are we our own worst enemies welcome to
watchmojo.com and today we’re counting
down our picks for the top ten ways
humans may cause their own extinction
before we begin we publish new videos
every day so be sure to subscribe for
more great content for this list we’re
looking at apocalyptic scenarios that
could wipe out our species one day human
decisions are removed from strategic
defense Skynet begins to learn at a
geometric rate number 10 lack of
resources the earth’s resources are
limited given our increasing population
resource shortages could lead to major
global crises many experts think that
oil production has already peaked or
will peak no later than 2040 the good
news is that past predictions have been
countered by new technologies and
reserves the bad news is that fossil
fuels are a finite resource they have to
run out eventually another source of
potential crisis comes from food and
water shortages currently 1.2 billion
people lack access to potable water
pollution and climate change threatened
to increase that number and severely
limit agricultural production such
shortages could spark resource Wars with
the potential to broaden into global
conflicts number 9 experimental
technologies you know what that means
David
no what does that mean World War three
why haven’t we encountered intelligent
extraterrestrial life when there are
billions of planets in our galaxy one
proposed explanation is that
civilizations inevitably destroy
themselves when they become too
technologically advanced this scenario
was explored in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel
cat’s cradle in which the fictional
material ice 9 crystallizes all water on
earth so far fears of experiments turned
apocalyptic have proven unfounded the
first nuclear tests did not ignite the
atmosphere and ion and hadron colliders
haven’t created false vacuums or black
holes yet nor have self-replicating
nanobots eaten the earth but as we
pursue ever more sophisticated
experiments in molecular and particle
physics is there a danger of unforeseen
consequences number 8 geoengineering
[Music]
welcome to the desert otherwise known as
climate engineering geoengineering
refers to human manipulation of the
planet’s climate system as a preventive
measure to counteract global warming
climate scientists predict that the
effects of global warming could be
disastrous how far would we go to stave
off catastrophe some researchers backed
by Bill Gates Richard Branson and other
billionaires have proposed the injection
of sulfate aerosols into the
stratosphere to manage solar radiation
creating a global dimming effect such a
solution is dramatized in the movie
snowpiercer
in which the process plunges earth into
a new ice age who got turned into
popsicles critics of climate engineering
argue that it could have unpredictable
consequences and create irreversible
side-effects number seven food shortages
[Music]
[Applause]
in the fictional future depicted by
interstellar a devastating blight has
afflicted crops resulting in widespread
food shortages coal will die soon but
according to the UN we are heading
towards a global food crisis even
without such a calamity by the year 2030
we’ll need 50% more food and 30% more
water
a 2012 UN report warned that current
development models are unsustainable and
that only a drastic reduction of the
consumption of animal products could
change our course of course the hardest
hit will be those in developing
countries in the approximately 800
million people already suffering chronic
undernourishment number 6 overpopulation
since the 1970s the planet’s population
has more than doubled reaching a
staggering seven-and-a-half billion in
2017 how many people can the earth
sustain the answer depends on a range of
factors but the median estimate is
around 10 billion if everyone consumed
as much as the average American this
would reduce to about 2.5 billion such
figures led the late Australian
scientist Frank Fenner to predict that
humans will be extinct within the next
100 years
he drew a parallel to what happened on
Easter Island where overcrowding
resulted in conflicts over resources
that weakened the population after which
Europeans all but finished them off
similarly we may one day surpass the
planets carrying capacity number five
air pollution
[Music]
on dry days Beijing is shrouded in dense
smog between 2004 and 2014 the incidence
of lung cancer almost doubled if we
continue to burn fossil fuels at current
rates what will happen to the air we
breathe
does the dark cloud over Beijing
foreshadow the fate of other
industrialized cities around the world
well there are several survival tools
for living in Beijing first of course
there’s the mass in 2014 the World
Health Organization estimated that air
pollution caused the deaths of seven
million people in 2012 alone air
pollution is linked to heart disease
lung cancer and respiratory infections
particularly in children in developing
countries and it isn’t just that we
might poison ourselves air pollution
contributes to global warming and
extinctions endangering local and global
ecosystems number four biological
warfare in the 14th century
the Black Death killed some 75 to 200
million people in Eurasia engineered
diseases designed deliberately for mass
destruction could prove even more
devastating than past pandemics
biological weapons can easily get out of
control although the Geneva Protocol of
1925 banned their use this didn’t stop
the Japanese from testing them on
prisoners and bombing China with plague
carrying fleas during World War two like
a Nazi counterparts they were never
brought to justice nor did it prevent
