Experts calculate 17 catastrophic dangers for humanity by the year 2100

What will keep humanity in suspense over the next 75 years? A nuclear war, a bioweapon created by artificial intelligence, climate change - or is it high blood pressure, alcohol and obesity?

This was the subject of a large-scale risk report presented by the Lancet Commission on 21st Century Global Threats to Health at the World Health Summit in Berlin. In it, 35 experts have identified 17 threats to global health - from civilization-destroying catastrophes to insidious widespread diseases.

The most dramatic findings relate to two scenarios that the Commission classifies as existential: the malicious use of AI - for example to develop biological weapons - and a nuclear conflict. The latter could throw enough particles into the atmosphere to block sunlight and trigger famine. AI-assisted bioweapons, in turn, could prove uncontrollable.

Although the probability of both scenarios is low, their occurrence would have the potential to wipe out humanity by 2100. An accompanying editorial in the Lancet magazine puts it in an unusually drastic way: The extent of the damage would bring an apocalypse to humanity. Such words in medical literature are extraordinary – and calculated. The commission wants to shake up decision-makers.

To compare different threats, the researchers used Disability-Adjusted Life Years, or DALYs for short: a unit that measures how many years of good health are lost due to illness or premature death. Only risks that cost a particularly large number of healthy years of life, but for which realistic solutions exist, were included in the list.

In addition to the extreme scenarios, the major catastrophic threats, each with more than a billion years of healthy life lost by 2100, include: air pollution, antibiotic-resistant germs, child malnutrition, climate change, conventional wars, declining development aid, alcohol abuse, high blood pressure, income inequality, lack of education, pandemics, obesity, poor mental health, smoking and unhealthy aging.

What is particularly striking is that the Commission explicitly classifies the withdrawal of wealthy countries from health financing as a catastrophe risk. The USA and Great Britain have recently drastically cut their spending. According to the report, a collapse in health aid could cause up to 1.5 billion years of lost healthy life by 2100 - almost 70 percent of them in sub-Saharan Africa.

In low-income countries, healthy lifespan is lost primarily due to a lack of education, infectious diseases and nutritional deficiencies. In wealthy countries, non-communicable diseases and risk factors dominate: obesity, mental illnesses, alcohol consumption, tobacco consumption. What at first glance seems like a lifestyle problem turns out to be a social threat with an enormous number of years of life lost.

The corona pandemic, escalating conflicts and the rise of powerful AI models have shown how quickly stability can collapse, the authors write. Governments must think long-term and minimize risks - instead of only acting in the event of a crisis.

Christopher Murray, co-chair of the commission, told the Guardian: "We initially thought there were three major threats - conflict, climate, pandemics. In fact there are many more and governments need to seriously invest in anticipation, prevention and preparation."