I’ve heard many doomsday predictions in my life, and gave them some series thought. I wrote these down with counter arguments so that I can point people to this page instead of debating them.

Peak oil will kill civilization

Assumption: natural oil and gas are used for the production of fertilizers, car gasoline & diesel, plastics, airplane kerosine, shipping fuel, therefore a steep and steady decrease in oil and gas production will lead to a collapse of transport and food production, which will lead widespread hunger and society collapse.

Counter:

• The Haber process, for creating fertilizer does not require steam reforming with natural gas. In fact it works easier with just pure hydrogen, which can be created by any means (it just requires energy).
• Kerosine can be created from created from any energy source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerosene#Kerosene_from_carbon_dioxide_and_water
• Artificial plastic (and methane in general) can be created through the Sabatier reaction, but preferably from Polylactic acid to create biodegradable plastic.
• Cars and even trucks are now more likely to use batteries, which is good for everybody in the long run.
• Just because oil and natural gas have been used because they are/where cheap does not mean that these are the only or even the best way to do things. A sudden shock would be problematic, but even as we speak societies are already decoupling. In the near future societies will require energy (entropy), not necessarily oil, coal or gas.

Soil exhaustion will lead to widespread hunger

Assumption: Soil retrogression and degradation because of extractive processes will lead to massive amounts of farmland becoming unsuitable for agriculture.

Counter: because of intensive agriculture and hydroponics we know exactly what levels of fertilizer is required of specific plants to grow. The fertilizers are (and can be) entirely artificial. This is not speculation, but used in everyday farms. And even if for whatever reason it would not be possible to use fertilizer, it would still be possible to grow pioneering crops). Artificial food will eventually kill this argument, but while prices are so low this is not feasible.

Water scarcity will lead to widespread hunger

Assumption: Reduction of water flow (because of melting glacier and others) will reduce river flows, leading to widespread hunger. Some with heating due to climate change.

Counter:

• insane optimalisations can be made by switching to drip irrigation. instead of current practices.
• greenhouse tunnels can again reduce the amount of water needed.
• in many locations water can be drawn from the oceans, and be desalinated
• flood waters can be retained instead of running off. But even in the most arid lands water can be drawn from the air by cooling air so the water condensates. If this is feasible is a mater of price, not technique. Eventually artificial food will entirely kill this argument, but while prices are so low this is not feasible.

Climate change will lead to crop failure and widespread hunger

Assumption: Heat waves and changing weather patterns will lead to droughts and crop failures, which in turn will lead to famine.

Counter:

• Greenhouse tunnels and drip irrigation can lead to huge reductions of water use.
• Worsening weather patterns changes in one region are mitigated by improvements in other regions. whole Canadian and Russian arctics areas will become fertile.
• Transportation improvements have made famine a thing that can be avoided, unless war or mad dictators intervene.
• The world has huge buffers: Most food in the world is used for livestock, not for feeding animals (according to ourworldindata.org 80% of agricultural land use is used for livestock).

Overpopulation will lead to widespread hunger

Assumption: Malthusian-ism lead to the prediction that populations will always grow exponentially, while food sources will only grow linearly.

Counter:

• Population growth has been slowing all over the world were people have the luxury to choose the size of their family. The population is still growing, but more than 30% of the population is no longer of child bearing age, and more than 10% is above 65. The only place were the population is still growing above replacement levels is sub-Sahara Africa.
• The green revolution has shown that it is possible for technological progress to grow exponentially, while population growth was much lower.
• Future advances will probably again increase in the future. For example: there is no reason why it would not be possible to create plant fats and/or glucose through chemical means in the near future. This would make food production 1000x more efficient than agriculture, and also eliminate the water use associated with this.

Under-population will lead to widespread economic stagnation and other disasters

Assumption: More people lead to more inventions and economic growth. If the population stagnates or shrinks then economies and countries will shrink, stagnate or collapse.

Counter:

• The world consisted of 4 billion people in just 1975, and the world was doing fine. During the age of the industrial revolution in 1870 when invention after invention was done the world population was just 1,3 billion people.
• People also claimed that economic growth was directly correlated to energy use, so that reducing greenhouse gasses would lead to economic shrinkage. This turned out to be false.

