Last Updated 9.5.23. The climate facts below are not for individuals under 16 years old. These serious adult matters and climate problems are far too upsetting and complex for children under 16 to understand or deal with in healthy or rational ways.

Prologue

A growing number of people worldwide have given up all hope and believe that a climate change-driven total human extinction is inevitable. This article presents facts and dialectically well-founded arguments proving that the total human extinction conclusion is extremely unlikely and  is unfortunately, not deeply dialectically thought through by many promoters of the climate "all is doomed" mindset. When one examines multiple levels down the climate change consequences chain of most likely dialectical consequences, actions, and counteractions, humanity's climate change future is extremely challenging but is significantly brighter than the "climate doomers or post-doomers" would like you to believe. 

This article also indirectly discusses and illuminates the most probable and final human systems tipping point when humanity will finally act to deal with the climate change emergency. There is a real and painful surprise here in this tipping point in the form of what will most probably happen before humanity finally acts effectively to fix the climate change emergency.

Even if all goes horrible and we fail to get close to the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets (which is growing ever more likely), we should still be able to save about thirty percent of humanity to as little as one to two percent of humanity. If things go better than is discussed below, we might even be able to save 30-45 percent of humanity, but never more than, at best, 50% of humanity.

This article also discusses the circumstances that will create the timeframe that will finally get whatever governments are still standing to take the bitter medicine and do whatever they have to do to reduce global fossil fuel use to levels required at that time. Hopefully, their actions will be in time to save the remaining survivors of the climate change extinction emergency.

Our current climate change emergency will have many horrible primary and secondary consequences (listed here). Still, with the help of Mother Nature, some luck, and the eventual human dialectical counter-reactions described below, we should avoid total human extinction. (If you are unsure on how climate change's many consequences interacting with humanity's other 11 major global crises could possibly cause a mass to a near-total human extinction long before 2100, click here and read this article before continuing.)

The information below is very upsetting and unsettling. Therefore, we have also provided links to a comprehensive climate preparation, adaptation, resilience, relocation, and recovery plan to help you manage all aspects discussed in this article. There are also important additional links at the bottom of this page, which further support the position a climate change-driven total extinction is highly unlikely.

If you still believe that our governments would never let the current climate change emergency cause a large-scale human extinction to ever occur, please read this article. It describes the dozens of highly challenging problems the world's governments have to collectively resolve before 2025, (maybe until 2031 at the very latest, if humanity is very fortunate.)

With an understanding of how poorly the world's governments truly cooperate on anything, you are ready to discover the many potent reasons why a climate-driven total extinction is highly unlikely.

 

Introduction

Understanding the differences between a runaway global heating-driven mass extinction, a near-total extinction event, and a total extinction event is essential to the headline of this article.

This article will not only clarify those differences. It will also strengthen or restore a rational, balanced, and scientifically appropriate hope for our current runaway global heating future.

The different levels of a global heating-driven extinction are defined as:

1. Mass human extinction is now unavoidable because of our 60 years of climate inaction, ineffective action, and denial. We have been so grossly ineffective in slowing and reversing global heating for 60 years that about half of the human population will die by mid-century. 
2. Near-total human extinction is a scenario where as much as 50-90+% of humanity could go extinct before we slow and reverse the current runaway global heating. (The processes of near-total extinction are described in the first two extinction-accelerating tipping points on this page and then on this essential page.)
3. Total human extinction can only occur if we allow atmospheric carbon levels to rise to 800 to 1700 parts per million (ppm). At those levels, we risk our atmosphere being pulled out into space and 100% of everything else that depends upon oxygen suffocating and going entirely extinct. (The processes of total extinction are described in the third and fourth extinction-accelerating tipping points on this page and then trigger the many processes found on this essential page.)

Fortunately, long before reaching those extreme carbon 800-1700 atmospheric carbon ppm levels, Mother Nature will step in with her tough medicine. Her excruciating "tough medicine" and intervention (as described further below) may result in close to our near-total extinction, but not total extinction!

We will not all go extinct because Mother Nature's "tough medicine" will occur and intensify in lockstep with the increasing severity, frequency, and scale of the primary and secondary climate consequences described in detail on this page. We will not go totally extinct also because the insane levels of suffering and mass die-off that will occur as half of humanity perishes over the next 2-4 decades will finally cause the world's population to demand that their governments act. 

Somewhere over the next 2-4 decades, much of humanity will finally support our governments radically reducing global fossil fuel usage to the required levels needed at that time, or things will get far worse, and humanity will face an even more painful and total extinction scenario. (Further below, you will find critical dialectical reactions and actions humanity will eventually execute that will be a contributing factor but not the dominant factor in having only near-total extinction and not total extinction.)

Ultimately, it will most likely be Mother Nature's powerful remedial "tough medicine" counteractions and not our own global heating remedial actions that will be the dominant force that ultimately saves humanity from ourselves and total extinction.

The two main exemptions to humanity not becoming totally extinct due to the effects of climate change is if:

A. a global nuclear or biological war breaks out because of mass climate migrations, resource and food shortages, or another climate change-related primary or secondary consequence.

B. somehow, we allow runaway global heating to reach the third and fourth extinction-accelerating tipping points and trigger the many processes found on this critical page.)

For anything short of global nuclear or biological war or reaching the third and fourth extinction-accelerating tipping points, everything you read below should hold true. 

Why total human extinction is highly improbable, Mother Nature's "tough medicine" will help fix what we do not fix ourselves

"Humanity has steadfastly ignored the ever-louder feedback from Mother Nature's consistently intensifying negative ecological consequences. These many consequences directly result from humanity's unsustainable and destructive ecological behaviors. 

