Global warming, economic inequality, etc aren't the real problem.
The real problem is that the Eurocentric civilization has gone through periodic episodes of general warfare, starting with the Wars of the Reformation, the Thirty Years War, the French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars, and World War I&II. The last interval from Waterloo to the Guns of August was 100 years. Thus, the next now-global general war is scheduled to begin in the 2040 to 2060 time frame. Note that the geographic scope and the casualty counts have gone up markedly with each episode. The total death toll from 1914 through the 1949 end of the Chinese Revolution was probably over 200 million from war, famine (Ukraine, India), disease (flu, tuberculosis, etc) and genocide (Armenia, Jews, etc.).
Global warming takes too long. Financial and political systems are unstable on shorter time scales.
Current events are paralleling the late 1800s. Interest rates are very low, just as British Consol bonds were earning 2.75% in the late 1800s. The dominant British Empire was shifting from free trade to protectionism within the Commonwealth system as Germany rose, just as the dominant US is shifting from free trade to protectionism as China rises.
The real problem is that the Eurocentric civilization has gone through periodic episodes of general warfare, starting with the Wars of the Reformation, the Thirty Years War, the French Revolution/Napoleonic Wars, and World War I&II. The last interval from Waterloo to the Guns of August was 100 years. Thus, the next now-global general war is scheduled to begin in the 2040 to 2060 time frame. Note that the geographic scope and the casualty counts have gone up markedly with each episode. The total death toll from 1914 through the 1949 end of the Chinese Revolution was probably over 200 million from war, famine (Ukraine, India), disease (flu, tuberculosis, etc) and genocide (Armenia, Jews, etc.).