Book contents
- Planet in Peril
- Reviews
- Planet in Peril
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Fictional Vignettes
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Existential Threats: The Four Most Pressing Dangers Facing Humankind
- Part II Strategies and Obstacles: The Solutions We Need, and What’s Preventing Them from Being Realized
- Part III Sensible Steps for Today’s World: Powerful Measures We Can Implement Right Away
- Part IV The Middle-Term Goal: New International Tools for the Late Twenty-First Century
- Part V The Long-Term Goal: Envisioning a Mature System of Global Governance for the Twenty-Second Century
- 18 Global Government in a World of Democracies and Dictatorships: What It Might Look Like in 2150
- 19 Keeping the System Accountable and Fair
- 20 Collective Military Security and Economic Sanctions: How to Handle Rogues, Cheaters, and Fanatics
- 21 What Could Go Wrong?
- 22 Conclusion
- Endnotes
- Bibliography
- Index
21 - What Could Go Wrong?
from Part V - The Long-Term Goal: Envisioning a Mature System of Global Governance for the Twenty-Second Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2022
- Planet in Peril
- Reviews
- Planet in Peril
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Fictional Vignettes
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Existential Threats: The Four Most Pressing Dangers Facing Humankind
- Part II Strategies and Obstacles: The Solutions We Need, and What’s Preventing Them from Being Realized
- Part III Sensible Steps for Today’s World: Powerful Measures We Can Implement Right Away
- Part IV The Middle-Term Goal: New International Tools for the Late Twenty-First Century
- Part V The Long-Term Goal: Envisioning a Mature System of Global Governance for the Twenty-Second Century
- 18 Global Government in a World of Democracies and Dictatorships: What It Might Look Like in 2150
- 19 Keeping the System Accountable and Fair
- 20 Collective Military Security and Economic Sanctions: How to Handle Rogues, Cheaters, and Fanatics
- 21 What Could Go Wrong?
- 22 Conclusion
- Endnotes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Building and maintaining a global federal government won’t be easy: plenty of things could go awry along the way, and plenty more could go sour even after the government was up and running. The world’s peoples may respond to severe climate change by retrenching into regional or national enclaves. The global legislature could become gridlocked in a manner similar to the UN during the Cold War. One nation or group of nations could succeed in gaining unilateral control over the global government, resulting either in an Orwellian superstate or in a catastrophic planetary civil war. These scenarios form a perfectly real and plausible possibility for our collective future – and the coming generations will need to be ever-vigilant in their efforts to prevent them from happening.
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- Planet in PerilHumanity's Four Greatest Challenges and How We Can Overcome Them, pp. 318 - 323Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022