Mother Nature will now 'fix' the source and cause of these unsustainable and destructive ecological behaviors for us. It definitely will not be a "fix" humanity will like." Daniel Ford

The Job One research team must humbly admit that in our earlier research almost a decade ago, we previously failed to fully allow for all appropriate compensatory weighting for the many natural and human system climate destabilization counteractions in our previous climate change research analysis. We failed to fully acknowledge that these natural and human system climate change counteractions intrinsically respond to and act to powerfully counter the rapidly worsening global heating effects on our climate systems and subsystems. This generally unacknowledged natural and human system counteraction error has also been significant and consistently still present in other climate researchers' and climate organizations' current global heating predictions. 

The most critical omitted natural counteraction consists of Mother Nature killing enough of us off soon enough using the primary and secondary global heating consequences so that it is impossible to add more human-caused fossil fuel carbon to the atmosphere and eventually cause total extinction. It is that simple. (The illustrations further down this page will help clarify this cause-and-effect counteraction.)

This natural counteraction omission issue is critical because it creates a significant error in runaway global warming extinction predictions. Nevertheless, numerous researchers are convinced that humanity faces an inevitable climate change-driven total human extinction. 

Previously the Job One for Humanity organization held this total extinction would only be true if we did not get close to the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets. However, based on a new analysis by Job One on the factors listed further below, we now believe that while the extinction of about half of humanity by mid-century is still unavoidable, total human extinction caused by primary and secondary global heating consequences occurring from about 2050 to 2080 (or sooner) is neither probable nor likely.

Based on our new analysis, that now includes several previously ignored or discounted natural and human counteractions scenarios, we now predict that if we can at least get close to the 2025 targets, humanity will, at worst, only face a near-total extinction. 

Before we go over the critical natural and human counteractions list for runaway global warming that can potentially save 50 to 90+% of humanity (even if we don't fix runaway global heating in time), it is necessary to explain a common scientific principle.

Global heating counteractions are similar to Newton's 3rd law. That law is that "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." 

If at this point, you think about global heating consequences as the costs of global heating, it would be helpful. As global heating costs rise, there will be more and more human and natural counteractions (equal and opposite reactions) to control and lower these costs.

Global heating's counteracting process will become more apparent as you review the many rising "costs" of our runaway global heating consequences (further below) and the increased likelihood that natural and human counteractions will eventually react to those costs.

More about the natural dialectical counteractions that have been seriously underestimated in the previous climate change and global heating predictions

An actual global heating-driven total extinction event can only occur if we put so much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere that our atmosphere is ripped off into space. Unfortunately, this is what happened to Venus because of ever-rising global temperatures. The strange but good news here is that total extinction will be prevented because so much of humanity will be dead long before we ever get to the extreme levels of atmospheric greenhouse gas, which could cause total human extinction.

To help you understand what those predicting inevitable total human extinction have missed or underestimated, it is necessary to start with the natural counteractions that "Mother Nature" will activate as runaway global heating worsens. The following natural counteractions are the only counteractions that alone have the power to save humanity from its own bad fossil fuel decisions and actions.

Unfortunately, there also is mixed bad and good news about fixing the total extinction prediction failure by properly including the effects of key natural global heating counteractions:

Here is the mixed news:

1. The death of half of humanity by mid-century is still unavoidable. We have ignored six decades of valid scientific warnings and have been ineffective in slowing accelerating global heating. The climate bill has come due.
2. Because of natural counteractions to rising global temperatures in the climate's systems and subsystems, we can still save much of the other 50% of humanity (but only if we get close to the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets as soon as possible.)
3. If we widely miss the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets, Mother Nature's counteracting climate-related primary and secondary consequences will soon accelerate exponentially. Mother Nature's counteractions should ensure ALL of humanity does not perish.

Please note: If we miss the 2025 targets by a lot, there will just be far fewer of us than if we got close to the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets. If we miss the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets altogether and for considerably longer than the next ten years, then there is a strong possibility that we could eventually go totally extinct because we will cross the third and fourth extinction-accelerating tipping points and we will have entered the fourth and fifth phases of irreversible runaway global heating discussed on this page.)

Irreversible climate change means that we will not be able to get the dangerous levels of excess greenhouse gases (like carbon) back down to a normal and human-safe pre-industrial level and out of our atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years. (As of July 2023, We are currently at the insane atmospheric carbon level of 420 ppm. We will soon enter the generally considered irreversible and second phase of runaway global heating sometime between 2025-2031. This is when we enter into the carbon 425-450 ppm range.)

On the one hand, at this point, you may be wondering how Mother Nature will "allow" a mass or even a near-total human extinction to occur while, on the other hand, still "preventing" us from going totally extinct.

It is because of a dialectical twist of evolutionary fate. 

How Mother Nature's natural counteractions, consequences, and systems will be the dominant force saving humanity from itself and total extinction

Complex adaptive systems have "harmful" feedback loops and tipping points that can make the system worse, more unstable, or eventually crash. On the other hand, complex adaptive systems also have "helpful" countering feedback loops and tipping points that, at specific points, can trigger and make the climate system better and more stable and eventually restore the system to equilibrium or near-equilibrium. 

Although most of the most prominent "harmful" climate feedback loops and tipping points are known, most of the "helpful" natural climate feedback loops and tipping points are still unknown. This is because humanity has never studied anything like what is happening to us with our current runaway global heating emergency.

