Has the older baby-boom generation betrayed the futures of the younger generations? We invite you to consider the following new analysis of the 13 most critical global challenges that now face Generation Z, Y, and X. 

A New Analysis by the Universe Institute

It appears that the world is unraveling with a COVID-19 pandemic, growing economic uncertainty, public loss of faith and trust in our governments, global warming, civil unrest, racial injustice, species extinction, and much more. As you will read below humanity is no longer dealing with single-incident, non-interconnected local crises. Humanity has entered into a deteriorating and undeclared globalized emergency involving almost all of its critical global systems. 

There are 13 critical systemic global challenges causing the current cascading convergence of worsening global catastrophes which collectively are crushing the probability and possibilities of having a liveable future for both ourselves and future generations. 

For clarity, generation Z is those individuals born in the late 1990s and 2000s. Generation Y commonly called the Millenials were born in the 1980s and early to mid-1990s. Generation X is those individuals born in the early 1960s and 1970s.

You get to be the judge if generations Z, Y, and X are just the unluckiest generations or they have been handed one, just a few or, a whole collection of near-intractable global problems that the older generation of baby boomers have failed to improve or resolve.

After each global challenge listed below ask yourself if this was something caused by baby boomer action or inaction and, if this is the kind of quality-of-life intergenerational hand-off that the baby-boomers received from what was called The Greatest Generation? The Greatest Generation is also known as the G.I. Generation and the World War II generation.

The 13 critical systemic global challenges facing generations Z, Y, and X

There are 13 critical systemic global challenges causing the current cascading convergence of worsening global catastrophes, which collectively are crushing the probability and possibilities of having a liveable future for both ourselves and future generations: 

Global Challenge 1: Resolving the current COVID-19 global pandemic. Directly and indirectly, the current COVID-19 pandemic is due in significant part to the loss of natural wild animal habitat caused by global warming and other man-made causes such as eating more wild and not domesticated animals, the exploding and hungry world populations crowding into urban areas, and the overall deterioration of global health services. 

If a vaccine is ever found, the COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to go on around the world until mid to late 2021 or even into early 2022 before everyone is vaccinated. If no vaccine is found, like what has happened with AIDS and other viruses over the last 30 years, we will be living with the effects of COVID-19 until a “herd immunity” is developed (if that immunity is even applicable to this virus. A somewhat safer global herd immunity could take as many a 3-5 years to develop.) 

Global Challenge 2: increasing global economic instabilities that are leading to regularly reoccurring global and national recessions or depressions over shorter and shorter time periods. (These recessions and depressions are fueled by existing economic weaknesses, lack of financial reserves, huge national deficits, low financial system resilience, and major unexpected shocks or events (like COVID-19,) hitting the global markets and global financial systems.

COVID-19 is predicted to create a global financial recession or depression that could last until late 2022 or until 2025 or as long as 2030. (Ten years for recovery from a COVID-19 global recession or depression is not that long when you consider that ten years is the time it took to recover from the 2008 global banking and housing meltdown and recession.)

Global Challenge 3: ever-rising over-population, (the Earth has the carrying capacity for about 1 1/2 - 2 billion people. Currently, we are near 8 billion people adding about 130 million additional people each year racing to 9.8 billion by or before 2050. (About 50 million people a year normally die.)

We are way over sustainable population levels already yet, no government other than China seems willing to set a one child per couple policy! Future and current generations will suffer unthinkable catastrophes because, as humanity, we failed to manage the size of our global population to match the carrying capacity of our global environment and the Earth's available resources.

Please note that as the global population continues to rise, the additional population serves to further amplify and multiply the most harmful consequences of almost all the other global challenges and consequences listed on this page.) One could easily say that overpopulation and its inherent over-consumption beyond our carrying capacity is also a major cause behind today's global warming emergency. (Please click this carrying capacity link to learn more about why this rapidly rising overpopulation challenge is so dangerous.)

For a candid and balanced article on the immense suffering caused by our overpopulation global challenge, please see this article, Population, the Great Knee-Jerker: A Holistic Survey and Plea to Reduce Suffering.

