What is it going to take to kill this species off?

Why do we pay attention to the most dire of forecasts? I pulled this from a 2011 piece I wrote:

“You humans are a hardy breed. No matter how dire the circumstance, your species has managed to prosper.

You survived the Ice Age, the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, the Age of Aquarius (as well as Disco and Polyester). Mother Nature has thrown floods, earthquakes, droughts, plagues, pandemics, tornadoes, asteroids, tsunamis, hurricanes, melting glaciers and global warming at you. Not to mention world wars and nuclear proliferation.

Economically, you’ve withstood the Panics of 1819, 1825, 1837, 1847, 1857, 1866, 1873, 1884, 1890, 1893, 1896, 1907, 1929, 1933, 1938, 1973, 1987, 1998, 2000, and 2007-09 — and that is just over the past two centuries. You also saw through the Tulip Bubble, the South Sea Bubble, the Great Depression and the Great Recession, the Nifty-Fifty, the Asian Contagion, the Dot-com Bubble, the subprime fiasco and Bernie Madoff.

What is it going to take to kill this species off — or at least to bankrupt it?”

Washington Post

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