But rest assured, these "helpful" feedback loops and tipping points are there because we have repeatedly seen these "helpful" feedback loops and tipping points gradually restoring other harmed or crashed ecological systems back into new equilibrium states in other natural and biological systems. 

We have observed many predator-prey ecological systems that have nearly collapsed and then rebalanced once again using new processes involving new feedback loops and different tipping points that push the ecological system back closer to its original equilibrium.

Lucky for us, this same "helpful" feedback loops and tipping point rebalancing mechanisms exist within the climate's systems and subsystems.

These helpful tipping points and feedback loops can also help control the speed and damage levels of the runaway global heating extinction emergency. And then, at some point, they can trigger into action assisting Mother Nature in beginning the restoration and rebalancing process and doing what is necessary to preserve the critical conditions for humanity to exist. 

Here is how those counteraction processes look for our future.

Mother Nature's global heating counteractions are as follows:

1. In perfect lockstep with our rising global heating, Mother Nature's immutable laws of climate physics will continue ratcheting-up ever-intensifying climate and global heating-related consequences to kill off hundreds of millions of us and then billions of us. (The initial main ways Mother Nature will kill us off will be through low crop yields, crop failures, and soaring crop prices. Global crops will fail or be stunted because of global warming-aggravated heatwaves, rain bombs, droughts, flooding, wildfires, out-of-season cold spells, hail, Derechos (severe wind storms), and other extreme weather which destabilizes normal growing season conditions. The world's five principal grains (rice, wheat, maize [corn], millet, and sorghum) are particularly vulnerable to climate-caused massive crop failure. This global heating-related crop failure occurs when temperatures (heat waves) are near or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit for about 30 days during the regular growing season. Increasing starvation always increases mass migration to wherever there is more food. These hunger-driven mass migrations will cause more local, regional, and national conflicts, creating a new amplifying feedback loop of even more mass starvation, soaring food prices, economic instability, and conflict. As these starvation and migration conflicts grow in food-growing and producing countries, food production also will drop because of the many food-growing and transportation disruptions caused directly or indirectly by those expanding conflicts.)
2. This massive kill-off will continue unabated until so few of us are left that humanity can no longer raise or maintain global temperatures by burning so much fossil fuel. 
3. The minimal critical point at which Mother Nature will stop killing us is when she has killed enough of us so that global fossil fuel use goes down to levels that are no longer continuing to heat the atmosphere. (This is likely the level where no human-caused additional greenhouse gases (carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide) are being added to the atmosphere. 
4. Mother Nature's final kill-off stage will end when so little additional greenhouse gas is being added to the atmosphere by remaining survivors that the atmosphere now even has the opportunity to start naturally removing existing greenhouse gases using natural Earth sequestering systems, which will begin lowering our average global temperature.
5. Mother Nature's climate system and subsystem inertia (resistance to change) will also help naturally slow the rise of global temperatures even as we are burning more fossil fuels, at least for a while longer. For example, for quite a while, the oceans and our soils and forests will keep absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and our seas will also continue absorbing heat from the atmosphere. 

The simplicity of what Mother Nature is doing is just taking the natural and already occurring consequences of accelerating runaway global heating and then using the results of those consequences to eventually slow and reverse those consequences. 

 

 

 

How long will it take for Mother Nature to kill off enough of us to save the rest of us?

Unless our governments mass mobilize and come close to the 2025 targets soon, the critical point where Mother Nature stops managing rising greenhouse gases by killing us off will likely be in the second half of the 21st century. On the other hand, if we get close to the 2025 targets soon, Mother Nature might stop killing us off far closer to 2045-2055.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature may likely keep killing us off with more intense global heating consequences beyond just the number of us that "she" needs to kill us off to stop adding more greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere by the remaining population. Unfortunately, predicting helpful natural system tipping points and feedback correction timeframes is not currently possible for many complex adaptive systems like the climate, or for complex natural systems interacting with human systems.)

The natural kill-off process is not a theory. We have already seen Mother Nature's global heating kill-off counteractions. Mother Nature is already directly or indirectly killing off tens of millions of us each year from only our current level of runaway global heating consequences. 

Overall, Mother Nature's global heating kill-off counteractions are a measure of positive news for anyone who has worried that there is no hope for humanity and our civilization and that we are facing total extinction. 

In the first illustration below, the blue line represents rising primary and secondary runaway global heating consequences. These rising global heating consequences will cause the climate and other systems within Mother Nature to keep killing off more and more humans (the green line) until humans are no longer capable of overheating the Earth by burning fossil fuels.

About mid-century (2050) is when we estimate the lines will cross and about half of humanity will have perished, and the Mother Nature-driven die-off will start slowing down.

 

In the second illustration below, one can see that the more humanity that dies on the green line, the more that global fossil fuel will fall, the blue line.

 

 

How will long-delayed, dialectical human system climate change counter-actions be a minor but important secondary force helping save humanity from a climate change consequence-driven total extinction?

"When the pain going forward is less than the pain of where you are, people will change." Unknown

Humanity will collectively and eventually reach the climate change "rock bottom" point where the level of climate pain of where they are (experiencing the many climate change consequences) will be more than the new pains of making the required changes needed to save what is left of humanity. 

Below are the wise, necessary, and significant human systems counteractions (dialectical research and responses) that will eventually occur as runaway global heating worsens and its costs, suffering, and deaths rise exponentially, pushing humanity to its collective climate change "rock bottom" transition point. But, neither individually nor cumulatively will these human counteractions occur in time or at sufficient levels to save about half of humanity from mass extinction by mid-century. (Please note, the following list of human system counter-actions are mostly the long-delayed climate remedial actions that were required and should have been done decades ago.)

