Nuclear winter is a severe and prolonged global climatic cooling effect that is hypothesized to occur after widespread firestorms following a large-scale nuclear war. The hypothesis is based on the fact that such fires can inject soot into the stratosphere, where it can block some direct sunlight from reaching the surface of the Earth. It is speculated that the resulting cooling would lead to widespread crop failure and famine. When developing computer models of nuclear-winter scenarios, researchers use the conventional bombing of Hamburg, and the Hiroshima firestorm in World War II as example cases where soot might have been injected into the stratosphere, alongside modern observations of natural, large-area wildfire-firestorms.
The precautionary principle is a broad epistemological, philosophical and legal approach to innovations with potential for causing harm when extensive scientific knowledge on the matter is lacking. It emphasizes caution, pausing and review before leaping into new innovations that may prove disastrous. Critics argue that it is vague, self-cancelling, unscientific and an obstacle to progress.
Space and survival is the idea that the long-term survival of the human species and technological civilization requires the building of a spacefaring civilization that utilizes the resources of outer space, and that not doing this might lead to human extinction. A related observation is that the window of opportunity for doing this may be limited due to the decreasing amount of surplus resources that will be available over time as a result of an ever-growing population.
Jonathan Edward Schell was an American author and visiting fellow at Yale University, whose work primarily dealt with campaigning against nuclear weapons.
Human extinction is the hypothetical end of the human species, either by population decline due to extraneous natural causes, such as an asteroid impact or large-scale volcanism, or via anthropogenic destruction (self-extinction), for example by sub-replacement fertility.
In policy debate, a disadvantage is an argument that a team brings up against a policy action that is being considered. A disadvantage is also used in the Lincoln-Douglas debate format.
Epinomis is the final dialogue in the Platonic corpus, a follow-on conversation among the interlocutors of Laws – a twelve-book exploration of the best way to structure a polis. The participants in the conversation were Clinias of Crete, Megillus of Sparta, and an unnamed Athenian. In Epinomis they reconvene to address an issue not covered in the earlier discussion: how one acquires wisdom.
Our Final Hour is a 2003 book by the British Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees. The full title of the book is Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future In This Century—On Earth and Beyond. It was published in the United Kingdom under the title Our Final Century: Will the Human Race Survive the Twenty-first Century?.
Non-linguisticmeaning is a type of meaning not mediated or perceived through linguistic signs.
David P. Barash is professor of psychology emeritus at the University of Washington. He has written, edited or co-authored 40 books, including ones on human aggression, peace studies, and the sexual behavior of animals and people. He received his bachelor's degree in biology from Harpur College, Binghamton University, and a Ph.D. in zoology from University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1970. He taught at the State University of New York at Oneonta and then accepted a permanent position at the University of Washington.
A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear annihilation, nuclear armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes widespread destruction and radioactive fallout. Such a scenario envisages large parts of the Earth becoming uninhabitable due to the effects of nuclear warfare, potentially causing the collapse of civilization, the extinction of humanity, and/or the termination of most biological life on Earth.
The Gift of Time: The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons Now is a 1998 book by Jonathan Schell. The book is based on interviews with individuals who had responsibility for nuclear weapons policy in the United States, Russia and Europe, and who came to advocate the global elimination of nuclear weapons. Schell addresses the key issues of nuclear deterrence, disarmament, abolition, and breakout associated with nuclear weapons policy.
A global catastrophic risk or a doomsday scenario is a hypothetical event that could damage human well-being on a global scale, even endangering or destroying modern civilization. An event that could cause human extinction or permanently and drastically curtail humanity's existence or potential is known as an "existential risk".
Biocentrism, in a political and ecological sense, as well as literally, is an ethical point of view that extends inherent value to all living things. It is an understanding of how the earth works, particularly as it relates to its biosphere or biodiversity. It stands in contrast to anthropocentrism, which centers on the value of humans. The related ecocentrism extends inherent value to the whole of nature.
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and The Will of the People is a book on the power of nonviolence by Jonathan Schell published in 2003.
Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality is a 2010 book about the evolution of human mating systems by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá. In opposition to what the authors see as the "standard narrative" of human sexual evolution, they contend that having multiple sexual partners was common and accepted in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness. The authors contend that mobile, self-contained groups of hunter-gatherers were the norm for humans before agriculture led to high population density. Before agriculture, according to the authors, sex was relatively promiscuous and paternity was not a concern. This dynamic is similar to the mating system of bonobos. According to the book, sexual interactions strengthened the bond of trust in the groups. Far from causing jealousy, social equilibrium and reciprocal obligation were strengthened by playful sexual interactions.
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History is a 2014 non-fiction book written by Elizabeth Kolbert and published by Henry Holt and Company. The book argues that the Earth is in the midst of a modern, man-made, sixth extinction. In the book, Kolbert chronicles previous mass extinction events, and compares them to the accelerated, widespread extinctions during our present time. She also describes specific species extinguished by humans, as well as the ecologies surrounding prehistoric and near-present extinction events. The author received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for the book in 2015.
The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming is a 2019 non-fiction book by David Wallace-Wells about the consequences of global warming. It was inspired by his New York magazine article "The Uninhabitable Earth" (2017).
Longtermism is the ethical view that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority of our time. It is an important concept in effective altruism and a primary motivation for efforts that aim to reduce existential risks to humanity.
Scenarios in which a global catastrophic risk creates harm have been widely discussed. Some sources of catastrophic risk are anthropogenic, such as global warming, environmental degradation, and nuclear war. Others are non-anthropogenic or natural, such as meteor impacts or supervolcanoes. The impact of these scenarios can vary widely, depending on the cause and the severity of the event, ranging from temporary economic disruption to human extinction. Many societal collapses have already happened throughout human history.
