Question: What do you think is the most likely cause of human extinction?

Monique Henson answered on 16 Nov 2015:

I’ll be honest – I have no idea. There are so many different things that could be the cause: disease, climate change, asteroid impacts or nuclear war. I’m sure there are many more possibilities too. There are scientists who study this – for example the University of Cambridge has a centre for the science of existential risk. That means they study threats to the existence of the human race.

I’m not sure what could make us extinct, but I do worry about things that I think could change life as we know it. In this respect, I worry quite a lot about climate change. Man made climate change – the gradual warming of our atmosphere due to greenhouse gas emissions – is expected to have a huge impact on our lives. According to this NASA page, we are already seeing a “loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves” due to climate change. In my opinion, climate change is unlikely to cause the extinction of the human race, but it is likely to have catastrophic effects on the way we live. I think that’s still worth worrying about.