Additionally, the following human counteractions by themselves will not happen in time to save us from near-total extinction. Too many now unavoidable and severe primary and secondary climate change consequences are already in the pipeline. This is primarily because, for the last 60 years, our governments have been so ineffective in resolving the global heating emergency because of the global fossil fuel cartel's disinformation and undue influence campaigns.

The human system dialectical counter actions below will be significantly caused by the contextual, relational, procedural, and transformational changes that the primary and secondary climate change consequences will cause to severely disrupt humanity's existing governmental, economic, social, and food supply-dependent ecological systems.

Here are the human systems counteractions that will respond to the intensifying consequences of climate change and the runaway global heating extinction emergency. Eventually, they also will help lower our overall global fossil fuel use and help save at least some smaller part of humanity.

Eventually: 

1. Insurance and reinsurance companies worldwide will cancel or not accept ANY new home mortgages or business or home insurance policies in the expanding high-risk climate change areas. Global insurance and reinsurance companies know they cannot survive the hundreds of trillions of dollars in climate change damages from now until 2050. They have no alternative but to eliminate and transfer the risks and losses back to the governments for any policy that could expose them to the ever-expanding risks and losses of accelerating climate change. 

Climate change-related damages are not acts of God or random accidents. The global fossil fuel cartel knowingly created the many climate change consequences by using behind-the-scenes undue influence and disinformation campaigns to stop governments from enforcing the needed global fossil fuel reductions. These expensive cartel disinformation campaigns also kept the world's citizens from demanding the necessary fossil fuel reductions for over 60 years. 

The global insurance and reinsurance companies canceling or failing to accept insurance policies in high-risk and known climate change danger areas will become a major force in getting our governments to act over the next few decades. Their angry citizens will be in the streets screaming that they can't sell or buy their own or desired homes because they are in expanding climate change high-risk zones and are now uninsurable.

2. our governments will finally pass, verify, and enforce laws that radically reduce fossil fuel use to get close to the 2025 global targets or the updated targets that are what is honestly needed at the time our governments actually act effectively. These new and enforceable correct target laws will significantly help reduce global fossil fuel use.

3. humanity will experience a new climate catastrophe that is extensive, intense, and costly, and humanity collectively will experience sufficient fear, pain, and climate danger awareness that they will demand (through their common political will) that their politicians act to fix the fears and losses from accelerating climate change. (We estimate this will only happen after a single or several closely spaced climate catastrophe costs about 1/2 trillion dollars each and kill upwards of 100,000 people.) 

4. the world's citizens will angrily demand their politicians immediately vote for honest climate change remedial actions as described on this page. (They will need to take protest actions like those described on this page.)

5. the world's citizens will angrily demand the world's billionaires use their influence to force the politicians to immediately vote for honest climate change remedial actions as described on this page. (To get the billionaires to do this will require citizens to take the actions described on this page.)

6. the world's billionaires and wealthiest nations will eventually understand that the climate change emergency is a no-win game for everyone. Their powerful resistance (inertia) to losing their significant financial advantages will finally motivate and compel them to act to fix the climate to protect their economic interests and advantages. (For more on why wealthy individuals and nations will finally act on climate change, click here.)

7 our governments will create revenue-neutral, Fee and Dividend-based fossil fuel reduction programs. These Fee and Dividend-based programs will significantly disincentivize using fossil fuels and greatly incentivize greener energy use. 

8. we will build more non-fossil fuel alternative energy generation systems to replace the current fossil fuel energy generation.

9. we will add more natural sequestration systems to remove more fossil fuel pollution from our atmosphere.

10. we will better protect and preserve existing natural carbon sequestration systems.

11. we will discover and use, at the proper scale, sustainable and appropriate technologies which are considerably different from what most people understand as new technologies. Once scaled up, these appropriate technologies will help us transition away from fossil fuels and possibly even help us remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere in effective and sustainable ways. (Please note that effective and proven appropriate technology carbon capture and removal technology is most likely decades away.) 

12. the net result of our steadily accumulating individual fossil fuel reduction actions can help will make some difference in how much of humanity survives after 2050. There is an important role of your individual actions in reducing fossil fuel use to save as much of humanity as possible. In many areas of our website, we have emphasized our government's critical first and primary role as being the most effective and necessary tool to enforce the required 2025 global fossil fuel reductions. While that is a true priority, there is also an essential role for ongoing growing individual-driven fossil fuel reductions.

While individual fossil fuel reductions by hundreds of millions of us are presently too little and too late to save about half of humanity before about 2050, they still can play an important role in what remaining percentage of humanity survives after 2050. After humanity has hit the climate change catastrophe "rock bottom" described above, the net result of our steadily accumulating individual fossil fuel reduction actions could help make the critical difference for as much as 30% of humanity surviving after 2050. (This 30 percent saved also includes us doing all of the other human systems' dialectical climate change counteractions described in this section.)

If individual fossil fuel reduction actions do not continue to grow and grow significantly, and we do not do most of the human system dialectical climate change counteractions described above, as few as five percent or less of humanity may survive until about 2070. This also implies there is an important role for continuing individual actions to reduce fossil fuel use. Click here to see the needed individual fossil fuel use reduction actions.

13. our governments will pass and enforce laws that will make fossil fuels nearly impossible to use for all but a few minimal and essential uses. 

14. to ensure we never have this problem again, current governments (or those that survive the post-fossil fuel great global collapse) will need to evolve new, more sustainability-friendly economic and political systems and laws. These new economic and political systems and laws must change the current global capitalism-based" values paradigm of over-consumption, over-population, exporting industrial pollution to the public sector, waste, overshoot, and other unsustainable ecological over-exploitation. Global society will need to radically change its values on how it sees nature from something to be dominated and exploited to something to be harmonized with and lived with in balance in sustainable ways.

