Global Catastrophic Research Articles

Climate change, uncertainty, and global catastrophic risk

The status of climate change as a global catastrophic risk is a significant point of contention. Some research characterizes climate change as a grave threat to human civilization; other research characterizes it as having relatively mild severity. This article provides a perspective on how to evaluate the considerable uncertainty about the potential for climate change to cause global catastrophe. The article shows that some prior literature has understated the basis for regarding climate change as a global catastrophic risk. In particular, the high uncertainty about climate change makes it more likely to be a global catastrophic risk and more likely to be a large global catastrophic risk. Additionally, a comparison to nuclear winter shows that much of the uncertainty about climate change as a global catastrophic risk comes from complex systems interaction in more moderate climate change scenarios. The article finds that, based on the body of evidence currently available, climate change should indeed be considered to be a global catastrophic risk. Implications for the general study of global catastrophic risk are also presented.

Wood Gasification: A Promising Strategy to Extend Fuel Reserves after Global Catastrophic Electricity Loss

Wood Gasification: A Promising Strategy to Extend Fuel Reserves after Global Catastrophic Electricity Loss

Mitigating imported fuel dependency in agricultural production: Case study of an island nation's vulnerability to global catastrophic risks.

A major global catastrophe would likely disrupt trade in liquid fuels. Countries dependent on imported oil products might struggle to sustain industrial agriculture. Island nations importing 100% of refined fuels are particularly vulnerable. Our case study aimed to estimate the agricultural land area and biofuel volumes needed to feed the population of New Zealand in the absence of trade. Results showed that stored diesel would quickly be exhausted with ordinary use (weeks) and even with strict rationing (months). To preserve fuel, we found that farming wheat (requiring as little as 5.4 million liters [L] of diesel per annum) was more fuel-efficient than potatoes (12.3) or dairy (38.7) to feed the national population under a climate-as-usual scenario. In a nuclear winter scenario, with reduced agricultural yields, proportionately greater diesel is needed. The wheat would require 24% of current grain-cropped land, and the canola crop used as feedstock for the required biofuel would occupy a further 1%-7%. Investment in canola biodiesel or renewable diesel refineries could ensure supply for the bare minimum agricultural liquid fuel needs. Were subsequent analysis to favor this option as part of a fuels resilience response and as a tradeoff for routine food use, expansion in refining and canola cropping before a catastrophe could be encouraged through market mechanisms, direct government investment, or a combination of these. Logistics of biofuel refining scale-up, post-catastrophe, should also be analyzed. Further, biodiesel produced in normal times would help the nation meet its emissions reduction targets. Other countries should conduct similar analyses.

Science Diplomacy, Global Catastrophic Risks, and Global Governance: A Required Interaction

This study is a focused literature review that looked at scientific papers and books on the link between science diplomacy and global governance in confronting global catastrophic risks and how it was reflected in the development of the contemporary discussion on science diplomacy. Its goal was to contribute to the recommendations on tackling global challenges. To this end, the study focused on the three dimensions of science diplomacy, the nature of the global risks in our hyper globalized world, and the gaps in global governance. The data were drawn from reliable sources and highlighted the qualitative approach to delve into the case. The study (1) defined science diplomacy and outlined its largely unexplored agenda of competition, (2) identified global systemic risks and the weak points in the structure of the complex international system, (3) described the urgent need to fill the gaps in global governance, and (4) explored the roles of both state and nonstate actors in using science in international relations. It thus addressed the interactions between science diplomacy actors and global governance actors. It uncovered aspects of interactions that may clarify the debate about science diplomacy and global governance and may help in tackling global challenges.

Comparison between TED Talks and scientific articles: global catastrophe risks

The emergence of global catastrophic risks, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, highlights the need to popularize scientific knowledge, in order to disseminate the best practices for combating, preventing and mitigating ongoing environmental, social, economic, geopolitical and technological threats. From this perspective, this article seeks to validate the scientific knowledge publicly available through the online lecture platform TED Talks. The methodology applied was qualitative analysis through comparison between information from scientific databases, with a systematic review of the literature, and analysis of 32 video lectures. The results point to a convergence between the understanding published in scientific articles about global catastrophic risks and the knowledge popularized by the digital lecture platform analyzed.

