Last Updated: 1.7.26 

 

Prologue

We are sharing this growing probability of a Polycrisis-driven collapse because your actions now matter more than ever!

For more than 14 years, the 100% publicly funded Job One For Humanity nonprofit climate think tank has faced intense criticism for presenting climate change-driven forecasts that point to the growing probability of a widespread global collapse, with up to half of humanity perishing by around 2050 --- unless we rapidly address accelerating climate change and the 12 other interrelated global crises outlined below.

We share this information not to frighten or paralyze you—we share it because it is honest, necessary, and profoundly empowering when viewed from the right perspective.

If humanity confronts and addresses these 13 global challenges now, we still have time to reduce harm, save lives, and lay the foundation for a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient future.

What follows is a transparent, science-based explanation of how the 13 major forces of the global polycrisis interact, amplify one another, and are already rapidly destabilizing the world. More importantly, you will find ways to protect yourself and help humanity navigate the most pivotal decades in our history.

This page also contains the seeds of a pragmatic hope for:

• • What you can still do

  • Why preparation and adaptation dramatically increase survival

  • How collapse can ultimately lead to a Great Global Rebirth

As you read, remember: you are not powerless. You are an early adopter. And that matters.

 

Here is a quick summary of the 13 Forces Driving the Definition of the Global Polycrisis — in Plain Language.

(Each one is expanded further down the page.)

1. 1. Too many people, too fast
      Humanity has exceeded Earth’s natural carrying capacity, multiplying stress on food, water, energy, and ecosystems.

   2. We’re using up the planet faster than it can recover
      Critical resources like freshwater, fertile soil, fish stocks, and fertilizers are being depleted, threatening global supply chains and food security.

   3. Pollution is now everywhere—and inside us
      Toxic chemicals, plastics, and air and water pollution are undermining human health, agriculture, and the oceans that support life.

   4. Nature’s life-support systems are breaking down
      Rapid biodiversity loss is destabilizing ecosystems that regulate climate, grow food, and protect humanity from collapse.

   5. Mass migration is accelerating
      Climate disruption, food shortages, and conflict are driving the largest human migrations in history, straining nations and social cohesion.

   6. Conflict and violence rise as scarcity grows
      Resource shortages and instability increase crime, unrest, terrorism, and the risk of wars—even between nuclear-armed nations.

   7. The global economy is increasingly fragile
      Debt, financial bubbles, climate disasters, pandemics, and AI-driven disruption make a synchronized global crash more likely.

   8. Governments are losing the ability to cope
      Many political systems are weakening under mounting pressure, leading to failing institutions and loss of public trust.

   9. Authoritarianism is spreading
      Fear and instability push societies toward strongman rule, nationalism, and reduced freedoms—often reinforced by surveillance technology.

   10. New pandemics are becoming more frequent
       Climate change, habitat loss, overcrowding, and weakened health systems make global disease outbreaks more likely and harder to contain.

   11. Inequality is exploding
       Extreme wealth concentration leaves billions vulnerable as food, energy, and housing costs rise, increasing unrest and suffering.

   12. AI and 4th-generation mind control are enabling mass psychological manipulation and are reshaping society
       Advanced surveillance and behavior-shaping technologies can undermine democracy, truth, and individual autonomy at scale.

   13. Accelerating climate change amplifies, multiplies, or disrupts almost everything else listed above.
       Climate change is the central threat multiplier—fueling resource scarcity, migration, conflict, economic instability, disease, and ecosystem collapse.

 

How to View and Understand the Accelerating Global Polycrisis

Humanity has entered a new era—an undeclared global planetary emergency where multiple critical systems (climate, environment, economy, politics, and society) are becoming increasingly unstable. This interconnected cluster of worsening crises is known as a polycrisis. 

Think of these crises not as isolated problems, but as a tightly entangled web—like a plate of intertwined spaghetti or a row of dominoes positioned dangerously close together. When one worsening crisis tips, it pushes others forward with accelerating force.

Although no one can know whether global collapse begins with a climate-driven shock, a historic economic crash, escalating or new wars, mass migration, or a combination of the 13 crises below, the evidence shows that climate change is now the strongest amplifier, accelerator, multiplier, and disruptor of most of the other global crises.

The probability of widespread global collapse in the not-too-distant future has often been called by other names: near-term human extinction, doomsday, Armageddon, mass extinction, apocalypse, and the end of the world. Individuals who recognize this growing risk and are preparing for it are called doomsday preppers.

Why this polycrisis matters — and why hope to avoid widespread global collapse is still rational.