15. because of the unimaginable pain and trauma of the runaway global heating's cumulative adverse effects and the coming global collapse of many critical areas, the survivors will find a new, more equitable, and just way to manage the world's resources and assets for survivors for the sustainable benefit of ALL humanity and not just for a few powerful and privileged nations or billionaires. Our world will look very different after the great global collapse. (To see the many step-by-step processes of a climate change consequence-driven great global collapse, click here.)

As a rule, the worse the climate consequence "inaction costs" of runaway global heating get (i.e., financial losses, ecological damage, human suffering, and deaths), the faster and harder governments and others will counter-react and enact the above list of human counteractions to further slow the runaway global heating extinction emergency to prevent it becoming irreversible total human extinction.

Or put in other words, as history has repeatedly demonstrated, humanity will finally change its behaviors when the pain of going forward with those new changes is less than the pain of staying where it is.

In the illustration below, the green line represents the rising and intensifying consequences of runaway global heating. The blue line represents the locked-in relationship of dependable, continuous, faster, and harder reactions to global heating consequences using all possible human counteractions in lockstep with the rising painful consequences of runaway global heating.

 

Yes, the above human counteractions will be too little and too late by themselves to save humanity. But when added to Mother Nature's far larger and more dominant horrible kill-off counteractions, they provide the additional opportunity to save even more post-mid-century humanity because the above human counteractions will also contribute to and help slow and lower our rising global temperature and new carbon going into our atmosphere. 

When all of the above and far less powerful secondary human counteractions are added to the natural counteractions of Mother Nature, they will act as an additional counteracting brake on rising global temperatures and atmospheric carbon.

These human counteractions will help Mother Nature ensure that humanity will not go beyond near-total extinction. But even without the additional human counteractions, the good news is Mother Nature's massive kill-off alone will save us from a climate change-driven total extinction. The above human counteractions (which will eventually occur during the collapse process) are just extra insurance and can help save more of us sooner.

Unfortunately, there is still this awful news to deal with. All of the above natural and human counteractions will still not be enough or be able to be scaled up in time to save about half of humanity from going extinct by mid-century in what will be an excruciatingly horrible and painful process. This means that whoever survives the mid-century extinction will face centuries to thousands of years of deprivation and suffering before Mother Nature can fully rebalance herself and get the atmospheric carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide levels down to where our global temperature goes back to a level better suited for optimal human existence and reproduction.

 

 

How much of humanity will perish and be left after mid-century?

At this point, you may wonder how much of humanity Mother Nature's counteractions could save. Here are some estimates.

If we fail to radically reduce current global fossil fuel use and get close to the 2025 global targets as soon as possible:

1. some believe Mother Nature will keep killing us off until we get back down to what is known as the Earth's sustainable carrying capacity of about 1.5 billion people.

2. others believe we will be lucky to have 5-10% or less of humanity still living in 2080 to 2100. This very high die-off level is because global heating will keep rising for decades even after Mother Nature has killed off enough of us to stop adding more carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide levels to our atmosphere. Moreover, global heating will continue to rise for about another 2-3 decades even after we entirely stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere because of pre-existing global heating momentum already committed within the climate system. 

3. The Club of Rome-related studies projects there will be between 2.5 billion people to the latest study projecting about 1.5 billion people left by 2100 if you also include all current climate change factors.

4. We at Job One believe that after humanity misses the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets significantly and humanity has hit the climate change catastrophe "rock bottom" (described above), the net result of Mother Nature killing off so many of us added to humanity successfully executing many of the human system climate change counteractions listed above, can make the difference so that as many as 30% of humanity will survive after 2050. 

If after humanity misses the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets significantly, and humanity has hit the climate change catastrophe "rock bottom" (described above), added to the net result of Mother Nature killing off so many of us, and we do not execute most of the human system climate change counteractions described above, as few as one to two percent of humanity will survive until about 2070. 

If we fail to get close to the 2025 targets, and if humanity fails to collectively hit climate change "rock bottom" soon enough, forcing its governments to finally act along with all of the human interactions getting started as soon as possible, it is critical to realize that the conditions for the after-mid-century survivors will be so bad most of them will wish they had not survived. (Click here to see the primary and secondary global heating-related consequences they will experience if we fail to get close to the 2025 targets.) 

Once you have reviewed those horrendous consequences, there will be little doubt that the only viable solution for humanity's future is to get as close to the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets as soon as possible.

 

 

When will our governments finally act in a way that honestly fixes the climate change emergency?

From all of the above, one begins to see there is no fixed date when our governments will finally act to fix the climate change emergency, but it will be determined by a series of painful climate change-related consequences suffered by humanity continually driving humanity toward its climate change "rock bottom" transition point, which will determine that governmental action date. 

Using the body of current climate change research and all of the Club of Rome-related studies, our best estimate of that date is sometime between 2035 and 2045; our governments will finally get serious about cutting global fossil use to the required levels. We strongly recommend reading our three recent Club of Rome climate change-related global collapse studies for background research and for the most likely global collapse timetables. The conclusion drawn from these three articles is that by about 2035, humanity will start to experience several major global catastrophes, instabilities, and critical system collapses because of multiple major factors converging simultaneously (industrial output, food production, resource availability, population, pollution, and climate consequences) and that will continue to intensify until our governments act.