Innovate and Stockpile: Respiratory Protection for Essential Workers in a Catastrophic Pandemic.

Innovate and Stockpile: Respiratory Protection for Essential Workers in a Catastrophic Pandemic.

Guarding Against Catastrophic Biological Risks: Preventing State Biological Weapon Development and Use by Shaping Intentions.

Guarding Against Catastrophic Biological Risks: Preventing State Biological Weapon Development and Use by Shaping Intentions.

Assessing natural global catastrophic risks.

The risk of global catastrophe from natural sources may be significantly larger than previous analyses have found. In the study of global catastrophic risk (GCR), one line of thinking posits that deep human history renders natural GCRs insignificant. Essentially, the fact that natural hazards did not cause human extinction at any previous time makes it unlikely that they would do so now. This paper finds flaws in this argument, refines the theory of natural GCR, analyzes the space of natural GCRs, and presents implications for decision-making and research. The paper analyzes natural climate change, natural pandemics, near-Earth objects (asteroids, comets, and meteors), space weather (coronal mass ejections, solar flares, and solar particle events), stellar explosions (gamma-ray bursts and supernovae), and volcanic eruptions. Almost all natural GCR scenarios involve important interactions between the natural hazard and human civilization. Several natural GCR scenarios may have high ongoing probability. Deep human history provides little information about the resilience of modern global civilization to natural global catastrophes. The natural GCRs should not be dismissed on grounds of deep human history. Work on natural GCRs should account for their important human dimensions. A case can even be made for abandoning the distinction between natural and anthropogenic GCR.

Methane Single Cell Protein: Potential to Secure a Global Protein Supply Against Catastrophic Food Shocks.

Global catastrophes such as a supervolcanic eruption, asteroid impact, or nuclear winter could cause global agricultural collapse due to reduced sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface. The human civilization’s food production system is unprepared to respond to such events, but methane single cell protein (SCP) could be a key part of the solution. Current preparedness centers around food stockpiling, an excessively expensive solution given that an abrupt sunlight reduction scenario (ASRS) could hamper conventional agriculture for 5–10 years. Instead, it is more cost-effective to consider resilient food production techniques requiring little to no sunlight. This study analyses the potential of SCP produced from methane (natural gas and biogas) as a resilient food source for global catastrophic food shocks from ASRS. The following are quantified: global production potential of methane SCP, capital costs, material and energy requirements, ramp-up rates, and retail prices. In addition, potential bottlenecks for fast deployment are considered. While providing a more valuable, protein-rich product than its alternatives, the production capacity could be slower to ramp up. Based on 24/7 construction of facilities, 7%–11% of the global protein requirements could be fulfilled at the end of the first year. Despite significant remaining uncertainties, methane SCP shows significant potential to prevent global protein starvation during an ASRS at an affordable price—US$3–5/kg dry.

Pandemic refuges: Lessons from 2 years of COVID-19.

This paper relates evidence from the COVID‐19 pandemic to the concept of pandemic refuges, as developed in literature on global catastrophic risk. In this literature, a refuge is a place or facility designed to keep a portion of the population alive during extreme global catastrophes. COVID‐19 is not the most extreme pandemic scenario, but it is nonetheless a very severe global event, and it therefore provides an important source of evidence. Through the first 2 years of the COVID‐19 pandemic, several political jurisdictions have achieved low spread of COVID‐19 via isolation from the rest of the world and can therefore classify as pandemic refuges. Their suppression and elimination of COVID‐19 demonstrates the viability of pandemic refuges as a risk management measure. Whereas prior research emphasizes island nations as pandemic refuges, this paper uses case studies of China and Western Australia to show that other types of jurisdictions can also successfully function as pandemic refuges. The paper also refines the concept of pandemic refuges and discusses implications for future pandemics.

