How Will Humanity Go Extinct?
What are the chances that humans will go extinct in the next hundred years? It depends on who you ask.
The 2006 Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change estimated there is a 9.5 percent chance, while the Future of Humanity Institute’s survey estimated 19 percent. Martin Rees, co-founder of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge University argues that civilization has a 50/50 chance of making it through the 21st century.
To give some context, 99.9 percent of all species that ever existed on Earth are already extinct. Usually, species die out for natural reasons or because of a natural disaster, like that which killed the dinosaurs. It is possible that another asteroid will hit Earth, but many believe that a man-made threat is actually more likely to cause human extinction.
Bill Perry, a former US Secretary of Defense, said that "nuclear war between the United States and Russia would mean no less than the end of civilization."
In 2017, it was estimated that there are 15,000 nuclear weapons in nine countries, though less than a third of them are thought to be deployed.
In 1947, a group of scientists created a clock which represents how close humanity is to the threat of nuclear war. The closer the clock is to midnight, the closer we are to a global catastrophe. Since January 2018, it has been two minutes away.
Very recently, the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change issued a report stating that the world is warming faster than previously thought. According to the authors, global carbon emissions must be reduced to zero by the middle of the century to stop global warming exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius.
If this goal is not reached, the authors warn, large areas of land would disappear as sea levels rise, leading to mass displacement, and it would become impossible to produce enough food to feed the world's population.
Sadly, that's not all we have to be concerned about. Scientists also warn that antibiotic resistance could lead to the "end of modern medicine," as Sally Davies, Britain's Chief medical officer, puts it. Others believe that artificial intelligence is a serious threat to humanity. Stephen Hawking argued that "success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history – unfortunately, it might also be the last."
