Classifications[edit]
Scope/intensity grid from Bostrom's paper "Existential Risk Prevention as Global Priority"
[5]
Global catastrophic vs existential[edit]
Philosopher
Nick Bostromclassifies risks according to their scope and intensity.
[5] A "global catastrophic risk" is any risk that is at least "global" in scope, and is not subjectively "imperceptible" in intensity. Those that are at least "trans-generational" (affecting all future generations) in scope and "terminal" in intensity are classified as existential risks. While a global catastrophic risk may kill the vast majority of life on earth, humanity could still potentially recover. An existential risk, on the other hand, is one that either destroys humanity (and, presumably, all but the most rudimentary species of
non-human lifeforms and/or
plant life) entirely or prevents any chance of civilization recovering. Bostrom considers existential risks to be far more significant.
[6]
Other classifications[edit]
Bostrom identifies four types of existential risk. "Bangs" are sudden catastrophes, which may be accidental or deliberate. He thinks the most likely sources of bangs are malicious use of
nanotechnology,
nuclear war, and
the possibility that the universe is a simulation that will end. "Crunches" are scenarios in which humanity survives but civilization is irreversibly destroyed. The most likely causes of this, he believes, are
exhaustion of natural resources, a stable
global government that prevents technological progress, or
dysgenic pressures that lower average intelligence. "Shrieks" are undesirable futures. For example, if a single mind enhances its powers by merging with a computer, it could dominate human civilization. Bostrom believes that this scenario is most likely, followed by flawed superintelligence and a repressive totalitarian regime. "Whimpers" are the gradual decline of human civilization or current values. He thinks the most likely cause would be evolution changing moral preference, followed by extraterrestrial invasion.
[3]
Likelihood[edit]
Some risks, such as that from asteroid impact, with a one-in-a-million chance of causing humanity's extinction in the next century,
[8] have had their probabilities predicted with considerable precision (although some scholars claim the actual rate of large impacts could be much higher than originally calculated).
[9] Similarly, the frequency of volcanic eruptions of sufficient magnitude to cause catastrophic climate change, similar to the
Toba Eruption, which may have almost caused the extinction of the human race,
[10] has been estimated at about 1 in every 50,000 years.
[11] The 2016 annual report by the Global Challenges Foundation estimates that an average American is more than five times more likely to die during a human-extinction event than in a car crash.
[12][13]
The relative danger posed by other threats is much more difficult to calculate. In 2008, a small but illustrious group of experts on different global catastrophic risks at the Global Catastrophic Risk Conference at the
University of Oxford suggested a 19% chance of human extinction over the next century. However, the conference report cautions that the method used to average responses to the informal survey is suspect due to the treatment of non-responses.
[14]-
-
-
- Table source: Future of Humanity Institute, 2008.[14]
There are significant methodological challenges in estimating these risks with precision. Most attention has been given to risks to human civilization over the next 100 years, but forecasting for this length of time is difficult. The types of threats posed by nature may prove relatively constant, though new risks could be discovered. Anthropogenic threats, however, are likely to change dramatically with the development of new technology; while volcanoes have been a threat throughout history, nuclear weapons have only been an issue since the 20th century. Historically, the ability of experts to predict the future over these timescales has proved very limited. Man-made threats such as nuclear war or
nanotechnology are harder to predict than natural threats, due to the inherent methodological difficulties in the social sciences. In general, it is hard to estimate the magnitude of the risk from this or other dangers, especially as both international relations and technology can change rapidly.
Existential risks pose unique challenges to prediction, even more than other long-term events, because of
observation selection effects. Unlike with most events, the failure of a complete
extinction event to occur in the past is not evidence against their likelihood in the future, because every world that has experienced such an extinction event has no observers, so regardless of their frequency, no civilization observes existential risks in its history.
[4]These
anthropic issues can be avoided by looking at evidence that does not have such selection effects, such as asteroid impact craters on the Moon, or directly evaluating the likely impact of new technology.
[5]
Moral importance of existential risk[edit]
Some scholars have strongly favored reducing existential risk on the grounds that it greatly benefits future generations.
Derek Parfit argues that extinction would be a great loss because our descendants could potentially survive for four billion years before the
expansion of the Sun makes the Earth uninhabitable.
[15][16] Nick Bostromargues that there is even greater potential in colonizing space. If future humans colonize space, they may be able to support a very large number of people on other planets, potentially lasting for trillions of years.
