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Human Civilization will Collapse (High Confidence): A Compendium of Relevant Biophysical, Political, Economic, Military, Health, and Psychological Information on Climate Change
Human Civilization will Collapse (High Confidence): A Compendium of Relevant Biophysical, Political, Economic, Military, Health, and Psychological Information on Climate Change

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 8 of this Preprint.

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Authors

Demetrios Karis

Abstract


Human civilization will not collapse from the direct effects of climate change, but rather from the secondary effects of crop failures, infectious diseases, and armed conflict. The root cause of the climate crisis is the Earth’s energy imbalance: more energy is arriving at the Earth from the sun than is being radiated back out into space. This is occurring because we have been cutting down forests and burning fossil fuels for the last 150 years at a furious rate, leading to a greenhouse effect and the consequent warming of the Earth’s land, oceans, and atmosphere. There is now general agreement that continuing to burn fossil fuels will lead to catastrophic consequences for human civilization as well as thousands of other species. We know how to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and transition to other sources of power, but we are not doing this at a rate that will prevent catastrophe. The problems at this point are not scientific or technical but rather political, which is why individuals should focus on changing policies at the national and international level rather than focusing on reducing their individual carbon footprints. For meaningful change to occur there needs to be mass mobilizations for climate action, and one critical initial prerequisite is an honest assessment of the current situation, plus predictions about what we can realistically expect in the near future. The goal here is to provide that information. 


 


 


DOI

https://doi.org/10.31223/X5G404

Subjects

Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Keywords

climate change, eco-anxiety, mass migration, Conflict, climate crisis, geoengineering, climate strategy, IPCC, mitigation, climate interventions, societal collapse, eco-anxiety, mass migration, conflict, climate crisis, geoengineering, climate strategy, IPCC, mitigation, climate interventions

Dates

Published: 2024-01-11 08:32

Last Updated: 2024-11-13 15:21

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License

CC BY Attribution 4.0 International

Additional Metadata

Conflict of interest statement:
None

Data Availability (Reason not available):
Review paper so no data availability