Dealing with disasters

Natural disasters

They have already started: Extreme weather events are increasing, leading to floods, droughts and forest fires. The main cause is the emission of greenhouse gases (mainly CO2, CH4, N2O, CFC-12). This leads to global warming. Aerosols, on the other hand, are harmful to human health but reduce global warming. The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues to increase (exeptionally CFC-12), while aerosol emissions are decreasing. As a result, average global warming continues to increase. We must therefore expect even more and even stronger natural disasters in the future.

Wars

Wars do not occur as frequently as natural disasters, but usually result in more fatalities than natural disasters. Russia's brutality towards Ukraine has probably surprised almost all of us. I think we will see more surprises in the next few years (or perhaps in the next few decades). 

What makes me so pessimistic? History teaches us that wars happen again and again. After a war, there are often some years of peace because those in power realise that a war is an unpleasant event. But at some point the horror of war is forgotten and warmongers come to power. 
Some possible scenarios:

Western warmongering

Several countries (particularly France and the USA) are currently in a political situation similar to that of Germany before 1933: Right-wing extremists are threatening to come to power. In Germany, this led to the Second World War 7 years later. And it is quite possible that Trump or Le Pen, when they are in power, will become radicalised over the years and also start a war.  Sometimes war is a ruler's last chance to hold on to power. Moreover, various statements of Donald Trump show that he is quite vindictive and unpredictable.

Russian attack

Suppose, Trump wins the election on 5 November 2024 in the USA and forces a dictatorial peace with Putin on Ukraine because the rest of the world is not supplying Ukraine with enough weapons for its defence. Russia sticks to this peace agreement for a few years and uses the time to continue arming itself, weaken other Western states through disinformation and promote disunity in the Western world. And then at some point there will be a favourable opportunity for Russia to attack again...

Conflict with China, North Korea or other countries

Authoritarian regimes tend to pursue a more aggressive foreign policy than democratic governments. When autocrats lose power, it usually means a personal catastrophe for them: contempt, hatred, punishment instead of power and respect. 

In order to maintain their power, authoritarian regimes often radicalise themselves. They bring the media, courts and police under their control, persecute political opponents and pursue an aggressive foreign policy to divert attention from domestic problems. We can now see this in China. Alongside the USA and Russia, China is one of the three most powerful countries in the world. This means that China will also pose a considerable threat of war in the future.

Economic disasters

Natural disasters and wars probably will lead to stock market crashes (20% less global economy due to climate change by 2050) and inflation, but hardly to complete collapses of the financial system. Anyone who has saved some money and invested it broadly might lose a part in case of a crisis but probably not completely. However, we can't rule it out. The worst economical catastrophe since industrialisation was probably the global economic crisis of 1929, from which the financial world learned a few lessons.