Mors Terra
If you subscribe to the doom and gloom of global warming alarmists and writers like Carson, Marsh et al, then this is the future man has prescribed for the earth. Death Valley is a desolate and arid region located in California that one can observe and subsequently picture our bleak future. The temperatures soar to uninhabitable heights, leaving the landscape charred of radiation with hardly any vegetation left to sustain the human race. With the ever-expanding population of people and the exponentially increasing energy demands, Death Valley may advance along the landscape much like an invasive species, leaving us simply with a death earth where all that can survive are ants and scorpions.
-BH
Field Guide to Nature 