Climate change. Pandemics. Volcanoes. Meteors. Should we give up and accept our doom? Absolutely not. Homo sapiens will survive the next mass extinction -- it's just a matter of how we'll do it. Mass extinctions are the worst disasters to ravage life on Earth, and many scientists believe we're in the early stages of another one. Still, life has made it through these apocalyptic scenarios before, and humanity has a long history of dodging the bullet of extinction. This talk is about how mass extinctions have destroyed the planet in the past; but more importantly, it's about the practical and philosophical steps we must take to survive as a species into the far future. We'll put aside apocalyptic thinking, and focus on the science that might transform our cities into carbon-neutral, biological systems -- and even, one day, prepare us for sustainable space colonization.