Will humanity overcome our current phase of transition, graduating to a higher form of civilization, or fall victim to natural disasters and unrest so that we'll have to pick of the pieces and rebound from a major setback comparable to the ancient Greek or Medieval dark age in Europe? — Enrique
What sort of "higher form of civilization" do you have in mind?
The usual human pattern is for things to start, peak, stay that way for a while, and then fall apart. There are no civilizations that have not gone through that cycle. Note, though, that the cycle can require centuries to complete.
Will space travel happen and if so how will it unfold? — Enrique
To an extremely limited extent, it has happened. "The final frontier", though, is a very unfriendly, unforgiving place to travel, with no obvious benefit to be derived.
Can the human population exercise enough self-regulation to sustain progress — Enrique
We have exercised enough self-regulation or 'other-regulation', actually, to sustain progress for the last 5 centuries. Progress still leaves room for world wars, lots of small wars, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and various other entertainments of stupidity.
will we have to adopt a new or revised ethical framework to reach long-term technological and organizational goals? — Enrique
Might be a good idea but don't hold your breath. What sort of "new ethical framework" do you think we could devise that would make much difference?
What kinds of events will culminate this tumultuous and uncertain era in history — Enrique
That's the $64,000,000,000,000 question. I think it is safe to say that we will see many and severe changes in climate, weather, living conditions, food production, disease distribution, death rates, and so on. These events have happened before and everybody hated it. We will all hate it again. And again,
where will we be in a hundred or a thousand years? — Enrique
In 100 years... We will continue to occupy 1 planet in the universe. We will be right where we are now, but with fewer of us. How many fewer? If population decreased to the levels of only 1921, there would be about 6 billion fewer people, for a population of 2 billion. It might be more, might be less. Some areas will be depopulated, other places will receive population inflows.
If we mismanage CO2/methane production as much in the future as we are right now, in 1000 years we will probably live on a hot, humid, very diminished planet.
Despite that hell of a list of bad outcomes, some humans will probably survive because we are, up to a point, adaptable. Whether 2 billion will have enough resources to all be adaptable and successful is doubtful. Human population might well be diminished to a level well below 1 billion. Maybe our population will be in the low 100 millions, or in the 10s of millions in 1000 years.
I'm a climate pessimist. I might be wrong, but probably not.