Long term cost-effectiveness of resilient foods for global catastrophes compared to artificial general intelligence safety

Global agricultural catastrophes, which include nuclear winter and abrupt climate change, could have long-term consequences on humanity such as the collapse and nonrecovery of civilization. Using Monte Carlo (probabilistic) models, we analyze the long-term cost-effectiveness of resilient foods (alternative foods) - roughly those independent of sunlight such as mushrooms. One version of the model populated partly by a survey of global catastrophic risk researchers finds the confidence that resilient foods is more cost effective than artificial general intelligence safety is ∼84% and ∼98% for the 100 millionth dollar spent on resilient foods and at the margin now, respectively. Another version of the model based on one of the authors produced ∼93% and ∼99% confidence, respectively. Considering uncertainty represented within our models, our result is robust: reverting the conclusion required simultaneously changing the 3-5 most important parameters to the pessimistic ends. However, as predicting the long-run trajectory of human civilization is extremely difficult, and model and theory uncertainties are very large, this significantly reduces our overall confidence. Because the agricultural catastrophes could happen immediately and because existing expertise relevant to resilient foods could be co-opted by charitable giving, it is likely optimal to spend most of the money for resilient foods in the next few years. Both cause areas generally save expected current lives inexpensively and should attract greater investment.

A System Dynamics Perspective of Food Systems, Environmental Change and Global Catastrophic Risks

A System Dynamics Perspective of Food Systems, Environmental Change and Global Catastrophic Risks

Synthetic fat from petroleum as a resilient food for global catastrophes: Preliminary techno-economic assessment and technology roadmap

Human civilization’s food production system is unprepared for global catastrophic risks (GCRs). catastrophes capable of abruptly transforming global climate such as supervolcanic eruption, asteroid/comet impact or nuclear winter, which could completely collapse the agricultural system. Responding by producing resilient foods requiring little to no sunlight is more cost effective than increasing food stockpiles, given the long duration of these scenarios (6−10 years).This preliminary techno-economic assessment uncovers significant potential for synthetic fat from petroleum as a resilient food source in the case of an abrupt sunlight reduction catastrophe, the most severe food shock scenario. To this end, the following are roughly quantified based on literature data: global production potential, capital and operating expenditures, material and energy requirements, ramp-up rates and retail prices. Potential resource bottlenecks are reviewed.Synthetic fat production capacity would be slower to ramp up compared to low-tech food production alternatives, but provides the fat macronutrient, largely absent from these. Using 24/7 construction of facilities, 16–100% of global fat requirements could be fulfilled at the end of the first year, potentially taking up to 2 years to fully meet the requirements. Significant uncertainty remains on several topics including production potential, capital expenditure, food safety, transferability of labor and equipment construction. A technology roadmap is proposed to address these concerns and develop the potential of synthetic fat as a catastrophe-resilient food.

Covid-19 pandemic and future global catastrophic risks as a challenge for health-care ethics