[6] Therefore, reducing existential risk by even a small amount would have a very significant impact on the expected number of people who will exist in the future.
Little has been written arguing against these positions, but some scholars would disagree.
Exponential discountingmight make these future benefits much less significant. Gaverick Matheny has argued that such discounting is inappropriate when assessing the value of existential risk reduction.
[8]
Some economists have discussed the importance of global catastrophic risks, though not existential risks. Martin Weitzman argues that most of the expected economic damage from climate change may come from the small chance that warming greatly exceeds the mid-range expectations, resulting in catastrophic damage.
[17] Richard Posner has argued that we are doing far too little, in general, about small, hard-to-estimate risks of large scale catastrophes.
[18]
Scope insensitivity influences how bad people consider the extinction of the human race to be. For example, when people are motivated to donate money to altruistic causes, the quantity they are willing to give does not increase linearly with the magnitude of the issue: people are roughly as concerned about 200,000 birds getting stuck in oil as they are about 2,000.
[20] Similarly, people are often more concerned about threats to individuals than to larger groups.
[19]
There are economic reasons that can explain why little effort is going into existential risk reduction as well. It is a global good, so even if a large nation decreases it, that nation will only enjoy a small fraction of the benefit of doing so. Furthermore, the vast majority of the benefits may be enjoyed by far future generations, and though these quadrillions of future people would be willing to pay massive sums for existential risk reduction, the obvious transaction difficulties prevent them from doing so.
[5]
Potential sources of risk[edit]
Some sources of catastrophic risk are natural, such as meteor impacts or supervolcanos. The most common concern in this category is global warming or environmental degradation. Some of these have caused mass extinctions in the past.
On the other hand, some risks are man-made, such as engineered pandemics and nuclear war. According to the
Future of Humanity Institute, human extinction is more likely to result from anthropogenic causes than natural causes.
[5][21]
Anthropogenic[edit]
In 2012,
Cambridge University created
The Cambridge Project for Existential Risk which examines threats to humankind caused by developing technologies.
[22] The stated aim is to establish within the University a multidisciplinary research centre,
Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, dedicated to the scientific study and mitigation of existential risks of this kind.
[22]
The Cambridge Project states that the "greatest threats" to the human species are man-made; they are artificial intelligence, global warming, nuclear war, and rogue biotechnology.
[23]
Artificial intelligence[edit]
It has been suggested that
learning computers that rapidly become
superintelligent may take unforeseen actions or that
robots would out-compete humanity (one
technological singularity scenario).
[24] 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 objectives.
[25] 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.
[25] In Bostrom's book,
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, he defines this as the control problem.
[26]
Vernor Vinge has suggested that a moment may come when computers and robots are smarter than humans. He calls this "
the Singularity."
[27] He suggests that it may be somewhat or possibly very dangerous for humans.
[28] This is discussed by a philosophy called
Singularitarianism.
Physicist
Stephen Hawking,
Microsoft founder
Bill Gates and
SpaceX founder
Elon Musk have expressed concerns about the possibility that AI could evolve to the point that humans could not control it, with Hawking theorizing that this could "spell the end of the human race".
[29] 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.
[27] 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.
[30][31]Eliezer Yudkowsky believes that risks from artificial intelligence are harder to predict than any other known risks. He also argues that research into artificial intelligence is biased by
anthropomorphism. Since people base their judgments of artificial intelligence on their own experience, he claims that they underestimate the potential power of AI. He distinguishes between risks due to technical failure of AI, which means that flawed algorithms prevent the AI from carrying out its intended goals, and philosophical failure, which means that the AI is programmed to realize a flawed ideology.
[32]
Biotechnology[edit]
Biotechnology can pose a global catastrophic risk in the form of natural pathogens or novel, engineered ones. Such a catastrophe may be brought about by usage in warfare, terrorist attacks or by accident.
[33] Terrorist applications of biotechnology have historically been infrequent.
[33] To what extent this is due to a lack of capabilities or motivation is not resolved.
[33]
Exponential growth has been observed in the
biotechnology sector and Noun and Chyba predict that this will lead to major increases in biotechnological capabilities in the coming decades.
[33] They argue that risks from
biological warfare and
bioterrorism are distinct from nuclear and chemical threats because biological pathogens are easier to mass-produce and their production is hard to control (especially as the technological capabilities are becoming available even to individual users).
[33]
Given current development, more risk from novel, engineered pathogens is to be expected in the future.