These 13 crises do not act alone. They interlock and reinforce one another, creating the risk of cascading global instability. But early awareness, preparation, adaptation, and collective action can still save lives and preserve the foundations for a post-collapse recovery and rebirth.

This is why Job One for Humanity focuses on truth, preparation, resilience, and practical actions and hope.

 

THE 13 MAJOR CRISES OF THE GLOBAL POLYCRISIS

Below are the more in-depth explanations of the 13 most dangerous global crises—presented clearly, candidly, and with the hope that informed citizens like you will be better equipped to act, prepare, and help others.

1. Global Crisis and Challenge: Overpopulation

Humanity has exceeded Earth’s carrying capacity of approximately 1.5–2 billion people. We are at nearly 8 billion today, projected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050.

Overpopulation multiplies every other global crisis by:

• • Driving overshoot of land, water, and energy resources

  • Increasing pollution, habitat loss, and species extinction

  • Magnifying food insecurity

  • Intensifying climate change consequences

Overpopulation is inseparable from Crisis #2: overconsumption and resource depletion.

 

 

2. Global Crisis and Challenge: Overconsumption and Critical Resource Depletion

Humanity is consuming natural resources far faster than Earth can regenerate them.

Key looming shortages include:

• • Freshwater: potentially depleted in many regions within 12 years (2032)

  • Fish stocks: could be almost entirely gone by 2050

  • Topsoil: essential for agriculture, potentially exhausted by 2070

  • Phosphate fertilizers: may be critically depleted in 35–45 years

Overshoot also manifests as:

• • Toxic pollution

  • Overfishing

  • Crop failures

  • Resource distribution inequity

  • Severe strain on global supply chains

A single missing critical resource can halt entire economic systems.
This is one of the least understood—but most dangerous—risks humanity faces.

 

 

 

3. Global Crisis and Challenge: Escalating Pollution of Air, Water, and Land

Accelerating pollution now threatens global health, food systems, oceans, and atmospheric stability.

Critical concerns include:

• • Ocean acidification and heating are destroying oxygen-producing plankton (a source of 50% of Earth’s oxygen)

  • Microplastics are now present in water, air, soil, and the human body

  • PFAS “forever chemicals” linked to rising disease rates

  • Agricultural disruption through soil toxicity and biodiversity loss

Future generations will face the consequences of our failure to regulate pollution responsibly.

 

 

Global Crisis and Challenge 4: loss of biodiversity.

4. Global Crisis and Challenge: Loss of Biodiversity

Humanity is driving the sixth mass extinction, with species disappearing at unprecedented rates due to:

• • Habitat loss

  • Global heating

  • Overuse of land and water resources

  • Pollution

Biodiversity loss threatens the stability of global food webs, fisheries, crops, and the ecosystems that sustain human life.

 

 

5. Global Crisis and Challenge: Mass Migration

Driven by climate heating, conflict, food shortages, and economic instability, the world will soon experience the largest human migration in history.

Projected impacts:

• • Hundreds of millions of climate refugees by 2030–2035

  • Mass movement from uninhabitable regions

  • Strain on borders, economies, and social cohesion

  • Government-ordered relocations from high-risk zones

Mass migration is one of the earliest visible signs of collapse—and one of its most destabilizing forces.

That's good that's good

 

6. Global Crisis and Challenge: Escalating Criminality, Conflict, Terrorism, and War

As food, land, and water become scarce, expect:

• • Sharp rises in crime and civil unrest

  • Regional conflicts

  • International wars over dwindling resources

  • Increasing treatment of mass migrations as territorial invasions

When global carbon levels reach 425–450 ppm, experts expect an almost exponential increase in geopolitical instability.

Nations with nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons may eventually battle for survival.

 

 

7. Global Crisis and Challenge: Growing Global Economic Instabilities

The global financial system is fragile and deeply interconnected.

Risks include:

• • Debt crises

  • Real estate and commodity bubbles

  • Currency disruption

  • Hedge fund and derivative failures

  • AI-induced mass unemployment

  • A potential AI investment boom-and-bust crash

  • Crypto-induced instability

  • Pandemic disruption

  • Climate-disaster-related financial shocks

Any one of these—combined with intensifying climate consequences—could trigger the first true global recession or depression, affecting nearly every nation simultaneously.

 

 

8. Global Crisis and Challenge: Political System Instability and Collapsing Governments

Many nations already show signs of:

• • Failing institutions

  • Rising national debt

  • Widening social fractures

  • Decreasing resilience

As climate costs rise and global stress mounts, weaker governments will collapse first, followed by stronger ones that are strained beyond their capacity to respond.

