Earth Enders - G. J. Jackson

Earth Enders, by G. J. Jackson, walks through the science behind the threats most likely to end human civilization, treating each one with the same rigor whether the danger is self inflicted or cosmic. Early chapters cover full scale nuclear war and the nuclear winter models that show even a regional exchange could collapse global food production, followed by natural and engineered pandemics, the alignment problems facing advanced artificial intelligence, and the periodic collapse of Earth's protective magnetic field. The book draws on primary research and respected authors like Richard Rhodes, Alan Robock, Nick Bostrom, and David Quammen to ground every scenario in documented science rather than speculation.

Later chapters move through ecological and biodiversity collapse, cyberinfrastructure failure, antimicrobial resistance, supervolcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts, and extreme solar storms, before turning to slower cosmic inevitabilities like the sun's eventual expansion into a red giant and the theoretical possibility of vacuum decay. G. J. Jackson pairs each threat with real historical near misses, from Stanislav Petrov's judgment call during a false missile alert to the Sverdlovsk anthrax leak, showing how thin the margin has often been between ordinary days and catastrophe.

The final chapters step away from science entirely to examine how Buddhism, Christianity, and Norse mythology have each imagined the end of the world, treating these traditions as honest attempts to find meaning in the face of oblivion. The book closes not with despair but with a case for clear eyed engagement, arguing that most of these risks remain within human control and that awareness paired with action is the only rational response to a fragile world.