[33] It has been hypothesized that there is an upper bound on the virulence (deadliness) of naturally occurring pathogens.
[34]But pathogens may be intentionally or unintentionally genetically modified to change virulence and other characteristics.
[33] A group of Australian researchers unintentionally changed characteristics of the
mousepox virus while trying to develop a virus to sterilize rodents.
[33] The modified virus became highly lethal even in vaccinated and naturally resistant mice.
[35][36] The technological means to genetically modify virus characteristics are likely to become more widely available in the future if not properly regulated.
[33]
Noun and Chyba propose three categories of measures to reduce risks from biotechnology and natural pandemics: Regulation or prevention of potentially dangerous research, improved recognition of outbreaks and developing facilities to mitigate disease outbreaks (e.g. better and/or more widely distributed vaccines).
[33]
Global warming[edit]
Global warming refers to the warming caused by human technology since the 19th century or earlier. Global warming reflects abnormal variations to the expected climate within the Earth's atmosphere and subsequent effects on other parts of the Earth. Projections of future climate change suggest further global warming, sea level rise, and an increase in the frequency and severity of some extreme weather events and weather-related disasters. Effects of global warming include loss of biodiversity, stresses to existing food-producing systems, increased spread of known infectious diseases such as malaria, and rapid mutation of
microorganisms.
It has been suggested that runaway global warming (
runaway climate change) might cause Earth to become searingly hot like Venus. In less extreme scenarios, it could cause the end of civilization as we know it.
[37]
Ecological disaster[edit]
An ecological disaster, such as world crop failure and collapse of
ecosystem services, could be induced by the present trends of
overpopulation,
economic development,
[38] 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,
[39] a phenomenon that might foreshadow the imminent extinction
[40] of the
Western honeybee. As the bee plays a vital role in pollination, its extinction would severely disrupt the food chain.
Experimental technology accident[edit]
Nick Bostrom suggested that in the pursuit of knowledge, humanity might inadvertently create a device that could destroy Earth and the Solar System.
[41] Investigations in nuclear and high-energy physics could create unusual conditions with catastrophic consequences. For example, scientists worried that the
first nuclear test might ignite the atmosphere.
[42][43] More recently, others
worried that the RHIC[44] or the
Large Hadron Collider might start a chain-reaction global disaster involving black holes, strangelets, or false vacuum states. These particular concerns have been refuted,
[45][46][47][48] but the general concern remains.
Nanotechnology[edit]
Many nanoscale technologies are in development or currently in use.
[50] The only one that appears to pose a significant global catastrophic risk is
molecular manufacturing, a technique that would make it possible to build complex structures at atomic precision.
[51] Molecular manufacturing requires significant advances in nanotechnology, but once achieved could produce highly advanced products at low costs and in large quantities in nanofactories of desktop proportions.
[50][51] When nanofactories gain the ability to produce other nanofactories, production may only be limited by relatively abundant factors such as input materials, energy and software.
[50]
Molecular manufacturing could be used to cheaply produce, among many other products, highly advanced, durable weapons.
[50] Being equipped with compact computers and motors these could be increasingly autonomous and have a large range of capabilities.
[50]
Phoenix and Treder classify catastrophic risks posed by nanotechnology into three categories:
- From augmenting the development of other technologies such as AI and biotechnology.
- By enabling mass-production of potentially dangerous products that cause risk dynamics (such as arms races) depending on how they are used.
- From uncontrolled self-perpetuating processes with destructive effects.
At the same time, nanotechnology may be used to alleviate several other global catastrophic risks.
[50]
Several researchers state that the bulk of risk from nanotechnology comes from the potential to lead to war, arms races and destructive global government.
[35][50][52] Several reasons have been suggested why the availability of nanotech weaponry may with significant likelihood lead to unstable arms races (compared to e.g. nuclear arms races):
- A large number of players may be tempted to enter the race since the threshold for doing so is low;[50]
- The ability to make weapons with molecular manufacturing will be cheap and easy to hide;[50]
- Therefore, lack of insight into the other parties' capabilities can tempt players to arm out of caution or to launch preemptive strikes;[50][53]
- Molecular manufacturing may reduce dependency on international trade,[50] a potential peace-promoting factor;
- Wars of aggression may pose a smaller economic threat to the aggressor since manufacturing is cheap and humans may not be needed on the battlefield.[50]
Since self-regulation by all state and non-state actors seems hard to achieve,
[54] measures to mitigate war-related risks have mainly been proposed in the area of
international cooperation.
