It just keeps getting hotter and hotter. Within the next 50 years, an already bad drought which covers half the country will expand even further, and some American town or city will experience a day-time high of 130 degrees.
People will fight over scarce resources. Rising sea levels will force coastal populations inland, which won't be appreciated by the people already living there. It will get very bad. In the next century, or late in this one, people will die by the millions.
Could the human race become extinct? Of course it could. We're not special. Species come and, increasingly, species go.
To whom will go the spoils? Which species will pick up the pieces and lead life on planet earth? Dolphins? They already seem to have some kind of consciousness. The scientist in the 1985 movie, WarGames, thought bees might be the one.
Let's say, however, that human beings do not go extinct. Human beings are resourceful and adaptable and, somehow, a remnant will be able to adapt and survive. It's important that we survive because, no matter what happens with global warming, about 300,000 years from now, we will be entering the last stages of our sun's life. The sun will expand before it flames out. That expansion will wipe out all life on earth.
In order for earth life-forms to continue to exist, we will need to find another planet and move there. If human beings are wiped out, dolphins or bees, or whatever, would only have 300,000 years to evolve into a position to re-settle on another planet--not enough time.
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