Letter to the Editor of the NY Times, By Irwin Redlener

Fears of Extinction: ‘The Real Deal’

Re “Extinction Panic Is Back, Right on Schedule,” by Tyler Austin Harper (Opinion guest essay, Jan. 28):

Mr. Harper wants us to feel reassured that actual life-changing threats to human well-being are nothing more than predictable bouts of “extinction panic” that temporarily upend global complacency. You know, take some deep breaths and we’ll be fine.

I can’t predict how and when global warming will actually overtake our ability to mitigate its consequences, or if A.I.-powered robots will ever supersede human dominance. But I do worry about two specific disasters that could rock our world imminently and deserve more than a kind of “what me worry?” academic dismissal as just another cycle of extinction panic.

First, less than a year ago, the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that we could soon be facing a pandemic far deadlier than Covid-19. Heightened surveillance, prevention, and treatment research for new pathogens must be stepped up now.

Second, Mr. Harper seems to wave off the threat of nuclear conflict as just Cold War brinkmanship redux. Vladimir Putin’s finger is on the trigger of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, and North Korea’s unstable Kim Jong-un is increasingly obsessed with growing his own stockpile.

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