We finished a spellbinding three-article series in January of 2023 on what happens when you add current climate research (like the above,) climate change extinction tipping point, and climate change feedback loop information into the four well-documented previous studies on the Club of Rome/MIT five factors that are most likely to bring about global collapse. (The Club of Rome/MIT five factors are industrial output, food production, resource availability, population, and pollution. The previous five Club of Rome/MIT studies did not adequately include recent climate change research.)

The last article in this Club of Rome series has graphs (like the one below) that show how the updated prediction timeframes for the global collapse of these five critical factors have grown significantly shorter when you add climate change consequence factors and timeframes into the other four previous studies. 

Here is our 2023 Job One for Humanity updated graph with current climate change information added and where humanity does not get close to the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets. The following things in the illustration below are essential regarding humanity's time frames relating to survival and collapse. Notice that around 2025 to 2030, critical survival factors start steep declines. From 2030 to 2040, even more, crucial factors will move into steep declines and intersect during this period.

These two periods, from 2025 to 2030 and from 2030 to 2040, will dramatically increase human suffering and death. 2040 to 2050 will be even worse, with almost all critical survival factors in steep decline except pollution, which will also worsen things.

We have predicted that by 2050 about half of humanity will be dead. The period from 2050 to 2070 will be the most dangerous if our governments do not work with Mother Nature and eventually help reduce global fossil fuel use. If our governments miss their second opportunity to save about half of humanity, we could have anywhere from 30% to his little as 2% of humanity surviving past 2070.

 

 

Click here to go to the first of these three articles. It will also link you to the other two articles. Once you have also finished the Club Of Rome articles, you know much more about the processes and timeframes of global collapse than 99.9999% of humanity.

 

A helpful perspective on Mother Nature's coming mass die-off and widespread global collapse

Whenever a species within an ecosystem exceeds the needed resources of that ecosystem or so destroys its critical ecosystem so that it is no longer capable of sustainably producing all of the resources that species needs, mother nature "helps" that species to die off sufficiently so that its population comes back into balance with the ecosystem resources that support it.

Humanity is just another species within the species of Mother Nature on Earth. Humanity has not managed its population, which has grown far beyond what the Earth can sustainably support. Not only has humanity's population grown beyond the needed sustainable resources to support its population, but it is also so wholly polluted and destroyed the ecosystems that support it that these damaged ecosystems can no longer support the needs of an ever-growing humanity.

Mother nature will soon do to humanity what she has been doing to every other species that cannot migrate to a new ecosystem, which also falls out of balance with its ecosystem. She will find a way to cause a mass die-off in that species until its population matches the resources available in its ecosystem.

Because humanity has been utterly unable to manage its population, resources, and pollution properly, humanity now faces an unavoidable widespread great die-off and collapse of human and natural systems. This mass die-off will facilitate a great rebalancing and a potential great rebirth for what is left of humanity after the process runs its full course. Humanity will experience the effect of its unwise collective actions.

This great Die-off and collapse process will most likely continue until a new balance in the human population has been achieved, not because our governments have acted in time to prevent the great die-off and collapse. In many ways, this should be seen as just another natural evolutionary process. 

While there is not much we can do until the population-to-resource balance (the OverShoot) is re-established. We can understand its cause and effects and be compassionate with ourselves and others experiencing the suffering, financial loss, and death that will be the signposts of this natural process. 

The potential good news here is that if, at some point, our remaining governments can finally enforce the required climate laws and they do it in time, there will be enough of us left so the world does not go into total extinction and a new dark age. Best of all, if our governments finally act, we then have the potential and opportunity to create a global great rebirth from the painful wisdom humanity will have acquired from this ordeal.

In a way, as we watch this painful die-off and collapse process unfold, we should be grateful that Mother Nature's natural processes are there to save us (at least a much smaller part of humanity) from ourselves and the ignorance, incompetence, and greed of our governments and politicians.

For more information on Mother Nature's evolutionary processes especially the often necessary "collapse and rebirth" cycle for non-adaptive situations not paying attention, "listening" to, or using the situation's natural feedback information, click here.

 

A "Big Picture" Way of Seeing Our Climate Change Consequence Timetables as Waves 

Because our governments and politicians have entirely failed to protect us from the worst climate change consequences, we must manage those consequences primarily by ourselves. Accordingly, it will be helpful to see your climate change future preparations and adaptations in the following three timeframe phases:

Phase One Wave: The Great Die-off and Great Collapse 

This great die-off and collapse will have several stages:

Stage One: From now until about 2025, climate change consequences will steadily rise in severity, frequency, and scale, but not so much that it will be hard to find the needed materials at reasonable costs to do the emergency preparations and adaptations you will need to do to protect yourself, your family, and your business. (Click here to learn more about the climate change tipping points that make this 2025 date so important.)

Stage Two: From 2025 to about 2031, climate change consequences will rise dramatically in severity, frequency, and scale, so much that it will be hard to find the needed materials at reasonable costs to do the emergency preparations and adaptations you will need to do to protect yourself, your family, and your business. Globally, deaths, financial losses, starvation, migrations, and other primary and secondary consequences of climate change will also rise dramatically. (Click here to learn more about the climate change tipping points that make this 2025-2031 date range so important.)

Stage Three: From 2031 to about 2050, climate change consequences will begin to rise exponentially in severity, frequency, and scale, so much that it will be all but impossible to find the needed materials at reasonable costs to do the emergency preparation and adaptations you will need to do to protect yourself, your family, and your business. (Click here if you doubt that about half of humanity will be dead from the combined primary and secondary consequences of our accelerating climate change.)

