Australia21 Director and ANU Professor Emeritus Bob Douglas:
Australia should take the lead on research and teaching to avoid the collapse of civilisation and the demise of our species.
A wealth of hard science and a many highly respected authors are now pointing to the likelihood that without a profound change in direction, the human species is headed for extinction, conceivably before the end of this century. A number of distinguished Australians have contributed substantially to our understanding of the knife-edge on which the human species is currently poised.
At the time of his death in 2014, Professor Tony McMichael had virtually completed his manuscript of a book entitledClimate change and the health of nations: famines, fevers and the fate of populations. With the help of his wife and colleagues around the world, the book was recently published by Oxford University Press and it rounds out the lifetime contribution of an Australian National University academic who played a key role in world thinking on these matters for much of the last 25 years.
Stephen Boyden is another ANU colleague who has been a world leading contributor to understanding global ecology and the ongoing dangers of current human behaviour. In his 2016 bookThe Bio-narrative:the story of life and hope for the future, published by ANU press, Boyden writes ‘I am rather pessimistic. The maladaptive assumptions of prevailing cultures are deeply ingrained. The notion that economic growth must take precedence over all other considerations and general ignorance of biological and ecological realities do not augur well for the future.’
A third Canberran who is contributing to international thinking on these matters is Julian Cribb, a former science communicator for the CSIRO. Cribb’s 2017 Springer publication has been widely praised by Australian and international scientists.Surviving the 21st centurydeals with the 10 existential risks that threaten continued human survival on the planet. These include ecological collapse, resource depletion, weapons of mass destruction, global warming, global poisoning, food insecurity, population and urban expansion, pandemic disease, dangerous new technologies and self delusion. Like McMichael and Boyden, Cribb outlines what he believes humans must, and could do to avoid collapse of civilisation and the demise of our, not so wise, species.
The University of Oxford has recently begun a major research thrust on the topic the Future of Humanity.
Cambridge University also now has a Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.
A number of us at ANU have been recently arguing that a plan for human survival should be a central element of the mission of our national university and that every one of our graduates should be ‘survival literate’.
For that matter, there is every reason why survival literacy should urgently permeate our entire educational system. Observing the national and international political scene, one could be forgiven for believing that all we need to do is promote economic growth and jobs and everything will be okay. We have become besotted with the idea that money and markets will solve all of our problems.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, our commitment to endless economic growth and denial and ignorance of its ecological consequences is an integral part of the problem, which must urgently be addressed if our grandchildren are to survive.
There is a challenge in this to all of us.
Indeed, make Canberra a world centre for the development of solutions to our present risks – instead of a place where those risks are compounded by ignorant politicians.
In his book, Tony McMichael cites Martin Rees, former President of Britain’s prestigious Royal Society, that he thinks the odds are no better than fifty-fifty that our present civilization on Earth will survive to the end of the present century. All parents and grandparents take note!