This pandemic has shown we aren’t really qualified to deal with the pandemic. We don’t know how to make our economy flexible enough for businesses to stay open, or how to have enough PPE, or how to have the scientific infrastructure to more quickly find ways to treat a novel infection, or supply chains that are flexible enough to withstand a pandemic (a lot of supply chains can’t switch from commercial production to consumer production, a lot of production facilities of important items are in China with no redundancy), how to track an infections spread, etc. etc.
So it has got me wondering, what other serious issues are we not currently qualified to deal with, but we should be.
Antibiotic resistance and climate change come to mind. I’m not sure if peak oil is going to be a real thing or if we’re already transitioning to alternative fuels fast enough for it to not be a big issue.
Feeding everybody. Seriously, we’ve got plenty of arable land and the ability to ship food world-wide. Coronavirus pandemic notwithstanding, there’s no reason for people to be starving.
Climate change
Food insecurity
Shelter insecurity
Income and wealth concentration
Racism
Gender discrimination
Tribalism
Water scarcity
Energy scarcity
The list is endless. Not even including the science fictional things like cometary impacts and the singularity.
Some of those are constant issues though, like shelter insecurity, income inequality, racism, gender discrimination.
I’m more wondering about issues where we sit around and do nothing despite knowing its just a matter of time before the issue hits, then the issue hits decades later and we are unprepared. Things like racism, sexism, income inequality, etc have been with us since time began.
I will echo this. But, the issue is not lack of arable land used for growing food, as there is plenty of food being grown in the world and probably enough for everyone here. The problems are with getting all that food to everyone. You got your war zone over here, trade war over there, incompetent governing and graft over yonder - all hindering and constraining and adding hurdles to the ability to get food to where it’s needed.
The other tangential issue is using arable land not for growing food for people, but using a lot of it for growing food for animals (who become food for people).
This issue came up in 1993 with the Somali famine. The issue wasn’t lack of food at all - Western nations had mountains of food. It was that when food arrived, those Somalis with guns and power seized the food and didn’t let those Somalis without guns or power have it.
Ditto for North Korea in the 1990s - when the regime received foreign aid during its famine, a lot of that food went towards feeding the North Korean military, not feeding actual starving citizens.
I think a bigger issue is sustainability. We’re producing a lot of food through the use of resources which are finite. When those finite resources run low, we’ll see our global food production drop down as a result. It’s going to be bad when we live in a world that has a population of eight billion people and the ability to feed four billion people.
I don’t think climate change or antibiotic resistance fall into the same category as a pandemic. A pandemic is abrupt. This went from a small region in China to world event in a couple of months. Neither of those other two would be like that.
The most likely events I think we are unlikely to be prepared to deal with are either a huge volcanic eruption, meteorite or earthquake.
While NASA is tracking everything found, I’m not sure everything can be found. We should be better prepared for knowing how to handle a significant meteor that is on a collision path within a short time.
I don’t know how much warning we’ll get before Yellowstone goes. But as we saw with some recent eruptions or even the 1816 one that caused a 1C temp drop, I’m not sure we are fully ready to deal with that type of event.
Earthquakes can get us in two ways. A land based one is obvious. If the big one hits in California it will have repercussions all over the world, depend on the extent of the damage. We are getting better at having some robustness against earthquakes, but we aren’t fully prepared to deal with them. For an ocean based one, the resultant tsunamis could be really, really bad. 200,000+ died in 2004 as a result of that. We are better, but I don’t know if we are as prepared as we should be.
What other serious issues is the world not qualified to deal with?
The world? Planet Earth will deal with all issues as usual, with eon-long geomorphism and continuing extinctions.
OP likely means current humanity. Again, it’ll go about as usual, with (in)competence, and good and bad luck. We’ll most likely all die; “when” is the only question. One thing about population growth: More people means more smart people to figure out fixes and then cause yet more problems. It’s what we do.
Every issue has options. Most options suck because reality bites. Sigh.
RISING SEA LEVELS: Build dykes; move inland and uphill. Or build rafts. Or drown.
ECONOMIC COLLAPSE: Start over; keep moving product. Or let the weak & poor die.
FOOD INSECURITY: Many will starve; continue farming. Roboticize field work.
WATER & ENERGY SCARCITY: Put slaves on treadmills to drive generators and pumps.
INCOME INEQUALITY: Peons arise to slaughter aristos! Or we let the weak & poor die.
RACISM: Humans need inferior hominids to feel superior to; we’re fucked.
SEXISM: That’ll probably need mindcontrol rays to fix. Or massive gender changes.
TRIBALISM: Humans won’t even unite against ET aliens let alone COVID. Tribes are forever.
I don’t promote these options, merely recognize their existence.
The big question: How to avoid a human-generated extinction event? Hey, some WANT us [del]taken to our rewards[/del] extinct. Some WELCOME “End Times”. Texas Lt Gov Dan Patrick said “There are more important things than living.” But I don’t see him volunteering himself. Issues are most comfortably dealt with from a comfortable distance and upon someone else’s back. So, my conclusion: we’re fucked.