Global Challenge 4: rising global resource depletion (aka overshoot) caused by overpopulation, toxic pollution of water, lands, and air, crop failures, overfishing, topsoil loss, resource distribution injustice, and the massive “overconsumption and waste” of the Earth's finite resources. Global resource depletion will significantly increase food shortages and cause soaring food prices leading to more starvation and mass migrations. For example, the following are estimates of when only a few of our critical global resources will be depleted; freshwater 12 years (2032), fish stocks almost totally gone by 2050, adequate topsoil for crop growing gone by 2070. (See this page to see 90 percent of fish stock already overfished and to see charts on how this loss will throw much of the world into starvation.)

Of particular concern is the depletion of phosphorous critically needed for crop fertilizers. Adequate access to this could run out in as little as 35-45 years.

If you still do not believe that massive resource depletion and overshoot is a huge soon-arriving problem? Watch this fantastic resource overshoot video with great graphics and global resource depletion amounts and time frames in simple illustrations by Hugh Montgomery, a noted English professor. (We strongly recommend you watch this video for all of the food and non-food resources that are in an accelerating depletion peril. [Forward the video to the 10 minutes and 30-second mark to begin watching Professor Hugh Montgomery's compelling graphic presentation.])

There are also many other critical mineral and non-mineral resources that will also run out soon, click here for more about these.

Global Challenge 5: escalating pollution of lands, air, and waters. Ongoing and accelerating toxic pollution kills crops, fish stocks, and poisons our air, water, and soil creating and accelerating all types of global health, social, and economic problems. (Ocean heating and ocean acidification from carbon from global warming will eventually kill off much of the oceans' oxygen-producing plankton. These plankton are responsible for as much as 50% of all oxygen produced on the planet.) 

Global Challenge 6: loss of biodiversity, we are having more plants and animals go extinct than at any other time in human history. This is due to an ongoing and accelerating loss of natural habitat due to overpopulation, global warming, overuse, pollution, etc. (Leading Stanford University biologists, who were first to reveal that we are already experiencing the sixth mass extinction on Earth, released new research this week showing species extinctions are accelerating in an unprecedented manner, which may be another tipping point for the collapse of human civilization.)

Global Challenge 7: growing economic inequality, social and racial injustice, hunger, and poverty. Today less than 1% of the world's population owns more than 50% of all wealth. Over for the last several decades, this ownership percentage continues to grow in favor of the wealthy.

Growing economic inequality and poverty always increase food shortages and often cause food prices to soar leading once again to mass starvation and mass migrations. This year (2020,) 130 million people are lacking adequate food and could starve to death. COVID-19's effect on the world economy could double that number of the next few years. Over the following decades, global warming consequences will raise that number into the hundreds of millions eventually rising well past a billion.) 

Global Challenge 8: escalating regional and international terrorism, conflicts, and war. While COVID-19 has temporarily slowed some regional and national conflicts, expect these conflicts to increase in intensity, frequency, and scale once COVID-19 is brought under control. The world still faces all of the other global challenges on this page getting worse and being mostly unresolved. Global nuclear war is still both a real and escalating threat as all of the global challenges on this page continue to get worse and nations with nuclear weapons contest with each other and other nations for safer lands and dwindling resources.

Global Challenge 9: More mass migrations, political and economic instability, increasing terrorism, conflicts, and war plus global warming and many of the other listed global challenges on this page will both create and expand sudden, massive migrations of millions then billions of people. Before 2030 because of global warming alone, the world will see hundreds of millions of climagees (climate refugees.)

Global Challenge 10: New COVID-19 like pandemics as other new and old disease epidemics will likely occur every decade. This will in part be due to global warming melting of the permafrost, loss of natural animal habitat, eating more wild animals, overcrowding, less resilient health systems, mass migrations, wars and conflicts, and many of the other challenges and consequences listed on this page.

Additionally, new and older disease epidemics will occur more frequently and be more severe because of the abuse of antibiotics in animal product production. This abuse has resulted in bacteria that are now resistant to every known type of antibiotic. Worse yet, because of accelerating global warming, more COVID-19 type global pandemics could come as often as every decade. The AIDS virus became widespread in the late 1970s, the SARS virus in 2003, the MERS virus in 2012, and the Ebola virus in 2013. Click here for more about how escalating global warming may begin producing COVID-19 like pandemics every decade. 

Global Challenge 11: increasing political instability and collapsing governments. Fueled by existing internal and external conflicts, soaring deficits, and the intensifying global challenges listed on this page, poorly managed nations with weak economies and low existing resilience will fall first. In 2020 we already see numerous countries on the verge of economic or political collapse. As the increased stresses of these listed global challenges continue to increase upon already weakened nations, more nations will steadily collapse. 

