Dangers Humanity Has Avoided

Climate change is by no means the only great threat to the existence of civilization as we know it.  We've dodged disaster before.

At least three times, there has almost been a launch of nuclear weapons between the U.S. and the Soviet Union: first due to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the second due to the launch of a research missile in Norway, and later due to the malfunction of a cheap microchip.

Another example of incompetence was the setting of launch access codes to all zeroes by the U.S. Air Force before the federal government knew that the coding "failsafe" had thus been defeated.  During the time when the codes were all zeroes, even a lieutenant could have caused a launch by himself.

Highly-enriched uranium can be created by a centrifuging process.  Therefore it is at least theoretically possible that homicidal types in unstable countries could eventually gain access to it.  After all, the G.W. Bush administration failed to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons.

Humanity must somehow make it past the nuclear war/fuel crisis/environmental crisis age if we are ever to become even what Michio Kaku calls a "Class 1" civilization in the stellar sense.

Sadly, some fundamentalist Christians seem to welcome destruction of the world, since they believe that is what must happen before the "second coming," during which they will be chosen to be taken to paradise.  Some of these people seem to have little respect for the Earth, since they see it as a temporary (and less-than-desirable) dwelling place for the faithful.  But Pope Francis has famously said it is our duty to be good stewards of our planet.