Eternity : Our Next Billion Years

It has become received wisdom that our world is doomed. Mike Hanlon believes that not only is humankind not doomed, but that we may be around for millions, if not hundreds of millions of years. Humans will survive. Our future is in many ways bizarre, surreal and sometimes depressing - but it will still be our world, populated by us.

It has become received wisdom that our world is doomed, that we live in the End of Days. Bleak predictions by psychics and scientists alike portend extreme weather, droughts, famines and floods that will overtake humanity within the century, or sooner. If not global warming, then supervolcanoes, meteoric impacts, nuclear war, bioterrorism, or natural plagues will get us. But whatever happens, Michael Hanlon believes that humankind will go on...and on. The shape of things to come will be strange, and somewhat terrifying, but will very likely seem banal to the people who inhabit it in the future. Humankind may be thrown back to the Stone Age on hundreds of occasions and may come close to extinction. But recovery will follow--each time more rapidly than the last. The world of 10,000 years hence, let alone 100,000,000 years hence, will be strange and almost unrecognizable. But no matter how battered and re-born, it will still be our world, populated by us through eternity.