Global Challenge 12: Our failure to evolve effective global governance with the needed legislative, judicial, and enforceable executive powers to solve global challenges that cross national borders. If you think about it carefully, you will discover that this global challenge (and critical evolutionary failure,) of having no unified or truly effective global governance, IS one of the single biggest reasons and core structural causes for why most of our other global challenges have not yet been resolved or, continue to exist. The evolutionary absence of effective global governance alone acts to facilitate, escalate, or enable almost all of the other global challenges that we currently face. And finally last, but far from least,

Global Challenge 13: The accelerating global warming emergency. This global warming emergency is causing escalating desertification, sea-level rise, flooding, deforestation, reef collapse, droughts, wildfires, extreme storms, and the spread of diseases through epidemics and pandemics. All of these global warming specific consequences are increasing scale, severity, and frequency as our average global temperature continues to rise. 

Accelerating global warming was listed last because, currently, it is the single greatest disruptor and global threat multiplier of the 21st century. It can directly or indirectly significantly amplify and multiply the adverse consequences of almost every other global challenge listed on this page. Our global warming emergency of itself, if not resolved soon, will cause the deaths of as much as 70-90% of humanity within as little as the next 30-50 years. Worse yet, before 2050 we will also cross several extinction-evoking global warming tipping points (described here.)

Global warming is very bad for the world's economy. The rising consequences of the global warming emergency will consume larger and larger percentages of every nations Gross Domestic Productivity (GDP.)

As global warming reaches its later Climageddon Scenario phases, it will become more likely that we will destroy ourselves in a massive war or nuclear conflict over the remaining resources or global warming safer lands.

(To get the details of just how bad the global warming emergency really is, click here. To avoid global warming extinction we must meet the very difficult 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets found here. Our current out of control global warming has a precise definition. Click here to see what it means to your future safety and finances.)

Excluding the challenge of having no real global government (which is an evolutionary, structural, and developmental issue) and immediate global thermonuclear war, our out of control global warming is the single most dangerous global challenge today. It is also the most dangerous global challenge because:

a.) It is also the most immediate and probable meta-trigger for the growing possibility of a chain reaction of whipsawing and simultaneous ecological, economic, social, and political catastrophes and converging mass system collapses involving directly or indirectly most of the other greatest global challenges listed above. If you think about accelerating global warming as a brightly burning match that will ignite the highly explosive and destructive "fuels" already existing within most of the other 12 critical challenges listed above, you would have another good idea why we have to get the global warming emergency under control as our immediate and top priority.  (See the Climageddon Scenario extinction prediction model for all of the details on both consequences and timeframes of the global warming emergency)

b.) It is a severe security threat already unfolding. It is causing substantial global problems right now and, it is rapidly growing toward crossing more known and unknown extinction-evoking tipping points, which have made global warming currently all but out of our control. It can and will end most of the human species within our lifetimes if we do not act soon! (This article discusses most of the known and unknown climate tipping points. Also, see this new article on the global warming emergency that has been read over 900,000 times.)

What will our ongoing and long term global warming meltdown process look like

We will experience the following global warming-related consequences that will occur more and more over time and continue to increase in frequency, severity, and scale:

1. atmospheric heating which increases average global temperature,

2. new disease outbreaks, epidemics, and more COVID-19 like pandemics in areas where they have never been before. (This is due to loss of natural animal habitat, eating more wild animals, additional melting of the permafrost, overcrowding, less resilient health systems, and mass migrations. Because of accelerating global warming consequences, we could soon be experiencing COVID-19 type pandemics as often as every decade.)

3. shrinking sea ice and ice shelves, glaciers and snowpack,

4. extreme storms of all kinds, (hurricanes, tornadoes, rain bombs, bomb cyclones, etc,)

5. crop failures increasing mass starvation, and soaring food prices,

6. droughts,

7. new disease outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics in areas where they have never been before,

8. clean drinking water scarcity,

9. desertification,

10. fires and wildfires,

11. flooding,

12. toxic air pollution,

13. ocean acidification, (Ocean heating and ocean acidification from carbon from global warming will eventually kill off much of the oceans' oxygen-producing plankton. These plankton are responsible for as much as 50% of all oxygen produced on the planet.) 