[50][55] International infrastructure may be expanded giving more sovereignty to the international level. This could help coordinate efforts for arms control. International institutions dedicated specifically to nanotechnology (perhaps analogously to the International Atomic Energy Agency
IAEA) or general arms control may also be designed.
[55] One may also jointly make
differential technological progress on defensive technologies, a policy that players should usually favour.
[50] The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology also suggests some technical restrictions.
[56] Improved transparency regarding technological capabilities may be another important facilitator for arms-control.
A
grey goo is another catastrophic scenario, which was proposed by
Eric Drexler in his 1986 book
Engines of Creation[57] and has been a theme in mainstream media and fiction.
[58][59] This scenario involves tiny
self-replicating robots that consume the entire biosphere using it as a source of energy and building blocks. Nowadays, however, nanotech experts - including Drexler - discredit the scenario. According to
Chris Phoenix a "so-called grey goo could only be the product of a deliberate and difficult engineering process, not an accident".
[60]
Warfare and mass destruction[edit]
The scenarios that have been explored most frequently are nuclear warfare and
doomsday devices. Although the probability of a
nuclear war per year is slim, Professor
Martin Hellman, described it as inevitable in the long run; unless the probability approaches zero, inevitably there will come a day when civilization's luck runs out.
[61] During the Cuban missile crisis, U.S. President
John F. Kennedy estimated the odds of nuclear war as being "somewhere between one out of three and even".
[62] The United States and Russia have a combined
arsenal of 14,700
nuclear weapons,
[63] and there is an estimated total of 15,700 nuclear weapons in existence worldwide.
[63]
While popular perception sometimes takes nuclear war as "the end of the world", experts assign low probability to human extinction from nuclear war.
[64][65] In 1982,
Brian Martin estimated that a US–Soviet nuclear exchange might kill 400–450 million directly, mostly in the United States, Europe and Russia and maybe several hundred million more through follow-up consequences in those same areas.
[64]
Nuclear war could yield unprecedented human
death tolls and
habitat destruction. Detonating such a large amount of nuclear weaponry would have a long-term effect on the climate, causing
cold weather and reduced
sunlight[66]that may generate significant upheaval in advanced civilizations.
[67]
World population and agricultural crisis[edit]
The 20th century saw a rapid increase in
human population due to
medical developments and massive increases in agricultural productivity
[68] such as the
Green Revolution.
[69] 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.
[70] 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.
[71]
The authors of this study believe that the mentioned agricultural crisis will begin to impact us after 2020, and will become critical after 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.
[72][73]
Wheat is humanity's 3rd most produced cereal. Extant fungal infections such as
Ug99[74] (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.
[75]
Non-anthropogenic[edit]
Asteroid impact[edit]
Several asteroids have collided with earth in recent geological history. The
Chicxulub asteroid, for example, is theorized to have caused the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago at the
end of the Cretaceous. 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 (0.62 mi) in diameter, but probably between 3 and 10 km (2–6 miles).
[76] Asteroids with a 1 km diameter have impacted the Earth on average once every 500,000 years.
[76] Larger asteroids are less common. Small
near-Earth asteroids are regularly observed.
In 1.4 million years, the star
Gliese 710 is expected to start causing an increase in the number of meteoroids in the vicinity of Earth when it passes within 1.1
light years of the Sun,
perturbing the
Oort cloud. Dynamic models by García-Sánchez predict a 5% increase in the rate of impact.
[77] Objects perturbed from the Oort cloud take millions of years to reach the inner Solar System.
Extraterrestrial life could invade Earth
[78] either to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it under a colonial system, steal the planet's resources, or destroy the planet altogether.
Although evidence of alien life has never been documented, 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 United States
Code of Federal Regulations (Title 14, Section 1211) in response to the possibility of biological contamination resulting from the
U.S. Apollo Space Program. It was removed in 1991.
[79] Scientists consider such a scenario technically possible, but unlikely.
[80]
Climate change[edit]
Climate change refers to a lasting change in the Earth's climate. The climate has ranged from ice ages to warmer periods when palm trees grew in Antarctica. It has been hypothesized that there was also a period called "
snowball Earth" when all the oceans were covered in a layer of ice. These global climatic changes occurred slowly, prior to the rise of human civilization about 10 thousand years ago near the end of the last
Major Ice Age when the climate became more stable. However,
abrupt climate change on the decade time scale has occurred regionally. Since civilization originated during a period of stable climate, a natural variation into a new climate regime (colder or hotter) could pose a threat to civilization.
