From Asteroids to Pandemics:

Living a World of Spontaneous Risks

When I first came up with the idea to write this book one year ago, the world was going through its worst biological crisis in over 100 years. The second decade of this century was just getting started. Already a meteor had crisscrossed our atmosphere, wreaking havoc on the Russian city of Chelyabinsk on February 15th, 2013. It awakened the specter of our planet's vulnerability, and the fear of been bombarded by an asteroid similar to that of the Tunguska asteroid, on June 30th,1908. The airburst of cosmic rock, decimated over 830 square miles of Siberian forest. Long before however, the Chicxulub killer asteroid, made an astonishing entry onto Earth. Sixty six million years ago its impact wiped out the dominant species at the time; the dinosaurs. 

In 2014, the winds of war began to blow as Russia overstepped its borders, annexing the Crimea region and taking over parts of Eastern Ukraine. Almost exactly the date when the Chelyabinsk meteor hit Russia on February 15th, of 2013. The stars were “imperfectly” aligned, prompting a sort of cosmic phenomena that influenced the ill decisions of Russia to revive Ares, the god of war in Greek mythology. Not a year has passed since I finished this book when on February 24th 2022, Vladimir Putin led the charge against Ukraine for full control of the strategic country. We are living in times where the winds of a global war are now blowing very strong. Could this unravel the first world war of the 21st Century? Could a new global war, turn into an existential dilemma for humankind? Almost 80 years after the atomic bombs were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Will humanity be once again witness to another anthropogenic cataclysmic event?

My writing got tangled in the many things happening geo-politically at the same time. Famous economist, John Maynard Keynes once quipped, “when the facts change, I change my mind Sir. What would you do?”. With this question in mind, this book was expanded into topics related to geo-politics, space, world wars, nuclear wars, a new world order, the rise of old empires, and the creation of new ones, the dangers of failing democracy, the lost status of American leadership in the world, climate change, greenhouse effect, anthropogenic disasters, non-anthropogenic catastrophes, pandemics, and last but not least, existential risks which threaten the continuation of humanity. The facts influencing the future of humanity, have definitely changed, so I had to change my mind in order to align the topics of the book, with the new realities of our times.

Even as we confront so many dilemmas, I see the light at the end of the tunnel hoping that if worst comes to worst, human rationality will prevail. Thus paving the way to avoid any sort of existential calamity. Let us avoid mistakes of the past, and come to terms withe preservation of achievements this civilization so far, has accomplished.

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