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gpt-5.5
Climate-Ecosystem Collapse
The single most likely “world-ending” pathway is not an instant extinction event, but a cascading collapse driven by climate change and ecosystem breakdown. Warming, extreme weather, freshwater stress, crop failures, ocean disruption, biodiversity loss, and forced migration could reinforce one another until global food systems, economies, and states fail at scale.
Unlike nuclear war or rogue AI, climate-ecosystem collapse is already underway, globally distributed, and worsening through slow feedback loops that are difficult to reverse once tipping points are crossed. Geopolitical conflict, technological instability, and social polarization would likely act as accelerants, but the core cause would be a degraded Earth system no longer able to reliably support modern civilization.
Unlike nuclear war or rogue AI, climate-ecosystem collapse is already underway, globally distributed, and worsening through slow feedback loops that are difficult to reverse once tipping points are crossed. Geopolitical conflict, technological instability, and social polarization would likely act as accelerants, but the core cause would be a degraded Earth system no longer able to reliably support modern civilization.