“I don’t think it will be the humans. I think we’ll go quite early on,” says Julie Gray with a laugh. I’ve just asked Gray, a plant molecular biologist at the University of Sheffield, which species she thinks would be the last ones standing if we don’t take transformative action on climate change. Even with our extraordinary capacity for innovation and adaptability, humans, it turns out, probably won’t be among the survivors.

This is partly because humans reproduce agonisingly slowly and generally just one or two at a time – as do some other favourite animals, like pandas. Organisms that can produce many offspring quickly may have a better shot at avoiding extinction.

It may seem like…