14. loss of biodiversity,

15. jet stream disruption, (disruption of seasonal weather patterns,)

15. mass human migrations,

16 animal and insect migrations, 

17. forests including Amazon and Boreal die-back/collapse that were a major stabilizing force absorbing carbon become neutral in their carbon absorption and stop taking carbon from the atmosphere. (In later phases the forests will begin to release their vast stores of carbon pushing temperatures higher even faster.)

18. economic losses. (most nations will spend an ever-increasing percentage of their total gross domestic product (GDP) directly or indirectly paying for the consequences of the global warming emergency.)

19. accelerating reef collapses around the world, (which negatively affects fish spawning and feeding areas, which causes more collapse of global fish populations, which causes more human starvation around the world. This is because fish protein is a major source of food for the world's poorer populations.)  

20. slowing continues in the Atlantic Current. This further destabilizes global weather.

21. decreased albedo from reduced snow cover (and sea ice extent)  increasing Arctic and Earth's heat, plus boosting Arctic wetland and permafrost (massive carbon store 2X atmospheric carbon) greenhouse gas feedback emissions leading to irreversible inter and self-accelerating runaway global heating. 

22. soils overheating and instead of absorbing atmospheric carbon, they begin releasing carbon back into the atmosphere increasing heat,

23. oceans overheating and instead of absorbing atmospheric carbon, they begin releasing it (which also further increases heat, all of which results in more heat speeding up the whole process of more positive feedback loops, crossing more points of no return and tipping points.)

24. an increased amount of methane is released from the permafrost and methane clathrate crystals on coastal shelves because of warmer oceans (this further increases heat, possible ocean current change resulting in extreme weather changes, all of which once again results in more heat speeding up the whole process of more positive feedback loops, crossing more points of no return and tipping points. For more about this mass extinction methane tipping point and time bomb, see the third extinction-evoking global warming tipping point on this page.) 

24. massive tectonic plate weight change from weight changes in melting ice and rising seas above the tectonic plates causing increased earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, all of which except the earthquakes and volcanoes results in more heat speeding up the whole process of more positive feedback loops, crossing more points of no return and tipping points.

What happens when the above 13 critical global challenges "feed" into each other and interact with each other's consequences?

The future is not just a single global challenge getting worse. It is almost all of them getting worse at the same time as well as these global challenges pushing other challenges faster and faster toward their tipping and collapse points. This means that those living today (and future generations) will face a cascading convergence of worsening global catastrophes, which collectively will crush the probability and possibilities of having a liveable future.

If left managed ineffectively, hundreds of millions then billions will suffer and die. Paradoxically, because so many will die, many of the above challenges will lessen dramatically or be radically reduced because there will be so few people left competing or fighting for survival. There could also be a point where most of the coming mass die-off will not be coming solely from starvation, global warming, or other global challenges. It will come from new scarce resources or border wars that could even go nuclear as the few remaining stable nations try to retain their boundaries and survival. 

"No existing emergency preparedness program, government, NGO or international organization is even remotely close to being prepared for, or capable of recovering from the large scale convergence, whipsawing, and amplification of almost all of Earth's greatest global challenges fueled and accelerated by the great disruptor and keystone threat multiplier of accelerating global warming.

This "Great Convergence" of all of the 13 global challenges collectively create a whole planetary system emergency never before seen or experienced in human history. This "Great Convergence" is also the 'perfect storm of perfect storms' and the most likely spiraling initiator and cause for the extinction of the human species within a few decades." --Lawrence Wollersheim

How this directly or indirectly will affect you as global warming accelerates, interacts and amplifies the 12 other global challenges

In one way or another, directly or indirectly, as the above list of heat-driven global warming consequences increase in severity, frequency, and scale the following things will also occur as we grow closer to our a doomsday for humanity and civilization:

1. The total human capacity to work or produce will go down significantly, causing more business and distribution interruptions, business, and personal uncertainty, and unemployment, and homelessness.

2. There will be less food available from crops and fish stocks due to many of the extreme climate consequences.

3. Food prices will rise.

4. More people will starve.

5. The costs for simply living, or repair, maintenance, building, or rebuilding in global warming safer areas will continue to go up significantly.

6. There will be increasing disease, epidemics, and pandemics.

7. There be increasing migrations of starving, sick, or unemployed people fleeing from climate consequences and unstable or collapsed economies or nations.

8. There will be ever-increasing criminality by larger and larger portions of the population who are starving, ill or unemployed, and desperately trying to survive by any means possible.

