> the survivors would have lived relatively comfortably in smaller populations in habitats
A million years gives a pretty long time for unlikely events to occur that could finish the job of wiping them out. Wars and engineering accidents and diseases and such.
Like you I tend to be of the opinion our human civilization will survive any kind of global cataclysm that Earth could throw at it... But I am less convinced a population forced under a million individuals could survive - million years just under the normal chaos of existing.
I suspect there is a minimum population and geographic diversity required for our long term survival. Not sure where those red lines are though.
A million years gives a pretty long time for unlikely events to occur that could finish the job of wiping them out. Wars and engineering accidents and diseases and such.
Like you I tend to be of the opinion our human civilization will survive any kind of global cataclysm that Earth could throw at it... But I am less convinced a population forced under a million individuals could survive - million years just under the normal chaos of existing.
I suspect there is a minimum population and geographic diversity required for our long term survival. Not sure where those red lines are though.