Hope is seldom more than a sliver as the stage darkens.
But there may always be a sliver of hope even if it is just
hope of being able to say you were right at the very end- but I doubt the ‘very
end’ will give any of us the final word, not in the face of current predicaments.
Because I doubt current predicaments will kill off the whole race. Maybe 99% of
the race, but even 1% of 10 billion is still 100 million. And I doubt that we
will fall below .01% which is still more than an order of magnitude greater
than the last close call with extinction that we nearly reached in prehistory.
Here is my rationale -
No single factor of industrial civilization collapse,
especially in a stair step style collapse, will cause the extinction of the
human species. At least absent deliberate attempt and racial suicide including
themselves by some nation ruling elite. There may only be thousands of
our race left, but some are likely to survive. Most ruling elite have no more
desire to commit suicide than most of us (probably less). Ipso Facto human extinction
from human causes is very unlikely. Massive depopulation because of human
stupidity and overshoot, is on the other hand, VERY likely in the near to moderate
run (decades to centuries) but depopulation is not extinction unless it reaches
100%.
Some of the human extinction threats that are overblown:
Radiation - less of threat than most people think. Plenty of
people near Hiroshima, Chernobyl, etc., lived long enough to have kids,
grandkids, and even great grandkids. Sure lives were shorter and less healthy,
and birth defects increased, but nothing that humans can’t deal with. Also the
most dangerous radiations are time and place limited -a few hundred years and
our descendants will be able to live only dozens of miles from the worst
effected spots – unhealthy with lots of birth defects and dying of cancer at 40
perhaps, but still living long enough to procreate.
Chemical pollutions - Probably more of a real threat than
radiation and possibly a longer lived threat, but just as with radiation, the
threat is not an extinction level concern without deliberate assistance from
human beings.
Biological agents - Disease is much more a threat to human
extinction but there are plenty of small tribes scattered over the world that
only have very intermittent contact with the rest of the world, tribes in
tropical jungles and tundra herdsmen, etc. Unless humans are again, deliberately
spreading plague to everyone, plague
won’t get to everyone until it begins evolving to less deadly strains.
Climate change – Humans survived ice ages and life has
survived all but the worst of the maximum forecast temperature increase, humans
have lived in almost every biome with the most primitive of technologies, why
should that change? Sure billions will die in a worst case scenario – but we
have a population of billions, it only takes a few tens of thousands to have
the necessary genetic diversity to prevent outright extinction (and modern
transport has helped increase genetic diversity massively in every corner of
the globe). Probably another miserable existence as compared to our current
luxury but not extinction causing.
Starvation – come on, same issue as any of the above, there
are little scattered pockets of humans who live mostly/completely off the
locally available resources. And at an extreme, human will prey upon other
humans aka: long pork, soylent green, etc. so there will be survivors up until
the natural biome has had a decently long while to re-adjust to whatever
conditions caused the initial starvation – and humans will be adapting to eat whatever
is available, even if it is merely lichens, cockroaches and rats.
And once any one aspect of industrial civilization collapse
has trimmed a significant proportion of the excess population it makes the
pressures of other human extinction events exacerbated by our population overshoot
that much less likely and less proportionately severe.
In my judgement the human race will survive as long as vertebra
life on earth can survive short of deliberate
suicide by EVERYONE. 7 of the 8 continents, and many, many, islands of the
planet have a self-sustaining year round population of humans, and Antarctica
may become nominally habitable due to climate change.
A few extreme acts of nature beyond human control (such as
major astronomical events) might destroy mammalian life on earth, but short of
that human extinction is unlikely.
If I am wrong I will pay out enough that you can bury my
body. Oooh, but if you are burying my body then you are still alive and I haven’t
yet been proven wrong….
Which brings up a good point, acceptance of the possibility
of one’s own demise should not mean that one behaves unnecessarily suicidal;
the same is true for the extinction of your tribe or species. One should do
ones best to preserve the best and most important parts one can in every case,
and prepare to do so no matter what.
So what is good or worthwhile about you? What about your
family, friends, community, nation, civilization, species, kingdom, phylum, etc.?
Is there nothing worth saving at any of those levels? If you can’t see anything
at any of those levels worth saving, I admit that it might be best for you as
an individual to remove your contribution and self from our world and recycle
the nutrients in your body back to nature.
But if there is anything worthwhile at any of those levels that
CAN be saved against any sort of future you can envision then you should
dedicate yourself to saving those worthwhile things. I think I, my family, my
friends, my communities, my nation, this civilization, and our species all have
some worthwhile things that make them worth saving – so I work to provide the
best chance possible for each of these worthwhile things that I can provide in
various ways. Despairing will only excuse a lack of attempt.
