The following article is part of the SFG publication “Big Questions of Our time: The World Speaks”. To access the full publication please click here.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the face of many challenges over the millennia, human civilization has evolved and its population has grown exponentially.  Along with its physical growth, humanity’s intellectual growth has enabled it to steadily achieve the unimaginable.  But in recent times, humanity has come to understand impending threats to its existence that scientific assertions declare could be outside its control.  One such threat concerns whether humanity will damage the earth so much in the coming decades that the effects will be irreversible.  Other threats posit that the earth will inevitably become uninhabitable.  If current political, environmental, and cosmic trends persist, will advances in technology and civilization in the next century prove that we can sustain humanity on earth?  Or, will these advances enable humanity to one day exist elsewhere?