Are we doomed?

Abstract

This special issue of Futures contains several papers on the various risks facing humanity, scenarios depicting humanity’s possible extinction, and how society views the issue. The articles cover risks such as nuclear war, climate change, pandemics, and asteroid collisions, and argue that while it would be difficult to kill off the last of humanity, there is still a chance that these risks may combine in unlikely ways to lead to human extinction. The issue also includes the first-ever extinction scenario writing framework and statistical analyses of people’s beliefs about humanity’s future. – AI-generated abstract.