thus far, we’re doing basically nothing about most of these. We’ve reduced nuclear warheads a bit, but not enough to bring the number below global ecosystem destruction levels.
I would not be too optimistic about tackling any of these issues.
Consider this quote and remember where the nuclear weapons are and the highest per capita carbon output. Actually, the U.S. is still the largest producer of carbon dioxide if you consider that a third of China’s CO2 is to make stuff for the U.S., i.e. is our outsourced carbon.
[Sebastian Farquhar, the director of the Global Priorities Project] also thought many problems could be helped if democratic institutions had some kind of ombudsman or committee to represent the interests of future generations. (This strikes me as a distinctly European proposal—in the United States, the national politics of a “representative of future generations” would be thrown off by the abortion debate and unborn personhood, I think.)
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