In the history of the Earth, many ice ages are known to have occurred. More
ice ages will be possible at an interval of 40,000–100,000 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 and water. Currently, the world is existing in an
interglacial periodwithin a much older glacial event. The last glacial expansion ended about 10,000 years ago, and all civilizations evolved later than this. Scientists do not predict that a natural ice age will occur anytime soon.
Cosmic threats[edit]
A number of astronomical threats have been identified. Massive objects, e.g. a star, large planet or
black hole, could be catastrophic if a close encounter occurred in the Solar System. 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 Earth, all life on Earth could be obliterated: an asteroid 15 km wide is believed to have caused the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs, whereas Mercury is 4,879 km in diameter.
[81]
A similar threat is a
hypernova, produced when a
hypergiant star explodes and then collapses, sending vast amounts of radiation sweeping across hundreds of
lightyears. Hypernovas have never been observed; however, a hypernova may have been the cause of the
Ordovician–Silurian extinction events. The nearest hypergiant is
Eta Carinae, approximately 8,000 light-years distant.
[84] The hazards from various astrophysical radiation sources were reviewed in 2011.
[85]
A powerful
solar flare or solar superstorm, which is a drastic and unusual decrease or increase in the Sun's power output, could have severe consequences for life on Earth.
If our universe lies within a
false vacuum, a bubble of lower-energy vacuum could come to exist by chance or otherwise in our universe, and catalyze the conversion of our universe to a lower energy state in a volume expanding at nearly the speed of light, destroying all that we know without forewarning.
[87][further explanation needed]Such an occurrence is called a
vacuum metastability event.
Geomagnetic reversal[edit]
The magnetic poles of the Earth shifted many times in geologic history. The duration of such a shift is still debated. Theories exist that during such times, the
Earth's magnetic field would be substantially weakened, threatening civilization by allowing radiation from the Sun, especially
solar wind,
solar flares or
cosmic radiation, to reach the surface. These theories have been somewhat discredited, as statistical analysis shows no evidence for a correlation between past reversals and past extinctions.
[88][89]
Global pandemic[edit]
The death toll for a pandemic is equal to the virulence (deadliness) of the pathogen or pathogens, multiplied by the number of people eventually infected. It has been hypothesised that there is an upper limit to the virulence of naturally
evolved pathogens.
[34] 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.
[90] 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.
[91] 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.
[34] The size of the host population and competition between different strains of pathogens can also alter virulence.
[92] However, 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.
[93]There are numerous historical examples of pandemics
[94] that have had a devastating effect on a large number of people, which makes the possibility of global pandemic a realistic threat to human civilization.
Megatsunami[edit]
A remote possibility is a megatsunami. It has been suggested that a megatsunami caused by the collapse of a volcanic island could, for example, destroy the entire East Coast of the United States, but such predictions are based on incorrect assumptions and the likelihood of this happening has been greatly exaggerated in the media.
[95] While none of these scenarios are 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.
[96]
Volcanism[edit]
A geological event such as massive
flood basalt, volcanism, or the eruption of a supervolcano
[97] could lead to a so-called volcanic winter, similar to a
nuclear winter. One such event, the
Toba eruption,
[98] occurred in Indonesia about 71,500 years ago. According to the
Toba catastrophe theory,
[99] the event may have reduced human populations to only a few tens of thousands of individuals.
Yellowstone Caldera is another such supervolcano, having undergone 142 or more
caldera-forming eruptions in the past 17 million years.
[100] A massive volcano eruption would eject extraordinary volumes of volcanic dust, toxic and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere with serious effects on global climate (towards extreme global cooling;
volcanic winter if short term, and ice age if long term) or
global warming (if greenhouse gases were to prevail).
When the supervolcano at
Yellowstone 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.
[101]Another such eruption could threaten civilization.
Research published in 2011 finds evidence that massive volcanic eruptions caused massive coal combustion, supporting models for significant generation of greenhouse gases. Researchers have suggested that massive volcanic eruptions through coal beds in Siberia would generate significant greenhouse gases and cause a
runaway greenhouse effect.
[102] Massive eruptions can also throw enough pyroclastic debris and other material into the atmosphere to partially block out the sun and cause a
volcanic winter, as happened on a smaller scale 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
[103] worldwide, due to the failure of the
monsoon[citation needed], resulting in major crop failures causing starvation on a massive scale.
