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Several things could have happened. Sure, we would have had the industrial revolution a couple centuries earlier and perhaps the new world would have been discovered by the Europeans in the 1200s. But it seems like civilizations go through cycles of enlightenment/darkness so perhaps by now we would be in a severe state of technological decline or stagnation? Equally, by now we could now be harvesting new bodies, maintaining colonies throughout the solar system, etc....Of course, if climate change is a result of man-made carbon emissions than the ecosystem could be wrecked by now.
There are many interesting what-ifs though. What if the Roman Empire hadn't become decadent and instead of collapsing from invasions had been revitalized? The collapse of the Roman Empire really set progress in the West back a thousand years. The world would be radically different if this was the case and there would be much less distinction between the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe today. They basically had a form of globalization on a smaller scale and without the transport and communication technology to sustain it...but imagine if by the year 1000AD they progressed to the level we are at now? By now we could be exploring the galaxy, erecting a Dyson Sphere around the sun, or all have uploaded into an artificial intelligence network. Provided we didn't render the Earth uninhabitable, I think humanity would easily be a type 1 civilization and approaching type 2. That is to say we would be capable of wielding energies as powerful as the sun!
However, one interesting thing happened last century-the cultured of the world became somewhat connected. So, even if a dark age in the West is at all possible despite globalization there will be other civilizations that can take scientific advancement forward. But I don't know how this could happen given how small the world has become. So I think we will never have these civilization cycles again, and if we do they will be on a global scale.
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