Every day, humanity surpasses its own expectations and redefines the limits of possibility. The evidence is everywhere: we are constantly surrounded by headlines broadcasting advancements in technology, science, medicine, and everything under the sun. But our progress cannot be endlessly exponential. Once human civilization has reached its peak, what will we have made of the Earth? 

To answer that, we must contemplate the end of humanity. Although every living being must confront death, it’s as if we refuse to confront the possibility of total human extinction. Even though we understand that, as individuals we are mortal, we remain convinced that humanity, as a species, will endure. There’s a quiet delusion in the belief that humanity is somehow exempt from this universal law.

Human progress is often conceptualized as a forever upward-trending line. But is it? Are we truly advancing? Even though we feel like we are constantly reaching new heights of human ability, we have no idea where we are in the universal timeline. Ancient philosophers envisioned several scenarios for how the world might end. Anaximander theorized that all of the Earth’s water would dry up, leaving a barren wasteland unable to sustain life. Plato warned that natural disasters such as fires, floods, earthquakes, and disease would destroy humanity. In the Bible, the Book of Revelation presents the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—conquest, war, famine, and death—as harbingers of the end times.

With the rapid degradation of the environment and human capacity for self-destruction, what will the world look like in 100 years? What kind of world will our children, and our children’s children, inhabit? 

The thought struck me on the road back to Austin. On the side of the highway, the giant white floodlights of a car dealership flooded the night sky. Rows of model cars gleamed with a surreal luster. I knew, pragmatically, that the floodlights were used to deter crime after hours. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder about the exorbitant amount of energy it took to keep them on all night. It struck me that we use resources as though they were infinite; our consumption is arrogant. At that moment, the car dealership became a shrine for human ignorance, a testament to our implicit belief that comfort is a birthright. We are so used to convenience that we have created the illusion of material permanence, of abundance without consequence. 

We consume at such a staggering rate that disposal becomes meaningless—out of sight, out of mind. Everything we buy is packaged, used, and forgotten, and though we rarely think about the waste we leave, the Earth will remember. Studies confirm that our trash will outlive us: amassing in landfills, floating in oceans, and clogging up our lungs. Though most plastic is single-use, it never returns to the Earth. Plastics are becoming part of the Earth’s fossil record as a marker of the Anthropocene. Economies of materialism, comfort, and convenience have created habits of destruction. One hundred years from now, we will no longer be able to ignore our impact on the world: waste will flood the streets, ecosystems will collapse, and microplastics will coat ocean depths where no human has reached. Even then, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism.

Most Americans live in cities or suburbs, surrounded by concrete and steel, where nature survives only as an ornament. Trees, grass, and greenery are built in subservience to infrastructure. In this sense, urban development confines the natural world to make way for the man-made. Trees are transplanted equidistantly alongside streets; national parks resemble spectacular exhibitions of a world beyond the concrete flatlands of suburbia; parking lots sit atop once-grassy fields; stars compete against city lights. 

All this industrialization, technological growth, and urban sprawl is intimately tied to environmental degradation. Climate scientists have long warned us that we will cross a 3ºC threshold before 2100. Already, we are witnessing volatile temperatures and natural disasters—from wildfires in California, to devastating floods in Pakistan, to extreme heat waves in England. Aside from the obvious impacts of environmental devastation, global warming is also linked to social justice. Imperialism and resource extraction have hollowed out the developing world, fueling climate displacement and migrant crises. Rising sea levels threaten the very existence of island nations like Fiji and the Maldives. Families whose homes are swallowed up in monsoons are forced to flee. Crowded cities suffocate in smog. Billions more in coastal areas and arid regions will be exposed to climate-fueled disasters. Meanwhile, people in wealthy countries will simply crank up the A.C. and relax in climate-controlled complacency. But inconveniences will soon become calamities, and we cannot afford to blindly march to the brink of societal collapse.  

Finding solutions to climate change feels particularly hopeless because systemic change to environmental policies is made nearly impossible by the profit-driven incentives in capitalism. This hopelessness often manifests as people feeling that we have almost no control over our future. The concern isn’t unfounded; over 80% of global CO2 emissions from 2016 through 2022 were caused by 57 fossil fuel companies. Even the most harrowing statistics will not catalyze change so long as greedy corporations are in lockstep with the government. When massive companies are the ones who cause the overwhelming majority of greenhouse gas emissions, changing individual consumer habits seems utterly pointless. Although reusing containers and taking public transportation are laudable sustainable practices, those small and meaningful efforts are erased by large corporations that burn extraordinary amounts of fossil fuel. Climate change is a uniquely global issue, and real change requires collaboration from all countries. Yet global politics has become deeply antagonistic, making lasting climate diplomacy a pipe dream. 

We must contemplate global warming as a powerful factor in economic stability, social welfare, geopolitics, and war. With rising global temperatures, increasingly arid soil, and shrinking freshwater reserves, resource conflicts will, by all accounts, define the 22nd century. Framing climate change as a purely environmental issue, devoid of immediate economic, geopolitical, and societal impacts, allows politicians and industry leaders to put our futures on the back burner. Global warming is perpetually labeled as a “future problem”; even as the planet deteriorates with each passing day, the moment of reckoning never seems to arrive. One day, we will look around to see a bleak world we no longer recognize. 

Scarcity is the ultimate test for international cooperation. For example, what happens when global freshwater supplies run out by 2030? Will we share or hoard? I’m not confident, when it comes down to it, that human beings are ready to share, even at the door of extinction. Our basic instinct for self-preservation may simply override our concern for the collective good. Garrett Hardin’s theory, The Tragedy of the Commons, describes each man as “locked into a system that compels him to increase his [share] without limit—in a world that is limited.” He concludes that “freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.” That is, systems that encourage individualization, consumption, and competition blind us from our contribution to, and complacency in, a dying world. The fact that we are so technologically advanced and yet we prevent ourselves from solving simple issues like keeping people fed is absolutely shameful for a self-proclaimed “advanced species.” 

I am not arguing that we need to combat climate change (we are well past that point). I aim to recognize the ultimate insignificance of what will happen if we do not. The timeline of human existence constitutes less than 0.01% of all life on earth. We are not at the peak of anything; we are but a blip in the chronology of the universe. Humanity’s hubris—the fundamental belief that our species will survive—will be our downfall. Nature overcomes. Once it does, we will become nothing. The universe does not care if we consume the earth, if we starve from famine, or if we nuke each other into oblivion. It does not care about our monuments or our machines. We are not its center; it is entirely indifferent to our survival or eradication. All we have are those around us. Are we ready to kill each other? 

It is tempting to imagine the future as a clean binary of either utopia or collapse. More likely, it will be a patchwork of resilience and ruin. Some cities will have adapted: eco-structures powered by solar panels and reusable water systems, vertical farms feeding local communities, and AI-run systems managing scarce resources with inhuman efficiency. Others will be devastated: drowned coastal towns, ghost cities scorched by drought, lost to wildfire, or devastated by violence. But we will all eventually share the same fate, some sooner than others.

In my view, there are two options. We either use technological advancement to slow down, even reverse, climate change, or we fast track the end of humanity. The world we live in now will not be the same world in 2125. Whatever remains then will be a testament to the choices we made. 

I have no idea what the future holds, but I hope to see you there.