The future of humanity: ranking of risks

The ranking of risks creates the awareness that helps the timely design and implementation of necessary policies. Urges from civil society are needed to compel governmental and inter-governmental bodies to make such rankings and adjust present-day policies to reduce such risks in order to safeguard the survival of humanity.

• For humans the risk of suddenly losing their lives is largest in their house and in the traffic.
• Sudden loss of lives through warfare and disasters is relatively small and goes on diminishing.
• Sudden loss of lives through terrorism is even smaller.
• By far the largest risk for humans to lose their lives comes from slow-onset killers.
• The largest slow onset risk for humans to lose their lives comes from diseases. 
• The second largest slow onset risk of losing their lives comes from poverty, either directly or through the loss of resistance against diseases.
• Whatever economic growth or stabilization, the lack of redistributing the costs of dismissals and bankruptcies contributes slow-onset deaths.
• In the longer run, economic growth brings more environmental degradation resulting in larger numbers of slow onset deaths.
• If scarcity grows, larger numbers of rapid onset deaths will follow.

Main forms of environmental degradation:

• Depletion of ocean fish stock.
• Depletion of forest reserves.
• Depletion of ground water stock.
• Increasing acreage needed for cattle feed to produce meat.
• Poisoning of humans, cattle, vegetation, soil, water and air.
• Diseases arising from monocultures and industrial dairy farming.
• Effects of global warming.

Main effects of global warming:

• Sea level rise.
• Decay of coral reefs and coral islands through warmer seawater
• Wet areas getting wetter.
• Dry areas getting drier.
• Rapid onset weather events growing in incidence and magnitude.
• Migration of species.
• New diseases or increase of existing diseases.