We're long overdue for extinction..
 

NASA: “Every day, Earth is bombarded with more than 100 tons of dust and sand-sized particles. About once a year, an automobile-sized asteroid hits Earth's atmosphere, creates an impressive fireball, and burns up before reaching the surface. Every 2,000 years or so, a meteoroid the size of a football field hits Earth and causes significant damage to the area. Only once every few million years, an object large enough to threaten Earth's civilisation comes along.

Asteroids with a 1 km (0.62 mi) diameter strike Earth every 500,000 years on average. Large collisions – with 5 km (3 mi) objects – happen approximately once every twenty million years.

The last known impact of an object of 10 km (6 mi) or more in diameter was at the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago.

feel free to get started without us.

When we have the likes of Trump in office I can see the end of it all to be any day now.. What does this button do? This doesn't look like a football.

This might be true, however, I would like to think humans are a bit smarter than "animals" - such as dinosaurs. Let's assume a giant asteroid hit the Earth and killed all of the dinosaurs. They knew something we wrong, but they didn't know what to do about it. Mankind would know what to do, how to survive, and how to fix it.

Armageddon may happen earlier if someone misinterprets a meteor for a nuke and launches a real nuke.

Chelyabinsk Meteor

yes its the earth shield

We definitely have traits like the ones you describe that could potentially help us survive.

If a major asteroid hits us, what can be expected in time until the dust settles for those not dying from the effects of the direct impact?

It only needs a small rocket to change it's course to avoid the Earth.

We're creating the next great extinction ourselves.

I'm almost ready . . .

:thumbsup

When will you be extinct?