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In 1971, Garrett Hardin published an editorial entitled _Nobody Ever Dies of Overpopulation based on the cyclone that struck East Bengal and killed an estimated 500,000 people. Overcrowding forced people to live in a dangerous place like the Gangetic Delta which is barely above sea level. Now, 37 years later, a similar situation is unfolding in the Ganges River Delta in Bangladesh. This delta is also barely above sea level, and the water keeps rising due to global warming. If a large storm were to create hurricanes in this area housing and agricultural areas would be destroyed as well as power lines and water supply which would interfere with food deliveries and medical assistance. In a worst case scenario environmental refugees could reach 25 million and the death toll could be in the millions. If global climate change was one of the antecedent causes to this worst case scenario, would seal level rise and sever weather truly be the cause of deaths?

The United States, which has been the poster child for car culture, has been warned of the unparalleled prospect of trillion-dollar deficits for years to come. Most state governments face severe reduction in tax monies, which will mean fewer funds for road and bridge repair, as well as reductions in other services. Personal debt is very high and home values have declined sharply, reducing the _nest egg of many families for retirement. In addition, the stock market decline has had deleterious effects on retirement funds. The car culture was built on cheap fuel, financing of car purchases, and a convenient national system of mostly free roads connecting nearly all parts of the United States. Personal transportation with cars has been the norm. Petroleum prices are down dramatically at the end of 2008, but people are driving less to pay off personal debt or because they have lost their jobs. Electric cars seemed promising until problems with coal-generated electricity became more generally known. In short, the car culture has passed a tipping point and alternative public transportation is not adequate for probable future needs. One characteristic of passing a tipping point is that return to the pre-tipping point conditions is very unlikely.

Some claim that humans are too numerous to become extinct. However, passenger pigeon, once the most numerous birds on the planet, are now extinct. For years, humankind has been damaging its habitat, discharging toxic chemicals into the environment, and having harmful effects on agricultural productivity due to climate change. Humankind s extinction depends on the continuation of various human activities including economic growth, addiction to fossil fuel, over consumption, overpopulation, ocean acidification, and use of toxicants. If humankind wants to remain on this planet, it must start preparing for a vastly different environment on Earth.

Scientists and inventors have proposed a variety of technologies to avoid further increases in the Earth s temperature by greenhouse gases. The two most popular technological approaches are: reflecting solar energy back into space and sequestering and storing carbon to prevent it from reentering the atmosphere. These last ditch efforts are now being referred to as _Hail Mary technologies, or efforts made in desperation with only a small chance of success. However, humankind due to the severity of the situation, has given these _Hail Mary technologies a serious consideration, even though these approaches have not be adequately researched to address one component of a much larger problem.

Environmental refugees are produced when the human population growth exceeds the carrying capacity of the region or when natural resources are diminished due to droughts, floods, or other types of climate change. Although refugees seek better living conditions, they may cause an overload of the carrying capacity of the new region. As a consequence, their efforts will have been futile, as well as being a danger to the inhabitants of the new era. Supplementary information is included in a separate file

Humans, thanks to their modern technology and cheap, abundant fossil energy, are changing the climate and as a result are playing a major role in the extinction of and reduction of the population sizes of many species. Extinction can occur suddenly, slowly, or it can be a result of long-term incremental changes in the habitat that are characteristic of long-term cycles on Earth. Humankind is delusional in believing that its technology will save it from extinction, just as I was delusional when I believed that humankind would be willing to change its lifestyle to achieve sustainable use of the planet.

The Kyoto Protocol aims to reduce emissions in industrialized countries to five percent below 1990 levels by 2012, however no evidence indicates that this goal will be reached. As a consequence, we will again exceed the Earth s assimilative capacity for greenhouse gases and humankind will push the climate closer to major, irreversible tipping points. Currently, Earth s ability to assimilate greenhouse gases is declining while greenhouse gas emissions are increasing. Climate change is becoming out of humankind s control. Although science may be full of uncertainty, if continuing _business as usual is likely to have catastrophic effects on the biosphere, precautionary measures are justified, even if scientific uncertainty still exists in these areas.

The key to long-term economic and social stability is the sustainable use of the planet. The Global Tower of Babel is such a formidable obstacle in achieving sustainable use of the planet that the barriers must be diminished. However, if a global consensus can be reached and compatible eco-ethics and sustainability ethics can be established, humankind may have a chance at achieving sustainability despite its cultural diversity.

In addition to the usual threats to world peace, a number of other destabilizing factors affect human society: global warming, ecological overshoot, and resource wars. These factors are interactive and often have positive feedback loops, making the effects worse than linear extrapolation indicates. Peace will more likely be achieved if: (1) empathy markedly increases for members of the human species and compassion grows for the other life forms with which humans share the planet, (2) immediate steps are taken to eliminate the ecological overshoot that threatens the biospheric life support system upon which survival of the human species depends, (3) strong, immediate action is taken to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gases responsible for global warming and other types of climate change (e.g., changes in rainfall patterns, increased storm intensity), (4) humankind finds ways to begin taking measures immediately for significantly diminishing global inequities in resource distribution, (5) humankind stabilizes its population level and resource consumption to a sustainable level, and (6) the success of the above actions is judged by a marked reduction in or elimination of resource wars.

Intelligence is defined as a general mental capacity to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas, and learn. Intelligence can also be defined as the ability to acquire and apply information gathered from the environment to modify its behavior. It is this intelligence that has allowed the genus Homo to survive for 2 million years. However, recently the global financial meltdown and the deleterious effects of climate change raise the question of whether intelligence has survival value for huge populations effectively isolated from the natural systems in which Homo evolved and survived. Humans view themselves as the most intelligent species, but for humans to survive they must display their intelligence effectively.