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I think the Earth is in a state of transitioning to a hot era, which it has done many times before. We are coming out of a cold era as we speak. The future might look bleak while we scrounge as it happens. But the Earth will bounce back. I'm not worried.
A hotter era than we've ever had during human civilization...
https://xkcd.com/1732/
Yup, and the rate of change is massive compared to every other time climate has shifted. What normally takes tens of thousands of years we're speed running in a couple hundred. This doesn't give a lot of time for life to adapt to the rapid changes, and all the associated affects that come with it (sea level change, sea salinity change, currents shifting, etc).
the complete scheme of temperature fluctuations
That peak during the Eocene is an interesting thing to study in the context of this question. Wikipedia's got some good articles: Early Eocene Climactic Optimum and Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
In a nutshell, IMO; it wasn't all that bad in the grand scheme of things. There were some extinctions but life carried on and some of it did quite well.
The "current path" scenario tends to assume we can maintain/grow the rate of carbon emissions indefinitely.
However, the short term disruption of COVID demonstrated an immediate and pronounced drop in temperature based almost entirely around the reduction of industrial transportation (planes and cars, primarily) and subsequent drop in electricity demands due to a decline in global commerce.
I see people insisting on the apocalyptic scenario while simultaneously clinging to this notion that we can keep cramming more particulate into the atmosphere unabated forever. It can't be both.
They have multiple scenarios though.
Page 571 of https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/climate-change-2021-the-physical-science-basis/future-global-climate-scenariobased-projections-and-nearterm-information/309359EDDCFABB031C078AE20CEE04FD
Explanation of SSP:
That's certainly better. But they all describe themselves in terms of high or low population growth.
What happens when we mix low rates of reproduction with shrinking life expectancy. China and Japan are both experiencing population decline, while Europe is scheduled to join them in another decade.
Countries facing harsh environmental or hostile military environments have seen even worse outcomes. Between 1991 and 2015, Ukraine lost 20% of its population. The war has only accelerated this trend.
Gaza is on track to lose over 50% of it's population, relative to 2023, before the end of the year. Libya, Syria, and Yemen are facing similar plights.
The US is also in the early stages of a manufactured population crash, with drastic shifts in domestic policy curbing immigration sharply, spiking infant/maternal mortality, and ratcheting the risk of infectious disease spread. This, after COVID cleared over a million excess deaths inside two years.
SP1 and SP3 both posit slow population growth. But neither posit the consequences of a more rapid and economically turbulent decline.