@madmex - were you replying to me? If so I didn't mention one word about the fate of this planet as a whole but spoke specifically of the state of our species on it. This planet's future existence could care less about what we do to it... it's a self renewing ball of rock that will continue to orbit whether we exist or not. It has the potential to go through a dozen more cycles of life before being swallowed into the sun; that's a foregone conclusion.

What I discussed was the future of humans in particular and our foreseeable quality of life on this ball of rock that isn't getting any bigger. To that end there are predictions afoot that we may naturally self limit around 10 billion by the end of the century which would be good. Others predict we may hit that mark by 2050 and still be climbing. The high and low scenarios for long term (year 2300) have us between 35 billion on the high end, to as low as 3 billion if we suffer a severe population crash (disease, food supply collapse, etc.) The reality of course will fall somewhere in the middle.