In 2014 John Brockman published a fascinating book called “What Is Your Dangerous Idea?: Today’s Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable.” This is my dangerous idea… that catastrophe is unavoidable.
I hope I am wrong, but I fear I am right. What I fear is that our species is barreling toward a collapse of civilization as we know it, because of a convergence of factors that we are unable to control. These factors include:
- Ecological Overshoot – Analyses show that our global ecological footprint divided by biocapacity is about 1.7 and increasing (we passed the 1.0 level in the early 1970s), which means we are rapidly depleting the earth’s natural resources faster than they can be renewed (Ecological Footprint Initiative, 2023). This is called ecological overshoot, and there must be a price to be paid for this – just as spending more money than one earns will eventually result in bankruptcy. In fact, research by the Stockholm Resilience Centre suggests that we are exceeding planetary boundaries in 5 critical areas, these being climate change, genetic diversity, land-system change, biogeochemical flows, and novel entities. Together, these overshoots create a “perfect storm” of environmental destruction.
- Climate change – the emission of greenhouse gases continues, leading to an ever-increasing load of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Though the timing and distribution of impacts are uncertain, what is virtually certain is that we will eventually pass “tipping points” that will have catastrophic consequences, possibly by mid-century (Armstrong et al., 2022, Ditlevsen & Ditlevsen, 2023).
- Globalization – Though globalization has created many benefits it also makes us vulnerable to sudden shocks, which rapidly ripple through the world’s political, economic, and social systems. This means that when climate tipping points are passed the consequences will be global and dramatic. Cheong and Jones (2020) suggest that the new Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are overpopulation, globalization, hyperconnectivity, and extreme centralization. These four horsemen are galloping forward at an alarming rate.
- The Tragedy of the Commons – Our ability to manage large-scale risks is limited by libertarian and individualistic values. In this globalized and hyperconnected world, many of our existential problems can only be solved by communitarian approaches where we work together towards the common good. But we continue to fight wars, often compete more than we cooperate, and engage in short-term thinking, all of which hamstring the kind of policies and actions needed to deal with global problems. The world is not a bunch of lifeboats – it is a spaceship where we are mutually dependent. The “distant other” is now, not so far away. The Tragedy of the Commons is based upon the idea that what is rational at small scales becomes increasingly irrational as aggregation occurs. For example, it makes sense for any one country to have nuclear weapons if other countries have them, but the aggregation of nuclear powers is irrational with respect to the risk of nuclear war, which increases with this aggregation.
- A Post-Truth Society – Increasingly, it is becoming difficult for citizens to agree on basic facts and truths. Social media and artificial intelligence, though providing great benefits, are also tools for malicious actors and conspiracy theorists who are effective at derailing promising solutions (Lewandowsky et al., 2017). In a post-truth society, political and social consensus and compromise are elusive. We need great leaders to help us escape this trap, but sadly, they are notable by their absence.
History suggests that the human response to risk is dominated by two strategies – being reactive and being incremental. This can work well in a stable environment that is well understood and where stakeholders agree on fundamental perspectives – but tends to fail when environments are changing rapidly and groups retreat into tribal politics, which is where much of the world sits at this time. Within the current global context that we now live in, our collective risk intelligence sucks.
So, this is my dangerous idea –like the story of lemmings running off a cliff, our species is unable to veer from our destructive path – we are doomed to catastrophe.
Armstrong McKay, D. I., Staal, A., Abrams, J. F., Winkelmann, R., Sakschewski, B., Loriani, S., … & Lenton, T. M. (2022). Exceeding 1.5 C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points. Science, 377(6611), eabn7950.
Brockman, J., Pinke, S., & Dawkins, R. (2007). What is your dangerous idea?: Today’s leading thinkers on the unthinkable. Harper Collins, New York.
Cheong, K. H., & Jones, M. C. (2020). Introducing the 21st century’s new four horsemen of the Coronapocalypse. BioEssays, 42(7), 2000063
Ditlevsen, P., & Ditlevsen, S. (2023). Warning of a forthcoming collapse of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. Nature Communications, 14(1), 1-12.
Ecological Footprint Initiative, York University, https://footprint.info.yorku.ca/. Accessed Nov. 28, 2023.
Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K., & Cook, J. (2017). Beyond misinformation: Understanding and coping with the “post-truth” era. Journal of applied research in memory and cognition, 6(4), 353-369.
Persson, L., Carney Almroth, B. M., Collins, C. D., Cornell, S., de Wit, C. A., Diamond, M. L., … & Hauschild, M. Z. (2022). Outside the Safe Operating Space of the Planetary Boundary for Novel Entities. Environmental science & technology.