Earth in 2023 is not a pretty picture. In the last week, an international group of scientists worked out a worrying fact: if you could make an ice cube with all of the ice lost from GreenlandAn island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It lies between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is the world's largest island. and Antarctica in the last 30 years, it would be 20 kilometres high.

But according to an international team of researchers, this is just the start. The true crisis lurks around the corner - and it may lead to our extinction.

Climate change and extinction have long gone hand in hand. The dinosaurs were not wiped out by an asteroid, but by the Ice Age that followed. Great empires have fallen due to drought.

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.

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 effect of this clear. Yet between 2030 and 2052 alone, it is likely to hit a 1.5C increase, 50% worse than it is today.

The general public shares the scientists' sense of doom. 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 might find ways to adapt.

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.

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.