Earth in 2023 is not a pretty picture. Climate change is having a devastating effect. Ice is melting. Sea levels are rising. In the last week, an international group of scientists used satellite data to work out an extraordinary statistic: if you could make an ice cube with all of the ice lost from Greenland and Antarctica in the last 30 years, it would be 20 kilometres high.

But according to a worldwide team of researchers, this is just the start. The true crisis lurks around the corner - and it may lead to our extinction. Luke Kemp of Cambridge University says: "There are plenty of reasons to believe climate change could become catastrophic, even at modest levels of warming."

There are many ways climate change can affect our lives. Rising temperatures, coastal flooding and extreme weather are just the direct effects. These could in turn cause financial crises, conflict, mass migrationThe large-scale movement of people from one geographical area to another. and new epidemicsA widespread disease. A pandemic is an epidemic which has spread across the entire world.. And these could lead to further disasters, such as nuclear war.

Kemp and others believe we have spent our time focusing on small reductions to climate change, rather than the bigger picture. 

Things do not look great from a scientific perspective. Since the Industrial RevolutionA period of sudden, rapid industrialisation that transforms a country from an agricultural to an industrial economy., human activity has caused the world to heat by around 1C. The drastic effects of this are clear. Yet between 2030 and 2052 alone, it is likely to hit a 1.5C increase, 50% worse than it is today. 

For some, a complete collapse seems almost inevitable. When asked if civilisation "will collapse in the years to come", 71% of Italians, 65% of French people, 56% British people and 52% Americans answered yes. 

Others believe such thinking is alarmist. Humans have survived so long by being a uniquely adaptable species. Whatever situation threatens us, we always find ways to endure.

Technological advances, especially the discovery of fossil fuelsFuels made from decomposing plants and animals, including coal, natural gas and oil. These fuels release carbon dioxide, causing global warming., have contributed enormously to climate change. But equally they could hold the solution. Already, new technologies like carbon captureTechnology which captures carbon dioxide from the air and transports it to storage sites underwater, preventing it from warming the atmosphere.  can help to reduce change. Some might be developed that stops it entirely.

Even if our present society collapses, perhaps a new one will emerge. In his documentary Once You Know, filmmaker Emmanuel Cappellin argues that our globalised world will end. But there is hope for a more local, less connected type of living. For Cappellin, the solution is clear: "We must learn to live in a finite world."

Yes: From the Scythians to the Romans, the Aztecs to the Kingdom of France, all civilisations collapse. The modern world is no different. Climate change will be both the direct and indirect cause.

No:  It is clear that we are in a climate crisis. But predictions are only predictions. There could still be a technological breakthrough that allows us to stop - or even reverse - climate change. 

Or... Society as we know it may well be reaching an enormous, catastrophic change. But it is not certain whether this shift will end human life, or whether it will instead alter the way we live.