PurposeCurrent covid-19 pandemic challenges health-care ethics. Ones of the most important challenges are medical resources allocation and a duty to treat, often addressed to medical personnel. This paper suggests that there are good reasons to rethink our health-care ethics for future global catastrophic risks. Current pandemic shows how challenging can be an issue of resources allocation even in a relatively small kind of catastrophic event such as covid-19 pandemic. In this paper, the authors show that any future existential bigger catastrophe may require new guidelines for the allocation of medical resources. The idea of assisted dying is considered as a hypothetical scenario.Design/methodology/approachThis is a conceptual work based on conceptual analysis at the intersection of risk studies, health-care ethics and future studies. This study builds the argument on the assumption that the covid-19 pandemic should be treated as a sort of global catastrophic risk. Findings show that there are no such attempts in currently published peer-reviewed academic literature. This is crucial concept for the meta-analysis. This study shows why and how current pandemic can be interpreted in terms of global catastrophic risk even if, literally, covid-19 does not meet all criteria required in the risk studies to be called a global catastrophe.FindingsWe can expect an emergence of discriminatory selection policy which will require some actions taken by future patients like, for example, genetic engineering. But even then it is inevitable that there will still be a large number of survivors who require medical assistance, which they have no chance of receiving. This is why this study has considered the concept of assisted dying understood as an official protocol for health-care ethics and resources allocation policy in the case of emergency situations. Possibly more controversial idea discussed in this paper is an idea of assisted dying for those who cannot receive required medical help. Such procedure could be applied in a mass-scale during a global catastrophic event.Research limitations/implicationsPhilosophers and ethicists should identify and study all possible pros and cons of this discrimination rule. As this study’s findings suggested above, a reliable point of reference is the concept of substantial human enhancement. Human enhancement as such, widely debated, should be studied in that specific context of discrimination of patients in an access to limited medical resources. Last but not least, scientific community should study the concept of assisted dying which could be applied for those survivors who have no chance of obtaining medical care. Such criteria and concepts as cost-benefit analysis, the ethics of quality of life, autonomy of patients and duty of medical personnel should be considered.Practical implicationsPoliticians and policymakers should prepare protocols for global catastrophes where these discrimination criteria would have to be applied. The same applies to the development of medical robotics aimed at replacing human health-care personnel. We assume that this is important implication for practical policy in healthcare. Our prediction, however plausible, is not a good scenario for humanity. But given this realistic development trajectory, we should do everything possible to prevent the need for the discriminatory rules in medical care described above.Originality/valueThis study offers the idea of assisted dying as a health-care policy in emergency situations. The authors expect that next future global catastrophes – looking at the current pandemic only as a mild prelude – will force a radical change in moral values and medical standards. New criteria of selection and discrimination will be perceived as much more exclusivist and unfair than criteria applied today.

Assessing climate change’s contribution to global catastrophic risk

Many have claimed that climate change is an imminent threat to humanity, but there is no way to verify such claims. This is concerning, especially given the prominence of some of these claims and the fact that they are confused with other well verified and settled aspects of climate science. This paper seeks to build an analytical framework to help explore climate change’s contribution to Global Catastrophic Risk (GCR), including the role of its indirect and systemic impacts. In doing so it evaluates the current state of knowledge about catastrophic climate change and integrates this with a suite of conceptual and evaluative tools that have recently been developed by scholars of GCR and Existential Risk. These tools connect GCR to planetary boundaries, classify its key features, and place it in a global policy context. While the goal of this paper is limited to producing a framework for assessment; we argue that applying this framework can yield new insights into how climate change could cause global catastrophes and how to manage this risk. We illustrate this by using our framework to describe the novel concept of possible’ global systems death spirals,’ involving reinforcing feedback between collapsing sociotechnological and ecological systems.

Scaling of greenhouse crop production in low sunlight scenarios

PurposeDuring a global catastrophe such as a nuclear winter, in which sunlight and temperatures are reduced across every latitude, to maintain global agricultural output it is necessary to grow some crops under structures. This study designs a method for scaling up crop production in low-tech greenhouses to contribute to global food sustainability during global catastrophic conditions. Constructing low-tech greenhouses would obviate growing crops using more expensive and energy intensive artificial light. MethodsA nuclear winter climate model is used to determine conditions for which greenhouses would need to compensate. The greenhouse structures are designed to utilize global markets of timber, polymer film, construction aggregates, and steel nails. ResultsThe limiting market that determines the growth rate of the greenhouses is the rate at which polymer film and sheet are currently extruded. Conditions under low-tech greenhouses in the tropics would feasibly accommodate the production of nearly all crops. Some supplemental lighting would be required for long day crops. ConclusionsThe analysis shows that the added cost of low-tech greenhouses is about two orders of magnitude lower than the added cost of artificial light growth. The retail cost of food from these low-tech greenhouses will be ~2.30 USD/kg dry food higher than current costs; for instance, a 160% retail cost increase for rice. According to the proposed scaling method, the greenhouses will provide 36% of food requirements for everyone by the end of the first year, and feed everyone after 30 months.

Characteristics of Microbes Most Likely to Cause Pandemics and Global Catastrophes.

