[Bacchus]

The world population is expected to reach 10 billion in forty years. The earth will not be able to sustain that level for very long, and a massive disruptive event will throw an evolutionary curveball.

http://http://www.orionmagazine.org/inde...ticle/7146

Quote:

If we follow Gause’s pattern, growth will continue at a delirious speed until we hit the second inflection point. At that time we will have exhausted the resources of the global petri dish, or effectively made the atmosphere toxic with our carbon-dioxide waste, or both. After that, human life will be, briefly, a Hobbesian nightmare, the living overwhelmed by the dead. When the king falls, so do his minions; it is possible that our fall might also take down most mammals and many plants. Possibly sooner, quite likely later, in this scenario, the earth will again be a choir of bacteria, fungi, and insects, as it has been through most of its history.