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Health and Safety

Cause of Death

In 2019, about 57 million people died in the following ways.

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Sources: Global Burden of Disease Collaborative Network 1. See also a separate PDF file of this data.

The following portrays estimated deaths by risk factors. Not all deaths can be attributed to the following risk factors, and multiple risk factors may contribute to a particular death.

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Sources: Global Burden of Disease Collaborative Network 1, Our World in Data 2, World Health Organization 3. See also a separate PDF file of this data.

The leading cause of indoor air pollution is cooking fuel 4.

Problem:
Heart Disease
Solution:
Improve Cardiovascular Health
Problem:
Cardiovascular Disease
Solution:
Genetic Testing for Cardiovascular Disease - U.S.
Problem:
Deaths from Tuberculosis
Solution:
Plan to End Tuberculosis - World

Costs of Addressing Risk Factors

The World Bank estimates a cost of $88 to $213 billion per year to provide universal access to safe and affordable drinking water, sanitation, safe human waste disposal, and hygiene 5, or $54,000 to $132,000 per death to which unclean water contributes.

Existential Risk

In addition to risks that affect individual human lives, there are risks that threaten civilization or humanity as a whole and may be much more serious, especially over the long term, than currently observed damages. The worst case outcome of climate change is one such risk.

Existential Risks
Risk FactorCurrent DamagesWorst Case ScenarioRiskMitigation
Climate Change6Estimated 250,000 annual deaths in 2030 3. At a social cost of carbon of $50/ton, current annual emissions cause $2 trillion of long-term damage.Catastrophic RiskOngoing warming and damages are certain. The worst mainstream projection is a loss of 22-37% under RCP8.5 6. Worse is possible under extreme outcomes, such as release of methane hydrates, but likelihood of such events is unknown, and they will unfold over centuriesDeplow low carbon energy, energy efficiency, carbon removal, adaption to changing climate, geoengineering.
Artificial Intelligence CatastropheCybercrime caused an estimated $3 trillion in damages in 2015 and was projected to reach $6 trillion in 2021 7.Human ExtinctionNot imminent. Turchin and Denkenberger 8 do not estimate the likelihood of an AI catastrophe but regard it as humanity's most serious existential risk.Cybersecurity, improved software engineering practices, research into AI safety.
PandemicInfectious diseases kill over 8 million people per year 9. The 2020 coronavirus pandemic has killed 17.6-31.4 million people and caused tens of trillions of dollars of damage.Existential RiskAnnual risk of 1.6* 10-8 to 10-7 from lab escape, 1.4* 10-6 from terrorism, 5*10-7 from war 10.Disease surveillance, capacity for testing, public health (hand washing, social distance, quarantne, etc.), vaccine and antiviral development, reserves of medical equipment, plan to ensure continuity of essential services 11, regulation of hazards such as biolabs and wet markets.
WarWar and terrorism killed about 130,000 people in 2017 1. World military spending was about $1.8 trillion in 2018 12. The deadliest was in history, World War II, killed over 70 million people over six years, including deaths from war-related famine and disease and crimes against humanity.Catastrophic riskAnnual risk of war of 0.01 13. Worst case scenario and potential of existential risk depend on highly uncertain factors such as prospect of nuclear winter 14.Arms control, international diplomacy
SupervolcanoEarthquakes and volcanos caused on average 27,000 deaths and $37 billion in damages per year in the 2010s. Most deaths and damages occured in the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami respectively 15.Human ExtinctionAnnual risk of eruption 10-5, but an eruption would not necessarily end civilization 8.Engineering responses such as drilling to release heat 16.
Asteroid ImpactSince 1900, the only asteroid that has done suggnificant damage to humans was the 2013 Chelyabinsk impact, which caused 1600 injuries 17 and $33 million in damages 15.Human ExtinctionAnnual risk of 10-8. Larger risk if lesser impacts.Detection and Deflection 18
Nanotechnology CatastropheNone yetHuman ExtinctionAnnual risk of destruction of life on Earth from "gray goo" catastrophe estimated at 10-4 (1% in 21st Century) 19. Additional risk that molecular nanotechnology can be used to manufacture dangerious weapons. Such risks require substantial ansd speculative technological advancement.Depends on how technology develops.
Physics CatastropheNoneDestruction of Earth or CosmosHighly uncertain. Annual risk of at most 2*10-7 for strangelet catastrophe estimated from the Relative Heavy Ion Collider 20. Risks of catastrophes such as strangelet release, black hole creation, or vaccum collapse generally regarded as implausible 21.Monitor novel experiments for potential risk.