Predicting which pathogen will confer the highest global catastrophic biological risk (GCBR) of a pandemic is a difficult task. Many approaches are retrospective and premised on prior pandemics; however, such an approach may fail to appreciate novel threats that do not have exact historical precedent. In this paper, based on a study and project we undertook, a new paradigm for pandemic preparedness is presented. This paradigm seeks to root pandemic risk in actual attributes possessed by specific classes of microbial organisms and leads to specific recommendations to augment preparedness activities.

Islands as refuges for surviving global catastrophes

PurposeIslands have long been discussed as refuges from global catastrophes; this paper will evaluate them systematically, discussing both the positives and negatives of islands as refuges. There are examples of isolated human communities surviving for thousands of years on places like Easter Island. Islands could provide protection against many low-level risks, notably including bio-risks. However, they are vulnerable to tsunamis, bird-transmitted diseases and other risks. This paper aims to explore how to use the advantages of islands for survival during global catastrophes.Design/methodology/approachPreliminary horizon scanning based on the application of the research principles established in the previous global catastrophic literature.FindingsThe large number of islands on Earth, and their diverse conditions, increase the chance that one of them will provide protection from a catastrophe. Additionally, this protection could be increased if an island was used as a base for a nuclear submarine refuge combined with underground bunkers and/or extremely long-term data storage. The requirements for survival on islands, their vulnerabilities and ways to mitigate and adapt to risks are explored. Several existing islands, suitable for the survival of different types of risk, timing and budgets, are examined. Islands suitable for different types of refuges and other island-like options that could also provide protection are also discussed.Originality/valueThe possible use of islands as refuges from social collapse and existential risks has not been previously examined systematically. This paper contributes to the expanding research on survival scenarios.

Classification of global catastrophic risks connected with artificial intelligence

A classification of the global catastrophic risks of AI is presented, along with a comprehensive list of previously identified risks. This classification allows the identification of several new risks. We show that at each level of AI’s intelligence power, separate types of possible catastrophes dominate. Our classification demonstrates that the field of AI risks is diverse, and includes many scenarios beyond the commonly discussed cases of a paperclip maximizer or robot-caused unemployment. Global catastrophic failure could happen at various levels of AI development, namely, (1) before it starts self-improvement, (2) during its takeoff, when it uses various instruments to escape its initial confinement, or (3) after it successfully takes over the world and starts to implement its goal system, which could be plainly unaligned, or feature-flawed friendliness. AI could also halt at later stages of its development either due to technical glitches or ontological problems. Overall, we identified around several dozen scenarios of AI-driven global catastrophe. The extent of this list illustrates that there is no one simple solution to the problem of AI safety, and that AI safety theory is complex and must be customized for each AI development level.

Resilience to global food supply catastrophes

Many global catastrophic risks threaten major disruption to global food supplies, including nuclear wars, volcanic eruptions, asteroid and comet impacts, and plant disease outbreaks. This paper discusses options for increasing the resilience of food supplies to these risks. In contrast to local catastrophes, global food supply catastrophes cannot be addressed via food aid from external locations. Three options for food supply resilience are identified: food stockpiles, agriculture, and foods produced from alternative (non-sunlight) energy sources including biomass and fossil fuels. Each of these three options has certain advantages and disadvantages. Stockpiles are versatile but expensive. Agriculture is efficient but less viable in certain catastrophe scenarios. Alternative foods are inexpensive pre-catastrophe but need to be scaled up post-catastrophe and may face issues of social acceptability. The optimal portfolio of food options will typically include some of each and will additionally vary by location as regions vary in population and access to food input resources. Furthermore, if the catastrophe shuts down transportation, then resilience requires local self-sufficiency in food. Food supply resilience requires not just the food itself, but also the accompanying systems of food production and distribution. Overall, increasing food supply resilience can play an important role in global catastrophic risk reduction. However, it is unwise to attempt maximizing food supply resilience, because doing so comes at the expense of other important objectives, including catastrophe prevention. Taking all these issues into account, the paper proposes a research agenda for analysis of specific food supply resilience decisions.