_Now that the Australian election is settled, and the government has a handsome working majority, it is surely the moment for voters nationwide to engage actively with elected representatives to set a world-changing agenda in place.

_ We need to recognise that Homo sapiens is in profound danger of early extinction and that, so far, no government is taking the essential steps to rescue our progeny from oblivion. Leading spokespeople in the United Nations are clearly alarmed at the directions we are taking, but so far, no nation is leading the way in that organisation to put our species on a safer path. Scientists have documented a group of 10 catastrophic threats of human origin that are interacting and, together, could wipe out our species in coming decades.

In his 2023 book, published by Cambridge University Press, _How to Fix a Broken Planet_, Canberra science writer, Julian Cribb has listed these 10 threats and proposed a way forward in dealing with them.

The threats include:

• the degradation of ecosystems;
• over-use of key resources for living;
• the threat of nuclear war;
• overwhelming climate change;
• widespread global poisoning by human chemical emissions;
• a major threat to the world’s food supply;
• the development and products of artificial intelligence;
• pandemics of infectious diseases;
• unconstrained growth in the size of the human population; and
• widespread delusion, denial, and failure to recognise the reality of our plight.

Cribb argues that all these threats are amenable to prevention, but that they need to be managed collectively, through the development of an Earth System Treaty, which would include the following:

• A universal ban on nuclear weapons;
• An international plan to combat climate change;
• An international plan to restore forests, soils, freshwater, oceans, the atmosphere and biodiversity to stable sustainable levels;
• An international agreement to operate a circular economy and end waste;
• A plan for a renewable world food supply sufficient for all;
• A plan to end chemical pollution in all forms;
• A plan to voluntarily reduce the human population to a sustainable level;
• A global plan to anticipate and prevent pandemic disease;
• A global technology convention to oversee the safety development and introduction of advanced sciences and technologies and minimise harms;
• A World Truth Commission;
• An Earth Standard Currency; and
• All 17 of the Sustainable Development Goals.

What Cribb has proposed is a very tall order, and it will be a bold government that accepts the challenge to draw these threads together into a human survival policy and argue for it in the United Nations.

But Australia is now very well placed to take the lead on this matter.

Why ever not?

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.