Humans Could Go Extinct. Here's How and Who's Trying to Stop It
C/NET
There are days when it's hard not to wonder just how much time is left on the clock for humanity.
Whether it's war, famine, another grim report about climate change or a pandemic that's killed 6 million people to date, life on this planet can start to feel precarious. Sometimes, it all feels like an action movie entering its final act.
But is it actually possible that nearly 8 billion humans could one day disappear? That the planet could continue to spin in peace without us?
"The end of the world is such a great concept for giving shape to history," says Anders Sandberg, senior research fellow with the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. "We want to know how it ends. We want there to be a meaning or a tragedy or a comedy. Maybe a laugh track at the end of the universe."
It turns out, scientists, scholars, policy experts and more are studying this question, trying to decipher how humanity's end could come about, and whether there's anything that can be done to prevent it.