Globally, deaths, financial losses, starvation, migrations, and other primary and secondary consequences of climate change will also rise exponentially. (The processes and primary and secondary climate change consequences that will cause the first great die-off and collapse are described in detail on this page. For information about collapse and rebirth as a natural evolutionary preocess see this page.)

Phase Two Wave: The Great Juncture, Turning Point, or Moment of Truth.

By 2050, to about 2070, about half of humanity will be already dead. If our governments act either before 2050 or in the early part of this 2050-2070 period, we still may be able to avoid near-total extinction and avoid having another 25% to 40% of the pre-2025 population die. If our governments act in time, we will save a significant part of the human population, and there is a good chance we can avoid a new dark age that could last for centuries. But if our governments do not act in time and there is only a tiny portion of humanity is left (20% or less, the probability of entering a new dark age is very high. (The human, governmental, and natural processes that could save as much as 50% of the remaining human population are described in detail on this page.)

Phase Three Wave: The Great Global Rebirth Possibilities.

If our governments do act in time (as described above and in detail here) and at least 25-50% of the population survives, the survivors of the greatest extinction and tragedy in human history will have unimaginable pain and trauma deeply ingrained into their psyches. Because of this global trauma, there is a strong likelihood that these painful collective memories will motivate the demand for massive changes in our human economic, social, political, and religious systems so that a climate change-triggered and enabled mass extinction event can never happen again.

To read about the many benefits and potential changes that can come about in this great global rebirth, we recommend to first read about the natural evolutionary process of going through a collapse and rebirth cycle found here and why it is not so bad from a big evolutionary perspective and it is not the end of the world.

Next, we strongly recommend reading about the many possible benefits for human systems in a tremendous global rebirth when so many pre-existing power structures that were locked into the behaviors and ideas that destroyed most of humanity are no longer in power or functioning because of the Great Collapse. Here are these benefits one of the most read pages on our website.

Conclusion

We must get very busy on our remaining limited opportunities and save and salvage whatever we can! 

Unfortunately, those who have predicted a climate change-driven total extinction and global collapse have not carefully considered the many natural and human dialectical counteractions that will occur. They have not carefully analyzed the climate change emergency from a dialectical meta-systematic viewpoint which would allow them to see the climate emergency from 28 unique perspectives and down 2-3 levels of dialectical consequences and counteractions to those consequences.

From the above, one can see that all is not hopeless, and a global heating-driven total extinction is not the most probable outcome of climate change and runaway global heating. On the contrary, the closer we get to the honest 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets, the more of the post-mid-century 50% of humanity will be able to survive past mid-century. 

Conversely, the quality of life of those who survive the pre-mid-century unavoidable mass extinction process will be far more unbearable the longer it takes us to get close to the critical 2025 global targets.

When you analyze and include all of the human "harmful" climate feedback loops and tipping points along with all of the counteracting and "helpful" natural (Mother Nature's) and human feedback loops and tipping points, you get a climate and human-connected system that should eventually "self" correct through a very painful and extremely high "cost" reactive process.

Today, many climate researchers and individuals have either omitted or deeply underestimated the effects of Newton's 3rd law on climate systems and its many subsystems. They have primarily ignored natural (Mother Nature's) and human system-driven counteractions in the form of becoming corrective actions and "helpful" climate system feedback loops and tipping points. 

Unfortunately, many of those who believe the current runaway global heating situation is hopeless have given up. Because they believe total extinction is inevitable, they do nothing substantive to do their required 1/8 billionth critical part to get our governments to act while humanity still has time to prevent our total extinction. It is not hard to see that giving up or promoting giving up and failing to effectively act and educate is a grave ethical or moral failure.

Those individuals who fail to see that the runaway global heating emergency is just another evolutionary opportunity that will force us to make the many economic, social, environmental, religious, and political changes that, sooner or later, we will be forced to make anyway. 

Fortunately, the more profound dialectical evolutionary climate truth shines brightest. If we get close to the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets as soon as possible, as much as half of humanity could survive the runaway global heating extinction emergency. This perspective is truly a realistic and appropriate hope worth fighting, sacrificing and working for wholeheartedly.

Individuals or groups who continually sell you all is lost, surviving is just hopium, or we are ALL doomed because of the runaway global heating emergency have failed to properly:

a. account for,

b. use in their analysis, or

c. see the many compensatory dialectical counteractions of:

1. Newton's always dependable 3rd Law of thermodynamics, 

2. Mother Nature's natural mass human kill-off counteraction is the only thing that can and will scale up in lockstep with our accelerating global heating consequences. (Mother Nature's kill-off counteractions will be the primary, dominant, and most likely way that a portion of humanity will be able to survive the runaway global heating extinction emergency.) 

3. Humanity's eventual, contributing, and secondary counteraction measures to radically reduce global fossil fuels use to levels that will allow some of humanity to survive. But, unfortunately, those radical fossil fuel-reducing actions will not occur until humanity experiences levels of insane financial loss, personal suffering, social and political chaos, and accelerating death that is so large and unbearable that humanity has no choice but to fix the climate change nightmare or everything dies!

4. Inertia (resistance to change) in the climate system and its subsystems and inertia in our many human systems. For example, the world's wealthiest individuals and nations will eventually understand that the climate change emergency is a no-win game for everyone. Their powerful resistance (inertia) to losing their significant financial advantages will finally motivate and compel them to act to fix the climate to protect their economic interests and advantages. (For more on why wealthy individuals and nations will finally act on climate change, click here.)