[103]
A much more speculative concept is the
Verneshot: a hypothetical volcanic eruption caused by the buildup of gas deep underneath a
craton. Such an event may be forceful enough to launch an extreme amount of material from the
crust and
mantle into a
sub-orbital trajectory.
Precautions and prevention[edit]
- Some survivalists stocking survival retreats with multiple-year food supplies.
- The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which is a vault buried 400 feet (120 m) inside a mountain in the Arctic with over ten tons of seeds from all over the world. 100 million seeds from more than 100 countries were placed inside as a precaution to preserve all the world’s crops. A prepared box of rice originating from 104 countries was the first to be deposited in the vault, where it will be kept at −18 °C (0 °F). Thousands more plant species will be added as organizers attempt to get specimens of every agricultural plant in the world. Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust said that by preserving as many varieties as possible, the options open to farmers, scientists and governments were maximized. “The opening of the seed vault marks a historic turning point in safeguarding the world’s crop diversity,” he said. Even if the permafrost starts to melt, the seeds will be safe inside the vault for up to 200 years. Some of the seeds will even be viable for a millennium or more, including barley, which can last 2,000 years, wheat (1,700 years), and sorghum (almost 20,000 years).[108]
Organizations[edit]
The
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (est. 1945) is one of the oldest global risk organizations, founded after the public became alarmed by the potential of atomic warfare in the aftermath of WWII. It studies risks associated with nuclear war and energy and famously maintains the
Doomsday Clock established in 1947. The
Foresight Institute(est. 1986) examines the risks of nanotechnology and its benefits. It was one of the earliest organizations to study the unintended consequences of otherwise harmless technology gone haywire at a global scale. It was founded by
K. Eric Drexler who postulated "
grey goo".
[109][110]
Beginning after 2000, a growing number of scientists, philosophers and tech billionaires created organizations devoted to studying global risks both inside and outside of academia.
[111]
Independent
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) include the
Machine Intelligence Research Institute (est. 2000) which aims to reduce the risk of a catastrophe caused by artificial intelligence and the
Singularity.
[112] The top donors include
Peter Thiel and
Jed McCaleb.
[113] The Lifeboat Foundation (est. 2009) funds research into preventing a technological catastrophe.
[114] Most of the research money funds projects at universities.
[115] The Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (est. 2011) is a think tank for all things catastrophic risk. It is funded by the NGO Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs. The
Global Challenges Foundation (est. 2012), based in Stockholm and founded by Laszlo Szombatfalvy, releases a year report on the state of global risks.
[12][13] The
Future of Life Institute (est. 2014) aims to support research and initiatives for safeguarding life considering new technologies and challenges facing humanity.
[116] Elon Musk is one of its biggest donors.
[117] The Nuclear Threat Initiative seeks to reduce global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical threats, and containment of damage after an event.
[118]It maintains a nuclear material security index.
[119]
University-based organizations include the
Future of Humanity Institute (est. 2005) which researches the questions of humanity's long-term future, particularly existential risk. It was founded by
Nick Bostrom and is based at Oxford University. The
Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (est. 2012) is a Cambridge-based organization which studies four major technological risks: artificial intelligence, biotechnology, global warming and warfare. All are man-made risks, as
Huw Price explained to the AFP news agency, "It seems a reasonable prediction that some time in this or the next century intelligence will escape from the constraints of biology". He added that when this happens "we're no longer the smartest things around," and will risk being at the mercy of "machines that are not malicious, but machines whose interests don't include us."
[120] Stephen Hawking is an acting adviser. The Millennium Alliance for Humanity & The Biosphere is a Stanford University-based organization focusing on many issues related to global catastrophe by bringing together members of academic in the humanities.
[121][122] It was founded by
Paul Ehrlich among others.
[123] Stanford University also has the
Center for International Security and Cooperationfocusing on political cooperation to reduce global catastrophic risk.
[124]
Other risk assessment groups are based in or are part of governmental organizations. The
World Health Organization (WHO) includes a division called the Global Alert and Response (GAR) which monitors and responds to global epidemic crisis.
[125] GAR helps member states with training and coordination of response to epidemics.
[126] The
United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has its Emerging Pandemic Threats Program which aims to prevent and contain naturally generated pandemics at their source.
[127] The
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has a division called the Global Security Principal Directorate which researches on behalf of the government issues such as bio-security, counter-terrorism, etc.