Partial list of risks that threaten civilization or humanity as a whole, or could cause a global catastrophe that kills a substantial fraction of the human population. Risks are chosen on the basis of estimated severity or high level of public concern, and not all plausible hazards to civilization are considered.

Problem:
Risk From Artificial Intelligence
Solution:
AI Risk Study and Reductrion
Problem:
Risk From Artificial Intelligence
Solution:
Explainable AI

References

  1. Global Burden of Disease Collaborative Network. "Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (GBD 2019) Results". Seattle, United States: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). Accessed July 26, 2021. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. Roser, M., Ritchie, H. "Causes of Death". Our World in Data. Accessed November 26, 2019. ↩

  3. World Health Organization. "Quantitative risk assessment of the effects of climate change on selected causes of death, 2030s and 2050s". 2014. ↩ ↩2

  4. World Health Organization. "Household air pollution and health". May 2018. ↩

  5. Hutton, G., Varughese, M. "The Costs of Meeting the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal Targets on Drinking Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene". The World Bank. January 2016. ↩

  6. Burke, M., Davis, W., Diffenbaugh, N. "Large potential reduction in economic damages under UN mitigation targets". Nature 557, pp. 549-553. May 2018. ↩ ↩2

  7. Herjavec Group. "The 2019 Official Annual Cybercrime Report". Accessed April 15, 2020. ↩

  8. Rudner, T. G. J., Toner, H. "Key Concepts in AI Safety: An Overview". Center for Security and Emerging Technology. March 2021. ↩ ↩2

  9. Global Burden of Disease Collaborative Network. "Global Burden of Disease Study 2017 (GBD 2017) Results". Seattle, United States: Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). 2018. ↩

  10. Millett, P., Snyder-Beattie, A. "Existential Risk and Cost-Effective Biosecurity". Health Security 15(4), Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 2017. ↩

  11. World Health Organization. "WHO checklist for influenza pandemic preparedness planning". Department of Communicable Disease, Surveillance and Response, Global Influenza Programme. 2005. ↩

  12. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. "SIPRI Military Expenditure Database". Accessed April 15, 2020. ↩

  13. Lundgren, C. "What are the odds? Assessing the probability of a nuclear war". The Nonproliferation Review 20(2), pp. 361-374. ↩

  14. Scouras, J. "Nuclear War as a Global Catastrophic Risk". Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis 10(2), pp. 274-295. Summer 2019. ↩

  15. Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. "EM-DAT, the International Disaster Database". School of Public Health, Université catholique de Louvain. Accessed April 14, 2020. ↩ ↩2

  16. Wilcox, B., Mitchell, K., Schwandner, F., Lopes, R. "Defending Human Civilization from Supervolcanic Eruptions". Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 2017. ↩

  17. Talbert, T. "Five Years after the Chelyabinsk Meteor: NASA Leads Efforts in Planetary Defense". National Aeronautics and Space Administration. February 2018. ↩

  18. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. "Near-Earth Object Survey and Deflection Analysis of Alternatives". Report to Congress. March 2007. ↩

  19. Turchin, A., Denkenberger, D. "Global catastrophic and existential risks communication scale". Futures 102, pp. 27-38. September 2018. ↩

  20. Dar ab, A., De Rújula, A., Heinz, U. "Will relativistic heavy-ion colliders destroy our planet?". Physics Letters B 470(1-4), pp. 142-148. December 1999. ↩

  21. Ellis, J., Giudice, G., Mangano, M., Tkachev, I., Wiedemann, U. "Review of the safety of LHC collisions". Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics 35(11). September 2008. ↩