Article 2 :Human extinction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_extinction


Human extinction is the hypothetical end of the human species. Various scenarios have been discussed in science, popular culture, and religion (see End time). The breadth of this article is on existential risks.
Humans are very widespread on the Earth, and live in communities which (whilst interconnected) are capable of some kind of basic survival in isolation. Therefore, pandemic and deliberate killing aside, to achieve human extinction, the entire planet would have to be rendered uninhabitable. This would typically be during a mass extinction event, a precedent of which exists in the Permian–Triassic extinction event among other examples.
In the near future, two anthropogenic extinction scenarios exist: catastrophic climate change, and global nuclear annihilation; and two possible natural ones: bolide impact and large-scale volcanism. Both natural causes have occurred repeatedly in the geologic past and there is no reason to consider them unlikely in the future. As technology develops, there is a possibility that humans may be deliberately destroyed by the actions of a rogue state or individual in a form of global suicide attack, but this is balanced by the possibility that technological advancement may resolve or prevent potential extinction scenarios. A more likely scenario is the emergence of a pandemic of such virulence and infectiousness that very few humans survive the disease. While not actually a human extinction event, this may leave only very small, very scattered human populations that would then evolve in isolation.
It is important to differentiate between human extinction and the extinction of life on Earth. Of possible extinction events, only a pandemic is selective enough to eliminate humanity while leaving the rest of complex life on earth relatively unscathed.