 

 

 

9. Global Crisis and Challenge: The Rise of Dictators and Ultra-Nationalism

As fear grows, billions gravitate toward strongman leaders promising simple solutions.

This trend is accelerating due to:

• • Economic fear

  • Climate disruption

  • Mass migration

  • Political polarization

  • AI-driven surveillance

Already, 71% of the world lives under authoritarian rule.

As crises worsen, expect a rapid global shift toward:

• • Ultra-nationalism

  • Reduced civil liberties

  • AI-enabled population control

  • “Cult of personality” governance

This political transformation will shape how societies respond—or fail to respond—to the polycrisis.

 

 

10. Global Crisis and Challenge: New Pandemics and Disease Outbreaks

Due to global heating, habitat loss, overpopulation, and antibiotic misuse, humanity now faces a new pandemic threat every 5–10 years.

Drivers include:

• • Melting permafrost is releasing ancient pathogens

  • Increasing contact between humans and wildlife

  • Overcrowded cities

  • Weakened healthcare systems

  • Mass migration and conflict

  • Antibiotic-resistant bacteria

COVID-19 was not an anomaly—it was a preview.

 

11. Global Crisis and Challenge: Growing Inequality, Injustice, and Poverty

As climate and economic stresses increase:

• • Inequality rises

  • Food scarcity intensifies

  • Poverty spreads

  • Social unrest increases

Today, 1% of humanity owns more than 50% of global wealth.

Climate-driven threats will push these disparities to extremes, increasing starvation into the hundreds of millions, then billions.

 

 

12. Global Crisis and Challenge: Fourth-Generation Mind Control, AI Surveillance, and Social Manipulation

Fourth-generation psychological influence tools—combined with:

• • AI

  • Social media

  • Supercomputers

  • Surveillance networks

  • Identification and tracking systems

—will enable governments and corporations to shape behavior, belief, and perception at unprecedented scales.

With 70% of humanity already under authoritarian control, these tools could rapidly undermine remaining democracies.

 

13. Global Crisis and Challenge: The Accelerating Climate Change Emergency

Climate change is the single greatest threat multiplier of the 21st century.

It accelerates:

• • Drought

  • Flooding

  • Sea-level rise

  • Crop failure

  • Water scarcity

  • Extreme storms

  • Wildfires

  • Heatwaves

  • Disease spread

Climate change’s primary power lies in how it amplifies every other crisis.

It is rapidly approaching several irreversible tipping points that will:

• • Collapse ecosystems

  • Destabilize nations

  • Crash economies

  • Trigger mass migration

  • Create conflict over scarce resources

Without dramatic intervention, climate change alone could kill most of humanity by mid-century.

 

 

 

Excluding the challenges of the absence of a real global government (an evolutionary, structural, and developmental issue) and the immediate threat of global thermonuclear war, our out-of-control, irreversible global heating is the single most dangerous global challenge today. It is also the most dangerous global challenge because:

a.) It is also the most immediate and probable meta-trigger for the growing possibility of a chain reaction of whipsawing and simultaneous ecological, economic, social, and political falling domino catastrophes, and the converging global system collapses involving directly or indirectly most of the other critical global challenges listed above. 

 

 

If you think about accelerating irreversible global heating as a brightly burning match that will ignite the highly explosive and destructive "fuels" already existing within most of the other 12 critical challenges listed above, you would have another good idea of why we have to get the irreversible global heating emergency under control as our immediate and top priority. 

b) Irreversible global heating is already a severe security threat unfolding. It is currently causing substantial global problems. It is rapidly approaching the crossing of four critical extinction-evoking tipping points.  It is, in fact, already all but out of our control. It can and will end about half or more of the human species within our lifetimes if we do not act soon! 

 

 

How These Crises Combine Into a Global Collapse Trajectory

Research from MIT, the Club of Rome, KPMG, and our updated climate models shows that global collapse dynamics intensify sharply between 2030 and 2045.

By integrating climate tipping points, feedback loops, overshoot, resource depletion, and economic fragility, our updated models continue to affirm:

• • 2030–2035: global destabilization intensifies

  • 2040–2050: mass mortality becomes unavoidable without radical intervention

  • 2050–2070: global population could fall to 1.5–2 billion and then stabilize

The goal now is not to prevent all collapse—it’s to prevent the worst outcomes and safeguard a livable future for the survivors.