Rubber trees will die out, which will leave the world without tires, thus making transportation impossible

Assumption: Rubber trees (Hevea brasiliensis) will die out due to South American leaf blight (Pseudocercospora ulei) or another disease, and there is no alternative.

Counter:

• Synthetic rubber is good enough for almost all purposes.
• A very viable alternative to the Amazonian rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) is “Taraxacum kok-saghyz” (rubber root / Kazakh dandelion), which was used for rubber production during WW2.
• Other rubber producing species are the Panama rubber tree (Castilla elastica), the Indian rubber tree (Ficus elastica), and the Congo rubber plant (Landolphia owariensis).
• If need be we could probably create rubber inside bioreactors with genetically modified CHO cells for those special cases which require specific molecules.
• Also: Rails don’t require tires, and neither do flying boats.

People will die in droves from MDR (antibiotic resistant) bacteria such as tuberculosis en the plague (Yersinia pestis)

Assumption: MDR bacteria will spread in society, and replace the non-resistance bacteria. normal, healthy people will pick up TBC and die. Finding new antibiotics is difficult.

Counter:

• antibiotic resistance has a ‘opportunity cost’ for bacteria. Left to evolutionary compete in a environment without anti-biotics will quickly lead bacteria to loose their antibiotic resistance, thus solving the problem.
• hygiene and our understanding of bacteria have improved tremendously. We now oa use soap, and UV light for water treatment.
• healthy people are unlikely to pick up MDR bacteria. Most MDR bacteria can be found in hospitals in weakened patients, and among people with a reduced immune system, due to HIV/AIDS and/or drug use (shared needles).
• We can (and should) stop giving antibiotic in animal feed as growth promoter. Most of the civilized world already does this.
• unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions should stop. I personally saw people being prescribed antibiotics for a virus infection in a former communist country due to the doctor not wanting to send a patient away empty-handed. Also: adherence to therapy regimens can and should improve.
• It is not difficult to find a new antibiotic. Scoop a bucket of ground from the forest floor, and changes are that you will find a new antibiotic. This is because chemical warfare is normal for fungi.
• The main reason drug companies are not researching new antibiotics, is that there is no money to be made from it. Widespread plagues would alter that calculation. Also: the state could stimulate antibiotic research.

Colony collapse disorder (Bee hive collapse) will lead to widespread hunger

Assumption: domesticated honey bees (Apis mellifera carnica) have high rates of Colony collapse disorder, which will lead to lack of pollination and ecosystem collapse

Counter:

• Colony collapse disorder seems to be mostly confined to the USA, were pesticides, mono-culture (to little diversity in what plants to feed from) are most likely to be a major driver of adverse outcomes of bee health. Replacing honey with fructose syrup is likely to make this worse. Other countries that have banned nicotides, have smaller and more diverse plots and leave more honey for the bees do not report Colony collapse disorder.
• Even if all the domesticated honey bees were to die out, wild solitary honey bees and other pollinators such as bumblebees would quickly fill up the niche. It can even be said that commercial bee keeping is keeping numbers of wild bees and other natural pollinators down.
• The majority of the calories of food crops comes from serials, which are not affected.
• Most of the plants which rely on pollination (soybeans for example) can also self-pollinate, or pollinate using other (native) insects. Bees are not even native to the USA.
• Chinese farmers in Hanyuan, Sichuan do hand pollination after eradicating all local bees due to overuse of pesticides.

A deadly airborne pandemic will wipe out big parts of humanity

Assumption: A deadly (airborne) pandemic will wipe out big parts of humanity

Counter:

• A virus that is too deadly will kill its host before it can propagate (Ebola), therefore limiting its own spread.
• A virus has a evolutionary drive not to kill its host, but to maximize spreading, although it can take some time to reach equilibrium
• Humans are not stationary targets, but have the capacity to adapt.
• The COVID19 epidemic

artificial intelligence will kill humanity

Assumption: AI will end all humans like in the movie terminator

Counter:

• AI so far has no concience as defined by the ‘mirror test’ which is possesed by humans any many animals
• Animals who do pass the ‘mirror test’ do not try to kill al humans
• AI has - so far - no ‘existential concience’ (understanding and fear of dead).
• AI has - so far - no will / drive, and although its wise never to underestimate the ingenuity or stupidity of humans, there is no direct reason to try to give AI a will. In mamals and other animals the drive / desires spring from evolution.