5. They have failed to consider the accelerating climate emergency from the 28 dialectical perspectives that are critical for analyzing complex adaptive systems like the climate and human reactions at meta-systemic levels. These 28 perspectives illuminate the process of evolutionary dialectical counteractions and interactions. (These 28 dialectical perspectives are described in Otto Laske's landmark book Measuring Hidden Dimensions of Human Systems Volume 2.) 

Furthermore, we believe it is morally and ethically grossly irresponsible for anyone to promote a highly probable vision of a climate change-driven total extinction and focus people away from continuous, direct action to get our governments to prevent this outcome. Such action is especially reprehensible, while we still have the rapidly diminishing option to avoid total extinction and save as many people as possible during the near-total extinction processes as described above.

Below please see how poorly we are currently doing regarding atmospheric carbon levels (CO2) in getting close to the required 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets.

 

 

We leave you with this balancing quote from the Post Carbon Institute:

“In reality, there are degrees of collapse, and history shows that the process has usually taken decades and sometimes centuries to unfold, often in stair-steps punctuated by periods of partial recovery. Further, it may be possible to intervene in collapse to improve outcomes—for ourselves, our communities, our species, and thousands of other species.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, medieval Irish monks may have “saved civilization” by memorizing and transcribing ancient texts. Could we, with planning and motivation, do as much for the best of our civilization?

Will the new ClimateSafe Villages project be like the monasteries of old?

What to do about this nightmare

Click here to go to our comprehensive climate preparation, adaptation, resilience, relocation, and recovery plan, which will:

a. help you act effectively to do your part to get our governments to act before it is too late.

b. help protect and preserve your loved ones and assets.

c. Click here for our recommended action timeframe page for how soon we must act, depending on location and other circumstances.

Important Additional Reading

Please also click here to read about relevant human history, evolution, and extinction threats, and facts to add to your perspective that total human extinction is very unlikely.

Technical Notes:

1. This article resulted from a new dialectical meta-systemic and system theory-based analysis of the most recent climate research viewing the climate as a complex adaptive system.  
2. On Earth, nothing takes place in a vacuum. For every action, there is some counteraction. For every action (consequence) you have read about on this website, there could also be various counteractions from both "Mother Nature" and our many human systems and organizations. All possible counteractions must always be carefully weighed, considered, and included in any legitimate problem threat and risk analysis. 
3. This article re-examined climate research and the contexts, processes, relationships, and transformations occurring within the climate's dynamic systems and subsystems. During this process, we discovered that the natural and human counteractions (some in helpful climate feedback loops and tipping points) were not adequately considered or weighted in our and other climate and global heating predictions.  
4. If we reach an increase of 4-6 degrees Celsius in average global temperature, we will experience vast releases of stored carbon and methane from our oceans, soils, trees, and coastal ocean shelves. But, it is highly improbable we will reach these temperature levels because of the natural and human counteractions described above. As temperatures rise, the human die-off will be so steep that there will not be enough of us left burning fossil fuels to be able to reach a 4-6 degrees Celsius level. For the last six decades, it has taken about 25 additional carbon parts per million (ppm) to be added to the atmosphere to raise the average global temperature by 1/2 degree Fahrenheit. (One degree Celcius is equal to about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit.) That means that at the current level of adding three new carbon ppm per year to our atmosphere, it takes 8+ years to raise the average global temperature by 1/2 degree Fahrenheit. We have presently raised the average global temperature by 1.2 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times. This means we have another 2.8 degrees of Celsius to go before entering a hazardous area for total extinction. Getting to 4 degrees Celcius will take about 40-50 years. By then, much of humanity will be long dead, and our greenhouse gas levels will have stopped rising (possibly even dropping a bit), preventing us from reaching 4 degrees Celsius. For the sake of wild argument, even if we cross additional global heating tipping points that cause a 50% reduction in the total time left to prevent reaching 4 degrees Celsius, so many of us will die off in the next 20-30 years, we will still not add enough additional fossil fuel pollutants in parts per million to the atmosphere to reach the 4 degrees Celsius level.  
5. Anyone saying that the climate science shows that All of humanity will invariably go extinct from runaway global warming consequences does not understand there are no 100% certainties in science because new discoveries are constantly qualified and adjusted by older research.
6. Current dialectical meta-systemic analysis of recent climate research does not support the wild predictions of a climate-driven total human extinction in 10, 20, 30, or even 40 years. We have time left to act, and at worst, we will only suffer a near-total extinction, but we need everyone immediately rowing in the same direction at full strength to minimize future human extinction losses and suffering. 
7. According to a 2020 study published in Scientific Reports, if deforestation and resource consumption (aka overshoot) continue at current rates, they could culminate in a "catastrophic collapse in human population" and possibly "an irreversible collapse of our civilization" in the next 20 to 40 years.
8. If we miss the 2025 targets by a lot, there will just be far fewer of us (near-total extinction) than if we got close to the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets. If we miss the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets altogether and for considerably longer than the next ten years, then there is a strong possibility that we could eventually go totally extinct because we have entered the fourth and fifth phases of irreversible runaway global heating discussed on this page. 
9. According to the most optimistic scenario provided by another study, the chance that human civilization survives is less than 10%. (See Nafeez, Ahmed. "Theoretical Physicists Say 90% Chance of Societal Collapse Within Several Decades". Vice. Retrieved 2 August 2021. Also see Bologna, M.; Aquino, G. (2020). "Deforestation and world population sustainability: a quantitative analysis." Scientific Reports. 10 (7631): 7631. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-63657-6. PMC 7203172. PMID 32376879.) 

For answers to all of your questions about climate change and global warming, click here for our new climate change FAQ. It has over one hundred of the most asked questions and answers about climate change.