The best-researched timetable for mass human extinction and widespread global collapse is from MIT, the Club of Rome, KPMG, etc. It will show you how, by 2035, humanity could already be deep into mass human extinction and widespread global collapse. Our new climate change temperature and timeframe forecasts above continue to support and expand the projections from the work we did in summarizing the MIT Club of Rome collapse report and the subsequent three other verification reports relevant to the MIT original, as well as our additions for the climate change factors into the other verification reports on the projected dates and major factors of global collapse.

Below, please find an illustration of the global collapse time frames when various global collapse factors are combined, based on the five MIT collapse-related studies. It then includes our latest forecasts of climate change impacts and timelines. In very small black-and-gray print below, you can see that in 2000 there were 6.2 billion people, in 2030 8.1 billion, and in 2100 1.5 billion.

Using the three links below, you can view information from the original MIT study and from three subsequent studies that replicated the MIT work and re-verified its calculations. In the three MIT collapse-related articles below, the third link includes calculations from the four previous studies and adjusts their charts to reflect our latest climate change projections and timeframes. In the chart below, you can also see that it is not only Job One For Humanity that is predicting that by about 2030, hell on Earth begins to break loose. Also, from 2050 to 2070, the global collapse and crash of the human population continues but begins to level out. We strongly recommend that you do not skip the three MIT collapse-related articles below.

 

Here are the links to our three articles in our MIT Club of Rome collapse series:

Part 1: Global Collapse: Probabilities, Factors, and Timetables. Was MIT right?

Part 2: Was the Club of Rome & MIT study right about soon-arriving resource shortages and the collapse of humanity?

Part 3: When will global civilization collapse due to accelerating climate change AND the verified Club of Rome/MIT studies' global collapse factors?

 

Conclusion: A Last Window of Choice in a Rapidly Closing Timeline

Humanity is now living in the narrowest sliver of time between the last moment when meaningful preparation is still possible and the first irreversible cascade of global systems failure driven by most of the 13 accelerating forces of the polycrisis. What you have just reviewed is not speculation, exaggeration, or fear-mongering—it is a systems-level diagnosis grounded in physics, ecology, economics, dysfunctional political systems, and human behavior.

Irreversible global heating is no longer a distant concern. It is the already active, amplifying core of an accelerating collapse process now underway. It is the great disruptor that multiplies food and water shortages, destabilizes governments, triggers mass migration, ignites war, unleashes pandemics, accelerates inequality, destroys biodiversity, intensifies resource overshoot, and magnifies every vulnerability in our political and economic systems.

Most importantly, it is also the one global force powerful enough to rapidly push the entire polycrisis into a rapid runaway chain reaction toward widespread global collapse.

This is why every individual, family, community, business, and nation must now take the threat of widespread global collapse with utmost seriousness—not in a spirit of despair, but in a spirit of responsibility, dignity, and determination.

If you have felt a growing unease while reading this page, that unease is appropriate. If you have wondered whether your government truly has the situation under control, your skepticism is warranted. And if you have sensed that the world is accelerating into a more chaotic, unpredictable era, you are not imagining it—the data confirms it.

But there is something far more important to understand:

Collapse is not the same as extinction—and preparation is not the same as surrender.

Individuals and communities that begin emergency preparation, adaptation, resilience-building, and, where necessary, migration will have a far greater chance of surviving and stabilizing their lives as global systems weaken. Many will even find new forms of meaning, cooperation, and purpose as they work together to build what can—and must—come after the Great Global Collapse: a Great Global Rebirth grounded in sustainability, equity, and a wiser relationship with the Earth.

Every action you take today—no matter how small—reduces your future risk.
Every month you delay increases it.

You now have a clear understanding of:

• • Why half of humanity could perish between 2040 and 2070

  • Why global warming is rising far faster than governments admit

  • Why multiple global systems are already destabilizing

  • Why the polycrisis tipping-point window of 2025–2031 will define the rest of this century

  • Why immediate preparation is not optional—it is survival

No one is coming to save us. No government or government agency will be able to protect you as the collapse process accelerates. But we can still save ourselves, our families, and a meaningful portion of humanity—if we act decisively now.

Your next step is simple but profoundly important:

→ Begin your emergency preparations, adaptations, and resilience-building today.
→ Explore the Job One for Humanity Plan B and prioritize what you can do immediately.
→ Protect the people you love and help build pockets of survivability and stability that will anchor the future.

History will not remember those who waited.
It will remember those who prepared, adapted, and helped others do the same.

