The earth is still lush and green, the population stabilized, the fish stock returned to the oceans, and everyone is happy and gets along.
Nah, I don't like fairy tales. IT WAS A DARK, and stormy night somewhere, but not here. What used to be the earth plunged through the blackness to meet the first chunks of the Andromeda galaxy which had been moving toward the Milky way inter-galactic at train-wreck speed, while the rest of the night sky is black. Sadly, the human race almost perfected space flight at near-light speed. But by then there was nowhere to go but Andromeda, and it's coming here. All of the other galaxies sped away faster than we could possibly catch them.
Our own sun is just barely visible from our icy tomb which fell out of orbit at some interminable point in time (which no longer exists either) and is plunging through nothing much. It's just as well. If we were still in orbit, today is the day the sun will run out of nuclear fuel, flash briefly into a giant fireball, and then become a brown dwarf. It would have fried the earth faster than a drumstick dropped into a pressure kettle at Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Anyway, the human race is dead, has been for millennia. Only a few hanging chads lie about on the otherwise barren surface. Even the ball of molten iron at our core cooled and solidified millions of years ago. Now we are space detritus, falling inward to become part of the new galaxy which is forming as the Milky Way and Andromeda collide.
No one knows we ever existed, and maybe we didn't. If life still exists in either of the colliding galaxies, it will be snuffed out like a John McCain popcorn fart.
We certainly didn't make a difference in the overall scheme of things. A small planet tossed away from a tiny solar system on the edge of a minor galaxy, now gone. Now forgotten. Now at peace in the blackness of space.
Anyone want to argue the science with me? Because I can't predict when Bush is going to bomb Iran (soon, I suppose...the dumbass is determined to leave a scorched earth as his legacy), but I know the sun will run out of fuel and....Andromeda is coming to eat us all up.
Cheers!
T