A quick note, for the purpose of this list, "World to End" means that humanity is devastated to the point of not being able to recover as a species. The big hunk of rock will be fine in most of these scenarios.
1 Plague
As medicine has become more and more effective and we have become more virulent with defending ourselves with a new plague, it seems that our hubris would make this a poetic end to the human race. We've seen recent news stories about "super bugs" that are appearing which are very much sensationalized. This doesn't mean that it can't or won't happen. We have been and are stumped by diseases. Viruses are a particularly dastardly foe that we don't have much defense against. Antivirals can work but they have to be targeted at a specific virus. We are in an arms race with bacteria and viruses and eventually we just may lose the war.
2 Asteroid Impact
Many may not be aware that there is a division of NASA that keeps watch on near Earth objects so that we will have some warning that one is coming toward us. The Near Earth Object Program has catalogued 9074 near earth objects greater than July 19th 2012, 1322 of which are classified as Potentially Hazardous Asteroids. Luckily we have already formulated plans on how to deal with these objects provided we have enough warning but there is a great deal we don't know about the universe and with NASA spending reduced we are learning even slower than before. Hopefully, our asteroid drilling crew will be ready when they are needed.
3 Alien Invasion
Many of us love to watch movies involving the invasion of Earth by an alien species. Movies such as Independence Day, They Live and Signs make us feel like we have a decent chance of defending ourselves if our first encounter is hostile. Realistically speaking, if an alien race wants to invade our planet and they have made it here from another solar system, their technology or biology will likely be so advanced we won't stand a chance. Stephen Hawking weight in on this very idea not long ago saying: "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational. The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach. If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans."
4 Zombies
This is my favorite simply because I find zombie fiction so fascinating. There is something so visceral about life after death being so horrific and painful. While some may argue that zombies would have fit well under the plague section, I decided to seperate it since zombies do not exist in homo sapiens yet which means we don't know what would actually cause the phenomenon. In the animal world, there is at least one species of wasp that turns cockroaches into zombies to use as incubators for their eggs. This makes the idea a little less far fetched than one might initially assume.
5 Super Volcano
Natural cataclysms can include many natural disasters such a super volcanoes, hurricanes and earthquakes. These various destructive forces are particularly frightening since they are all things we have no defense against outside of running for cover, however; super volcanoes are probably the most frightening. They are all so immediately possible that it gives one a sense of awe. There are 6 known super volcanoes located in Yellowstone national park, Long Valley, Valles Caldera, Indonesia, New Zealand and Japan. Computer models have shown that a super volcano eruption large enough could send the world into a winter similar to a nuclear winter as the sky is filled with ash. Plants and plankton would die off from a lack of sunshine which would start a falling of the dominoes destroying the food web and eventually leading to our own destruction.
6 War
The human race being the very destroyer of itself is a possiblity many have thought about through history but never before has this become so likely as it is now. In 1945, we as a race changed the face of the world by detonating the first atomic bomb. From this point on, we now had the power to raze cities with a single bomb, annihiliating a population in moments. And we have since made this technology more and more powerful and efficient. No longer do we need to send a manned crew to do the work, we can do it with an intercontinental missle. And yet we couldn't stop there either, we develop chemical and biological weapons that could be just as destructive if not even more so. It almost seems we are hell bent on this particular means of our end to come true. As Einstein to elequently put it, "I know not what weapons World War III will be fought with but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
7 Reality is not real
Maybe there is not reality. Just maybe we are all inside of a simulation (i.e. The Matrix) or just the dream of one of us. Philisophically speaking it is not entirely out of the realm of possibility that nothing we observe is actually real.
8 Artificial Intelligence
As a software developer, I keep a close eye on technological advancements and none fascinates me more than AI. I would guess that the vast majority of the people who will read this have seen the Terminator and Matrix movies as well as I, Robot where we are outdone by our own technological creations. Of course in the movies we always win out in the end because we love a happy ending but could we really defeat a cold caclulating foe who had no need for "rules of engagement?" I believe our attachment to our humanity, which is usually what helps us win in the movies, would be our downfall. Lucky for us, the chance that we will ever see an AI capable of the feats found in the movies is terribly unlikely. Sadly, contemporary computer AI has evolved very little since the early days in the mid 1900's. Certainly our computers have become more powerful and the access to information has become significantly easier, however; an AI passing the Turing test is still not something I can see even on a distant horizon.
9 Mayans
Heck, maybe the crazies aren't so crazy and the Mayan calendar really does end.
10 Divine Intervention
Heck, maybe the crazies aren't so crazy and the Edward Cayce is right.
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