All forms of life have evolved to thrive in certain conditions: each has a specific niche in which survival is possible and outside which there are risks to continuation of the species. We human animals, are no different. Despite protective clothing and technology, we are confined to a particular environment. We survive and thrive on land, but nowhere else. We cannot live under water, like fish, unless we carry a continuous supply of air and wear insulating clothing. Underwater housing is technologically possible, but inside it would have to replicate living conditions above water. Even existing on water means building floating houses and they are subject to all the dangers and damage associated with the surface. We are not adapted to live permanently in water and two thirds of the planet is denied to us.

We can fly through the air – but only for limited periods and in structures that provide the conditions needed for life on the surface of the land. We can live on high country several thousand metres above sea level, but there is a limit above which we cannot survive without extra oxygen – as, for example, on Mount Everest. We cannot live in outer space. Even the polar regions are denied to us unless we are protected from the extreme cold and supplied with food produced in warmer climates.

We need to think of ourselves as adapted to only one particular niche, and that our place on earth is in increasing danger of deterioration because of being overpopulated, overused, exploited and polluted. There is nowhere else we can escape to on this planet. There may be suitable environments elsewhere in the solar system or galaxy which could provide the essential conditions for the survival of the human animal, but we do not have the means or enough time to transport us all there.

So, like any animal, if we destroy our niche, and all it provides for our existence, we will go extinct.