The linked MAHB website offers numerous & multi-disciplinary articles regarding the reality of the challenges that mankind and the biosphere are currently facing in the Anthropocene. In this regards, I also provide a link to the MAHB archive on extinction as well as three links to the most recent articles on the website:
The Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere: connecting activists, scientists, humanists and civil society to foster global change.
https://mahb.stanford.edu/https://mahb.stanford.edu/library-category/extinction/Title: "When optimism spells disaster…"
https://mahb.stanford.edu/blog/optimism/Extract: "One of the most dangerous threats to the human future in this, the Age of Perils, is … optimism.
Nowadays, if you tell the tested truth about climate science, weapons of mass destruction, global pollution, extinction or, indeed, any of the ten existential threats now closing in on humanity, you are likely to provoke one of two responses.
The first is a sober “Shit. I never knew it was that bad. What’s the evidence?” followed by “What can we do about it?”
The second ranges from polite dismissal to “I don’t want to hear all that bad news”, to outright, hysterical abuse, in which you are labelled everything from a “doomsayer” and a “Malthusian” to a spreader of lies, a “greenie nutcase” or even a socialist, a Marxist or a contemptible liberal!
Human society neatly divides into folk who can handle bad news – and those who can’t. Those who put their hands over their ears and demand you shut up. Or, as Charles Darwin might have observed, those who are fit for survival – and those who ain’t.
…
Optimism can be a useful attribute in a general, a politician or a business manager, providing it is based on fact, not mere belief. It nurtures the resilience to endure tough times. But remaining stubbornly “optimistic” when the weight of evidence points to imminent dangers to civilization and maybe even our species is a formula for disaster, that spells inaction and, consequently, an increase in the scale of the risk. It decreases our fitness for survival. It is, in short, extremely unwise.
Many “optimists” insist that humans are so smart we will come up with technical solutions to all the leading threats we face (though how we can do this with nuclear weapons is a moot question). And it is true that technical solutions exist to most of them. However, this ignores the fact that many of our greatest institutions – governments, corporations, faiths – are unable or unwilling to take action until the threats become so vast as to be unstoppable. The technical solutions will not develop unless society sees a need for them.
In this case it is the blind optimists, rather than the realistic pessimists, who imperil our future.
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To overcome them humanity doesn’t need optimism or pessimism. It needs to exercise a singular attribute that has stood us in good stead for over a million years: wisdom."
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Title: "When and How Will Growth Cease?"
https://mahb.stanford.edu/blog/when-how-growth-cease/&
Title: "Contraceptual Art"
https://mahb.stanford.edu/creative-expressions/contraceptual-art/