Global Crisis Collaboration: The Key to the Survival of Civilization in the 2st Century

Abstract

In the 21st century, civilization is threatened by multiple, interactive crises, any one of which could, in a worst case scenario, cause a huge reduction of population size and even human extinction. In short, both the planet and human society, including its economic system, are changing rapidly because tipping points have been passed and return to predisturbance condition is improbable. The primary areas in which humankind must adapt or take immediate remedial action include: (1) global climate change, (2) acidification of oceans, (3) overpopulation, (4) ecological overshoot, (5) damage to the biospheric life support system. Since risks and security are intimately connected, humankind must be very concerned. Improvishing policies to resolve all these crises is essential since natural selection does not offer the option of coping with one crisis at a time. Economic globalization of a human population of nearly 7 billion has exacerbated problems that can only be resolved by global collaboration. Failure to do so successfully might well end in a populaiton crash that would return Homo sapiens to its original state of small tribal groups spread thinly over the planet. Even if this catastrophe occurs, the small groups will have to adapt to conditions quite different from those that characterized the period of exponential growth.