All posts by Marshall Brain

COVID-19 is just the first – we face the prospect of pandemic after pandemic

How Climate Change Is Ushering in a New Pandemic Era – A warming world is expanding the range of deadly diseases and risking an explosion of new zoonotic pathogens from the likes of bats, mosquitoes, and ticks

This paragraph paints a picture of what humanity has lost due to COVID-19:

Covid-19 likely emerged from the wilds near southern China, then found residence in horseshoe bats before making the jump to humans. The virus, as of this writing, has infected 63 million people and caused 1.5 million deaths around the world. The global economic impact of the pandemic was estimated at $8 trillion to $16 trillion in July 2020 — it may be $16 trillion in the U.S. alone by the fourth quarter of 2021 (assuming vaccines are effective at controlling it by then). The amount of human suffering this tiny microbe has caused is incalculable: lost loved ones, vanished jobs, broken families, and lingering sickness from a virus that will eventually retreat but will never disappear.

But the future could be much worse:

But the biggest impact may be on the emergence of new pathogens from animals. Through intensive agriculture, habitat destruction, and rising temperatures, we are forcing creatures to live by the cardinal rule of the climate crisis: adapt or die. For many animals, that means migrating to more hospitable environments. In one recent study that tracked the movement of 4,000 species over the past few decades, as many as 70 percent had moved, almost all of them seeking cooler lands and waters. Some animals have made big leaps. Atlantic cod have moved more than 120 miles per decade. In the Andes Mountains in South America, frogs and fungi species have climbed a quarter mile higher over the past 70 years. In Alaska, hunters are discovering parasites from more than 950 miles southeast in Canada, alive under the skin of wild birds (tiny parasites adapt better to rapidly changing temperatures than large animals). Great white sharks are turning up as far north as Maine. “A wild exodus has begun,” writes Sonia Shah in The Next Great Migration. “It is happening on every continent and in every ocean.”

Somehow humanity has to stop doing what it is doing and become responsible stewards of the planet. But can humanity do this?

The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Imagine a world where remote-control robots are shooting and killing people. That world is now…

Iranian nuclear scientist was killed using ‘satellite-controlled machine gun’ – The gun was so accurate that the scientist’s wife, who was sitting in the same car, was not injured, reports say.

From the article:

Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency quoted Commodore Ali Fadavi, deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as saying: “The machine gun was equipped with artificial intelligence to target Martyr Fakhrizadeh.” He said that the gun fired 13 shots at Mr Fakhrizadeh but was so accurate that the scientist’s wife, who was sitting in the same car, was not injured. “The gun was focused only on Martyr Fakhrizadeh, and his wife was not shot, despite being a few centimetres away,” he said.
“The head of the protection team was also shot four times because he threw himself on Fakhrizadeh, and no enemy was on the scene to shoot the guards.”

Between this technology and high-flying drones killing people, it seems like soon no high-ranking official will be safe. See for example Drone Attacks.

Add robot soldiers and robot armies into the mix and things get frightening fast:

10 BEST MILITARY ROBOTS IN THE WORLD

The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

New Mexico tried to stop the pandemic with a near-total shutdown and it did not work. Why?

New Mexico shut down nearly everything to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed by covid. It wasn’t enough.

From the article:

The governor had been sounding the alarm for more than a month. But by mid-November, it was clear to Michelle Lujan Grisham that she would need to take extreme measures to head off the “most serious emergency that New Mexico has ever faced.” With covid-19 cases rising exponentially and hospital beds dwindling, she dragged her state back to the darkest days of spring, when restaurant dining was banned, nonessential businesses were closed and residents were ordered to stay inside unless absolutely necessary.

By doing all of that, it seems like the virus would stop propagating. But it did not work nearly as well as hoped. So what went wrong? The article has the answer:

People want to get together with friends and relatives, and they resent being told by political leaders or health experts that they can’t. “There’s a need for instant gratification,” she said. “We’re not used to delaying gratification.” But that lack of constraint is having deadly consequences: More than 1,700 New Mexicans have already succumbed to covid-19. An average of nearly 30 people are added to the tally each day.

In other words, enough people do not cooperate and the virus keeps spreading. The article puts it this way:

She pleaded for citizens to take the threat seriously – to mask up, socially distance and limit their gatherings. At a time when President Trump was sending a very different message – hosting mass, and largely maskless, rallies nationwide – not everyone listened. “We have constituents here – and I would argue in every state – that still believe that this is not a deadly, contagious virus, and you don’t have to practice any public health measures,” she said in a Thursday phone interview. “That makes it really complicated.”

In other words, the intransigence and ignorance of certain groups of people make things horrible for everyone. Once again, people who are assholes make things miserable for everyone else.

The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

The Map of Doom – A fascinating way to categorize and rank Doomsday Scenarios

The Map of Doom is a fascinating way to categorize and rank doomsday scenarios:

The Map of Doom | Apocalypses Ranked

From the Video’s description:

This year was the first experience we’ve had of a global disaster affecting every single person on Earth. And also how unprepared society was to deal with it, despite plenty of people giving warnings that this was going to happen at some stage. But in the midst of all the doom I started to wonder, what other things could threaten humanity, that we are not thinking about? So I made the Map of Doom to list all the threats to humanity in one place. But just finding them all is not enough. I wanted to find a way of comparing the risks of all of these disaster scenarios. So this video follows my attempt at doing that, and I think I’ve hit on a great way to visually compare all these dangers, which I haven’t seen anyone do before, so hopefully by the end of the video you’ll have a better idea about what the biggest threats are, and how they compare to this pandemic.

There is even a poster available:

The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Humans continue burning fossil fuels despite the obvious stupidity of doing so

Such a depressing headline:

World is ‘doubling down’ on fossil fuels despite climate crisis – Production must fall by 6% a year to avoid ‘severe climate disruption’ but Covid-19 funding is supporting increases

The world’s governments are “doubling down” on fossil fuels despite the urgent need for cuts in carbon emissions to tackle the climate crisis, a report by the UN and partners has found. The researchers say production of coal, oil and gas must fall by 6% a year until 2030 to keep global heating under the 1.5C target agreed in the Paris accord and avoid “severe climate disruption”. But nations are planning production increases of 2% a year and G20 countries are giving 50% more coronavirus recovery funding to fossil fuels than to clean energy.

The headline, however, is not nearly strong enough. The reality is that fossil fuel burning should be reduced to zero immediately, and humanity must start sucking excess CO2 back out of the atmosphere. Otherwise the planet faces an unstoppable cascade of catastrophic effects including:

As discussed in the book, humanity somehow needs to transform its thinking to a wartime posture against climate in order to prevent all of these cataclysms from occurring. If we do not take immediate action, the prospects are dire.

The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Our World in distress – in photos

Some arresting 2020 images from Associated Press photographers:

In 2020, AP photographers captured a world in distress

From the article:

Behold, a world in distress: A 64-year-old woman weeps, hugging her husband as he lay dying in the COVID-19 unit of a California hospital. A crowded refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, engulfed in flames, disgorges a string of migrants fleeing this hell on Earth. Rain-swept protesters, enraged by the death of George Floyd in police custody, rail against the system and the heavens. This is the world that Associated Press photographers captured in 2020, a world beset by every sort of catastrophe — natural and unnatural disaster, violent and non-violent conflict.

It is amazing how many things have gone wrong in 2020, some of which are grave harbingers of things that could get much worse in the future. Wildfires are likely to get worse. Refugee situations are likely to get worse as climate refugees become a thing. Pandemics are likely to get worse. Protests may get worse as conditions worsen. And do on. These photographs paint a picture of the distress humanity is witnessing in 2020.

The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

The real threat of asteroids to planet Earth

This video lays out the real threat of asteroids to planet earth:

These are the asteroids to worry about

For more info see Asteroid Impacts.

The threat of an asteroid strike is real, and the potential for a life-ending event for the planet is a possibility. Humans have not yet mapped most of the asteroid threats the planet faces, and we do not yet have a defense system that could eliminate a threat even if we detected one. In other words, this doomsday scenario is a real threat that deserves real action.

The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

Some people are so negative about the future that they stop having babies

This article contains a shocking statistic:

Climate ‘apocalypse’ fears stopping people having children – Survey of 600 people finds some parents regret having offspring for same reason

The statistic:

The study indicated that climate-related fears for their children’s lives were rooted in a deeply pessimistic view of the future. Of the 400 respondents who offered a vision of the future, 92.3% were negative, 5.6% were mixed or neutral, and just 0.6% were positive.

92% of people surveyed have a negative view of the future. Less than 1% are positive! Unbelievable. But it makes sense when you start adding up the imminent doomsday scenarios that humanity is facing: The many facets of climate change, the economic effects of robots, the destructive power of inequality, terrorism, etc.

Meanwhile, the babies that are born grow up to become terrified young people as described here.

The doomsday book describes all of these problems, and also offers solutions for many of them, if humanity can get organized and unified enough to implement the solutions.

The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.

French Protestors rioting because of restrictions on photographing Police

Tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets in France to protect Article 24 of France’s Global Security Bill.

French lawmakers pass controversial bill that restricts the publication of images of police

French lawmakers passed a bill on Tuesday that critics say could make it harder for journalists and human rights advocates to hold police accountable. The Global Security Bill’s most controversial section — Article 24 — which was approved by lawmakers on Friday, forbids the publication of images that allow the identification of a law enforcement officer “with the intent to cause them harm, physically or mentally.”

And:

On Saturday, there were more protests against the bill with an estimated 22,000 people taking part in marches across France. In Paris the crowds included representatives of the media, along with some gilets jaunes (yellow vest) protesters and members of Extinction Rebellion.

Why is France’s new national security bill controversial?

The bill has been strongly criticised by journalists and rights groups who argue that it would curtail press freedom and lead to less police accountability. Those opposed to the legislation are concerned that, if it is enacted, it risks endangering journalists and other onlookers who film officers at work, especially during violent protests. They say documenting and sharing the actions of violent officers is essential in stopping future incidents of police brutality.

If police can act without accountability, they are free to do any heinous thing they want to citizens.

According to Cecile Coudriou, president of Amnesty International France: “If people cannot film anything in the streets when the police may sometimes have an illegal use of force it’s a very worrying message to send”

We are past “the Point of No Return” on climate change according to some scientists

If humanity could turn on a dime and completely stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, we would definitely be better off. But are we past “the point of no return” already?

‘Past a point of no return,’ according to British Journal Scientific Study on climate change; Reducing greenhouse gas emission to zero still will not stop global warming; Scientists see ‘an acceleration of Pandemics’

The findings of the scientific study are alarming. It shows that irrespective of the reduction of greenhouse gasses, emissions are brought down to zero. It is not sufficient to stall the melting of permafrost.

This would be an example of a positive feedback loop, where melting permafrost releases enough methane to raise temperatures, which releases more methane, and so on. This video describes the problem in stark detail:

Arctic Methane. Has 2020 triggered a tipping point?

If this is the case, then the only hope is to combine the halt of fossil fuels with different forms of geoengineering.

Geoengineering: A Horrible Idea We Might Have to Do

The Doomsday Book” by Marshall Brain lays out this scenario in amazing detail and offers solutions to prevent this doomsday scenario from unfolding. You can order the book today on Amazon and other retailers.