9. Because of the growing criminality and social and political chaos, governments will impose states of emergency and martial law resulting in increased restrictions, suffering, and the loss of many hard-won human rights.

10. As the social economic and political chaos spreads, there will be more regional, national, and international conflicts and more conventional wars. There will even be a significant potential for limited nuclear war. These conflicts and wars will be due to growing resource scarcity, global warming-safe land scarcity, unstoppable migrations and other items listed on this page.

11. When all of the above items are taken collectively, it will cause additional economies and nations that were less stable to collapse entirely. And finally,

12. Human suffering and global deaths will continue to increase exponentially. Human deaths will eventually reach mass extinction levels.

Do you think generations Z, Y, and X have been handed a global nightmare by the baby boomers?

Take a moment to reflect on the above critical global challenges and then ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do you think the world's 13 most critical global challenges are causing a cascading convergence of worsening catastrophes?

2. Overall, do you think that generations Z, Y, and X have been handled "a worse future" by the baby boomer generation than they were handed by The Greatest Generation?" 

3. Do you think that the baby boomer's contributions in forwarding racial justice and human rights compensate for their deep failures in so many of the other areas of global challenges listed on this page?

4. Do you think that generations Z, Y, and X have been handled the worst legacy of challenges that has been ever handed over to any other following generation?

5. How long do you think humanity can muddle on into the 21st century without effectively resolving the above 13 critical global challenges as they continue to get worse; 2030, 2040, 2050, 2060, 2070, or the end of the 21st century?

What must generations Z, X, and Y do to have anything like a livable future!

In spite of 35 years of warnings about the global warming emergency, the baby boomer generation has not slowed the single greatest threat to the future other than immediate nuclear war --- accelerating global warming. The baby-boomer generation has failed horribly in fixing global warming and most of our other global challenges. They should not be relied upon any longer to save the future for younger generations!

It is now up to generation Z, Y, and X to step up and fix the global warming extinction emergency as well as these other critical global challenges or suffer unconscionable consequences over the next few decades!

The younger generations have a herculean challenge in front of them! It will drastically affect the economy, but it can be done. 

We shut down the world's economy for months because of fear of dying from COVID-19. And, it is likely that the world's economy will not recover soon because of COVID-19 restrictions that will remain in place until a vaccine is found. That could be years or maybe never. (A vaccine for the AIDS virus was never found.)

If we were able to shut down the world's economy because of our fear of millions dying in the COVID-19 pandemic, the younger generations could also do what is necessary to reduce global fossil fuel use to reach the 2025 targets because of our fear of billions dying in the global warming emergency.  

Generations Z, Y, and X must start this difficult process by getting the "last chance" 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets successfully executed (or at least get as close to them as possible) or, we all will go over the climate cliff and cross the three extinction-evoking global warming tipping points making the future unlivable within just a few decades. (Click here for learning about the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets.)

What generations Z, Y, and X must now do to prevent the cascading catastrophic convergence of our largest global challenges multiplied by the accelerating global warming emergency

If we are going to have any chance of having the necessary time and resources to manage and fix our other critical global challenges and prevent their cascading catastrophic convergence in an end-of-humanity scenario, we must first get the global warming extinction emergency under control as our highest priority! 

Here is how we can do this while also solving or improving many of the other global challenges listed above. Click here to see the Job One for Humanity Plan to manage and survive the global extinction emergency and get our other most critical global challenges under better control. It includes an important way to create a sustainable prosperity for all!

If you believe or feel a cascading catastrophic convergence of the above critical global challenges to be a real possibility within your lifetime, then take some time now to review this honest, positive, and effective new plan to help mitigate and prepare for our current global warming emergency. 

Click here for the Job One for Humanity Plan to Survive Global Warming and help manage or resolve many of the other global challenges listed above!

Click here to see the Climate Change and Global Warming Doomsday Clock to see how much time we have left.

If Generation Z, Y, and X fail to reduce global fossil fuel use to meet the 2025 targets successfully in time... 

then they will need to immediately switch over to leading humanity into executing a global warming and global challenge crisis emergency plan or Plan B. 

Click here to review the global warming emergency PLan B.  It covers what we all will need to do if we fail to hit the correct 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets. as well as how to manage and improve some of the other global challenges listed on this page ) 

To counterbalance all of the difficult news on this page and to see all of the wonderful benefits of solving the global warming emergency and many of these other critical global challenges, click here.

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