title: Our Final Century? : Will the Human Race Survive the Twenty-First Century?
author: Martin Rees
description: Our planet may be insignificant on a cosmic scale, but the evolution of intelligent life here makes it unusual, it is likely to be unique in our galaxy. Yet we may be on the verge of destroying int, of destroying ourselves - over the next century the future of life in the cosmos could be either jeopardised - of safeguarded for perpetuity.
zlib_text: MuseLetter 319 / December 2018
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  richardheinberg.com
  MuseLetter #319 / December 2018 by Richard Heinberg 
  Dear Reader,
  Warm Solstice greetings! This month's MuseLetter is an overview of what we're
  about at PCI. It's also a preview of what we'll be working on increasingly in 2019
  and beyond. A year-end contribution to our work would be greatly appreciated!
  Best wishes always,
  Richard
  The Big Picture
  Humanity has a lot of problems these days. Climate change, increasing economic
  inequality, crashing biodiversity, political polarization, and a global debt bubble are
  just a few of our worries. None of these trends can continue indefinitely without
  leading to a serious failure of our civilization’s ability to maintain itself. Taken
  together, these metastasizing problems suggest we are headed toward some kind
  of historic discontinuity.
  Serious discontinuities tend to disrupt the timelines of all complex societies
  (another name for civilizations—that is, societies with cities, writing, money, 