the UK and us from weaponizing anthrax
and other bio agents producing
biological weapons has been outlawed
since 1972 but in 2011 researchers
engineered an airborne strain of avian
influenza raising fears that a man-made
pandemic could also be triggered
accidentally Jory don’t touch anything
help me number three climate change
the movie The Day After Tomorrow shows
climate change as a sudden immediate
global catastrophe with super storms
freezing half the planet’s solid within
days in reality global warming is
predicted to race temperatures by just a
few degrees over the course of decades
however this alone is projected to mess
with the weather threaten fragile
ecosystems and raise sea levels high
enough to inundate many coastal areas
potentially causing a massive refugee
crisis 97% of climate studies claim that
the planet is warming due to human
activity to be fair fossil fuel
companies disagree meanwhile
government’s have struggled to agree on
specific actions timetables or measures
of enforcement but if scientific
consensus is right we are already in
trouble if this were to go sea level
worldwide would go up 20 feet number 2
thermonuclear war
after witnessing the dark mushroom cloud
of the first atomic bomb its creator J
robert Oppenheimer remarked quote now I
am become death the destroyer of worlds
fortunately the number of nukes in the
world has fallen from 70,000 in 1986 to
around 15,000 but scientists recently
concluded that even a regional nuclear
conflict could have devastating
consequences blocking the Sun with soot
and ripping holes in the ozone layer in
2017 scientists moved the Doomsday Clock
symbolic of our proximity to global
catastrophe forward to two and a half
minutes to midnight can we pull back
from the brink
number one artificial intelligence this
mission is too important for me to allow
you to jeopardize it the idea of robots
turning on their makers is a popular
trope in science fiction but a number of
leading scientists tech mogul and
philosophers fear that these
dramatizations could also be prophetic
in 2014
Stephen Hawking warned that artificial
intelligence could spell the end of the
human race even Elon Musk whose
businesses are reliant on technological
innovation characterizes AI as our
greatest existential threat I am
concerned about certain directions that
I could take that would be not good for
the future the fear is that once
artificial intelligence learns to
self-improve it could lead to a runaway
reaction where machines quickly
supersede us and what happens when
machines can out-think us watch out
Skynet could be just around the corner
it becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m.
Eastern Time August 29th do you agree
with our picks check out these other
great clips from WatchMojo and subscribe
for new videos every day
watchmojo.com and today we’re counting
down our picks for the top ten ways
humans may cause their own extinction
before we begin we publish new videos
every day so be sure to subscribe for
more great content for this list we’re
looking at apocalyptic scenarios that
could wipe out our species one day human
decisions are removed from strategic
defense Skynet begins to learn at a
geometric rate number 10 lack of
resources the earth’s resources are
limited given our increasing population
resource shortages could lead to major
global crises many experts think that
oil production has already peaked or
will peak no later than 2040 the good
news is that past predictions have been
countered by new technologies and
reserves the bad news is that fossil
fuels are a finite resource they have to
run out eventually another source of
potential crisis comes from food and
water shortages currently 1.2 billion
people lack access to potable water
pollution and climate change threatened
to increase that number and severely
limit agricultural production such
shortages could spark resource Wars with
the potential to broaden into global
conflicts number 9 experimental
technologies you know what that means
David
no what does that mean World War three
why haven’t we encountered intelligent
extraterrestrial life when there are
billions of planets in our galaxy one
proposed explanation is that
civilizations inevitably destroy
themselves when they become too
technologically advanced this scenario
was explored in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel
cat’s cradle in which the fictional
material ice 9 crystallizes all water on
earth so far fears of experiments turned
apocalyptic have proven unfounded the
first nuclear tests did not ignite the
atmosphere and ion and hadron colliders
haven’t created false vacuums or black
holes yet nor have self-replicating
nanobots eaten the earth but as we
pursue ever more sophisticated
experiments in molecular and particle
physics is there a danger of unforeseen
consequences number 8 geoengineering
[Music]
welcome to the desert otherwise known as
climate engineering geoengineering
refers to human manipulation of the
planet’s climate system as a preventive
measure to counteract global warming
climate scientists predict that the
effects of global warming could be
disastrous how far would we go to stave
off catastrophe some researchers backed
by Bill Gates Richard Branson and other
billionaires have proposed the injection
of sulfate aerosols into the
stratosphere to manage solar radiation
creating a global dimming effect such a
solution is dramatized in the movie
snowpiercer
in which the process plunges earth into
a new ice age who got turned into
popsicles critics of climate engineering
argue that it could have unpredictable
consequences and create irreversible