This is your moment—your final window—to choose survival over denial, courage over fear, and action over paralysis.
The future is still unwritten.

What you do now determines which version of humanity will endure.

 

What you can do to protect yourself, your family, and your business from many of the horrendous and soon-arriving effects of the threat of global collapse and the polycrisis humanity now faces.

The following will expand your understanding of the central threat of accelerating climate change, making many of the other crises of the polycrises even worse at faster and faster rates:

1. To begin your emergency preparations, needed adaptations and resilience-building, or possible migration, click here. As you can see from the above collapse factor illustration, where all of the various collapse factors begin to collapse and intersect, you really don't have much time left to begin these actions and be ready for 2030 through 2040 to 2045.

2. The following link will also help you understand how the accelerating primary and secondary consequences of climate change will amplify, multiply, and interact with humanity's other 12 major global crises, ultimately contributing to this mass extinction.

3. Click here for information on the great global rebirth that is possible if we use the polycrisis wisely and correctly.

4. For our newest and most accurate forecast of the climate change consequences and timeframes, see our members' area here.

5. There is a real and credible probability of a widespread global extinction and collapse process triggered primarily by the primary and secondary consequences of irreversible global heating, interacting with the world's other 12 major crises. (Click here for a detailed definition of what irreversible global warming means to your future.)

6. There is much more climate information on this website on the slow and steady grind of accelerating climate change and how it will feed, fuel, and multiply many of the other global problems we face.

7. To help you understand this critical and dangerous factor in climate change forecasts and for humanity's future, we strongly recommend reading our article on the Climageddon Feedback Loop, which discusses this IPCC problem in great detail.

8. We also recommend reading the following links on the 11 major climate change tipping points, feedback loops, and nonlinear reactions, which provide more detail on many of the threats. This link will explain the four tipping points that will lead to mass human extinction.)

9. Click here for the definition of irreversible global warming and an explanation of how we have reached phase 2 of this horrible situation.

10. Click here for the four extinction-driving climate tipping points. 

11. Click here for an overview of climate-driven processes leading to global collapse and mass to near-total extinction. Here, you will see a cascade of nearly 80 primary and secondary climate change consequences unfolding and interacting with humanity's 12 other current major global crises. After reading this page, you will understand why the extinction of half of humanity by 2050 is already an unavoidable reality and that all that remains now is to fight to prevent our near-total extinction. 

12. Click here to see precisely how the IPCC "cooked the fossil fuel reduction calculations" and grossly skewed the current IPCC global fossil fuel reduction calculations by including unproven, non-existent, and unscalable "carbon-sucking unicorn" technology into their projections. 

13. Click here to review the long-term history of the IPCC underestimating the consequences, timeframes, and the needed global fossil fuel reduction targets by as much as 30-60% or more. This page and its linked pages will help explain why the current 2025 global fossil fuel reductions are so severe, as they aim to compensate for the 60-plus years that society has delayed and failed to implement the gradual reductions in fossil fuel use required.

14. Click here to see the latest 2022 IPCC climate change summary report on the critical climate sensitivity error. 

15. To see 30+ reasons why the relationships, processes, and self-defeating contexts of the world's current climate change reduction processes make it all but impossible for our governments to act in time to prevent the loss of half of humanity by about 2050, click here.) These 30 reasons explain why the transition of human society from fossil fuel dependence to green energy generation has not progressed, even though we could have achieved most green energy goals toward a complete transition decades ago.

16. Directly and indirectly, the obscene greed of the global fossil fuel cartel has been the invisible hand and powerful vested financial interest creating a delusional and grossly incorrect framing of the climate change emergency and of climate change consequences and time frames put out by the IPCC. These actions have significantly made it all but impossible for society and our governments to develop effective solutions to the climate change emergency. Click here to read and see the documentation for why the previous statement is not hyperbole.

The latest focus for the global fossil fuel cartel appears to be co-opting many areas of the climate change movement. The latest COP 30 conference appears to have been derailed by numerous fossil fuel-related issues affecting the policies framing and discussions. Fossil fuel cartel members or their representatives are making their way onto the boards of more and more climate change and environmental education organizations as well.

17. Our forecasts above and our website contain significant, difficult news about our current climate change emergency; please do not think we have given up hope on this challenging task. There are numerous significant benefits to be realized by addressing climate change. When you're done reading this page, be sure to read the following link first, then proceed to the next link. They will help you maintain realistic hope and the balance we all need to overcome the climate challenge together. (Several million people have read the second article.)

(Please note that the Universe Institute has also contributed research for the page below.)