How easy would it be to snuff out humanity this century?

Astronomer Royal Martin Rees considers the events – manmade or natural – that could trigger the end

The prospect of engineered pandemics must not be ignored (CNS/AFP/Getty)

Make no mistake, Covid-19 should not have struck us so unawares. Why were even rich countries so unprepared? It’s because politicians and the public have a local focus. They downplay the long term and the global. They ignore Nate Silver’s maxim: “The unfamiliar is not the same as the improbable.”

Indeed, we’re in denial about a whole raft of newly emergent threats to our interconnected world that could be devastating.

Some, like climate change and environmental degradation, are caused by humanity’s ever heavier collective footprint. We know them well but we fail to prioritise countermeasures because their worst impact stretches beyond the time-horizon of political and investment decisions. It’s like the proverbial boiling frog – contented in a warming tank until it’s too late to save itself.