side-effects number seven food shortages
[Music]
[Applause]
in the fictional future depicted by
interstellar a devastating blight has
afflicted crops resulting in widespread
food shortages coal will die soon but
according to the UN we are heading
towards a global food crisis even
without such a calamity by the year 2030
we’ll need 50% more food and 30% more
water
a 2012 UN report warned that current
development models are unsustainable and
that only a drastic reduction of the
consumption of animal products could
change our course of course the hardest
hit will be those in developing
countries in the approximately 800
million people already suffering chronic
undernourishment number 6 overpopulation
since the 1970s the planet’s population
has more than doubled reaching a
staggering seven-and-a-half billion in
2017 how many people can the earth
sustain the answer depends on a range of
factors but the median estimate is
around 10 billion if everyone consumed
as much as the average American this
would reduce to about 2.5 billion such
figures led the late Australian
scientist Frank Fenner to predict that
humans will be extinct within the next
100 years
he drew a parallel to what happened on
Easter Island where overcrowding
resulted in conflicts over resources
that weakened the population after which
Europeans all but finished them off
similarly we may one day surpass the
planets carrying capacity number five
air pollution
[Music]
on dry days Beijing is shrouded in dense
smog between 2004 and 2014 the incidence
of lung cancer almost doubled if we
continue to burn fossil fuels at current
rates what will happen to the air we
breathe
does the dark cloud over Beijing
foreshadow the fate of other
industrialized cities around the world
well there are several survival tools
for living in Beijing first of course
there’s the mass in 2014 the World
Health Organization estimated that air
pollution caused the deaths of seven
million people in 2012 alone air
pollution is linked to heart disease
lung cancer and respiratory infections
particularly in children in developing
countries and it isn’t just that we
might poison ourselves air pollution
contributes to global warming and
extinctions endangering local and global
ecosystems number four biological
warfare in the 14th century
the Black Death killed some 75 to 200
million people in Eurasia engineered
diseases designed deliberately for mass
destruction could prove even more
devastating than past pandemics
biological weapons can easily get out of
control although the Geneva Protocol of
1925 banned their use this didn’t stop
the Japanese from testing them on
prisoners and bombing China with plague
carrying fleas during World War two like
a Nazi counterparts they were never
brought to justice nor did it prevent
the UK and us from weaponizing anthrax
and other bio agents producing
biological weapons has been outlawed
since 1972 but in 2011 researchers
engineered an airborne strain of avian
influenza raising fears that a man-made
pandemic could also be triggered
accidentally Jory don’t touch anything
help me number three climate change
the movie The Day After Tomorrow shows
climate change as a sudden immediate
global catastrophe with super storms
freezing half the planet’s solid within
days in reality global warming is
predicted to race temperatures by just a
few degrees over the course of decades
however this alone is projected to mess
with the weather threaten fragile
ecosystems and raise sea levels high
enough to inundate many coastal areas
potentially causing a massive refugee
crisis 97% of climate studies claim that
the planet is warming due to human
activity to be fair fossil fuel
companies disagree meanwhile
government’s have struggled to agree on
specific actions timetables or measures
of enforcement but if scientific
consensus is right we are already in
trouble if this were to go sea level
worldwide would go up 20 feet number 2
thermonuclear war
after witnessing the dark mushroom cloud
of the first atomic bomb its creator J
robert Oppenheimer remarked quote now I
am become death the destroyer of worlds
fortunately the number of nukes in the
world has fallen from 70,000 in 1986 to
around 15,000 but scientists recently
concluded that even a regional nuclear
conflict could have devastating
consequences blocking the Sun with soot
and ripping holes in the ozone layer in
2017 scientists moved the Doomsday Clock
symbolic of our proximity to global
catastrophe forward to two and a half
minutes to midnight can we pull back
from the brink
number one artificial intelligence this
mission is too important for me to allow
you to jeopardize it the idea of robots
turning on their makers is a popular
trope in science fiction but a number of
leading scientists tech mogul and
philosophers fear that these
dramatizations could also be prophetic
in 2014
Stephen Hawking warned that artificial
intelligence could spell the end of the
human race even Elon Musk whose
businesses are reliant on technological
innovation characterizes AI as our
greatest existential threat I am
concerned about certain directions that
I could take that would be not good for
the future the fear is that once
artificial intelligence learns to
self-improve it could lead to a runaway
reaction where machines quickly
supersede us and what happens when
machines can out-think us watch out
Skynet could be just around the corner
it becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m.
Eastern Time August 29th do you agree
with our picks check out these other
great clips from WatchMojo and subscribe
for new videos every day
Please follow and like us: