Last Updated 5.8.25

Prologue

We do not expect you to believe the disturbing climate change solution challenges after reading the overview and quick summary of the 30+ reasons below. We have also provided expanded documentation in the links at the bottom of this page. 

The 30+ reasons below are not even all of the reasons our governments have totally failed to manage the global warming climate change emergency. When you are done reading this page and its documentation, we recommend that you go to this page, which describes eight huge reasons why the world's public does not understand the real threat and emergency they are facing. These eight reasons are also a major cause of why, even after 60 years of warnings, global warming and climate change have not been resolved.

Overview

"You cannot be called an alarmist if there is something to be alarmed about." Unknown

You are about to read alarming facts about the difficulty of resolving our current climate change and runaway global heating emergency (aka global warming). But, as you read these challenges, remember that there is much we can do to prepare for and adapt to our runaway global heating future. 

Below, you will also discover the challenges, problems, and dilemmas of meeting the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets. If we fail to meet these targets, we will face an all but certain loss of about half of the human population by 2050 and a possible near-total extinction event beginning about 2070 or sooner.  

This article assumes that:

1. You already understand the basics of global warming and how atmospheric greenhouse gases, such as carbon and methane from burning fossil fuels, drive our temperatures higher. (If you do not understand global warming causes or basic processes, please click here for a simple illustration and explanation.) And,

2.) You understand climate change and runaway global heating are getting worse and accelerating. (See this link if you still doubt that climate change and global warming are worsening.) 

This article will also illuminate how the world has entered the beginning stages of runaway global warming and why it will soon cross more climate and global heating extinction-producing tipping points that will be irreversible. Irreversible climate change means we will not be able to get the dangerous levels of excess greenhouse gases (like carbon) out of our atmosphere and back down to a normal and human-safe pre-industrial level 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 and 2031. This is when we enter the carbon 425-450 ppm range.) 

At the end of this document, to help you manage runaway global warming's catastrophic or unavoidable consequences, we have provided a practical and effective plan called the Job One for Humanity Climate and Global Crises Resilience Plan B. 

Introduction

What you are about to read defines many causes of the runaway global warming extinction emergency and key problems we must fix to resolve climate change. Most of you have seen the news about global heating-aggravated weather, like the record-breaking hurricanes, bomb cyclones, and the horrible wildfires in California, the western U.S., and Europe. Many of you have heard about the "worst in centuries" droughts and dust storms, the super cold then warm winters, the superstorms in India, or the rain bombs worldwide where weeks or months of rain falls in a few hours or days. 

Some of you sense something terrible is happening to the stability of our seasons, and this pattern is getting worse. Some of you know that 98% of scientific research done by qualified climate scientists indicates that until we reverse our suicidal fossil fuel burning habits, climate change consequences will continue to increase in frequency, severity, and scale. 

Besides the fact that we have wasted 60 years of warnings from our best scientists, there is a new reality concerning our climate change future. Unfortunately, you will hear discussions only from a few courageous climate scientists, our organization, and several other global warming educational organizations. 

The climate and global warming facts in this document are also suppressed in the major media. (This media gatekeeping protects the media's fossil fuel industry advertising partners and owners.) 

These correct 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets would virtually end the fossil fuel business, which currently accounts for one-third of the world's GDP (gross domestic product). Fossil fuel is also the primary source of government income for many fossil fuel-exporting countries. 

The fossil fuel industry will never willingly allow its 28 trillion dollar-a-year business to collapse to a tiny fraction of its current self without a well-funded life-and-death struggle! If you think that is an exaggeration, think about how hard and long the minuscule, by comparison, the cigarette industry has fought to maintain its death-dealing profits.

Unfortunately, the following article will also clarify why we may not get close to the critically needed 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets before it is too late to save much of humanity. Conversely, the urgent need for us to immediately begin personal climate change emergency preparations, adaptations, and resilience-building before it is too late will also become painfully evident in the scores of climate and runaway global heating resolution challenges described below.

Please do not get discouraged after reading about our enormous climate challenges (below). In the new Job One for Humanity Plan linked at the bottom of this document, you will find that there is still plenty that you (and we) can do to improve things.

A few of the 30+ challenges below will repeat parts of the climate change remedial challenges listed elsewhere on this website.

A little history about climate change, global heating, and the extinction emergency 

The new book Climageddon, published by the Job One for Humanity organization, stated that if we were fortunate, global warming might not become uncontrollable (aka runaway global warming, near-total extinction-level global warming) for as much as the next 30- 50+ years. But that would happen only if we did not mass mobilize and reach the radical 2025 global fossil fuel use reduction targets.

After Climageddon's 2016 publication, we know the required 2025 fossil fuel reductions are not happening. Moreover, we also know that because fossil fuel carbon emissions are going up and not down even faster, there is a very high probability that the necessary fossil fuel reductions may never happen. 

The numerous reasons why hitting the necessary 2025 reduction targets will be so challenging (if not impossible) will be illuminated in the many reasons you are about to read. Unfortunately, time is not on our side! 

We have also provided a link to the surprising benefits we will achieve as we enact needed changes to better manage climate consequences.

Finally, when you finish reading this article and understand the nearly unsolvable climate change problems it highlights, you will know precisely why it is now too late to save about half of humanity before 2050.

What will make climate change and global heating out of our control?

To understand why climate change and global heating may already be out of our meaningful control, it is first necessary to explain:

a. How to measure honest global warming reduction progress,

b. What are the correct fossil fuel targets that we must meet and control to avoid total or near-total extinction within our lifetimes, and

c. How we define "out of our meaningful control." 

Below is a C02 graph showing the amount of carbon in our atmosphere in parts per million (ppm).

The amount of carbon in our atmosphere, measured in parts per million (ppm), is one of the best, if not the single most reliable, predictors of whether future global warming temperatures and consequences will increase or decrease. More carbon in the atmosphere equals higher temperatures and worse climate consequences, and vice versa. 

Look at the steeply increasing angle of carbon in the above C02 graph. This rising graph shows us that we are not currently controlling escalating global warming and climate change, and it is getting worse! (In July 2024, we were at about 425 ppm.)

When we say that climate change and runaway global heating may be out of our meaningful or practical control, we precisely mean that:

1. We should never cross the first critical climate change extinction-producing tipping point at the 425-450 ppm atmospheric carbon level. If we do, we cannot prevent the extinction of half of humanity by mid-century and then near-total extinction by 2070. (This article will show you how incredibly difficult not crossing the first extinction tipping point will be.) 

2. The only way to prevent crossing that first carbon 425 to 450 ppm extinction-accelerating tipping point is to get very close to the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets. Conversely, if we fail to hit the 2025 target, we will quickly trigger the three extinction-accelerating tipping points (described in detail in the expanded reasons below). 

3. We may also be unable to sufficiently reduce our average annual increase in atmospheric carbon parts per million (PPM) each year over the next 30-50 years. (Our average yearly increase is currently at about three carbon ppm.) Why this annual carbon reduction is so critical will be explained below in the expanded reasons.) 

4. Although we may make further minor progress in reducing global fossil fuel use, those possible reductions are grossly inadequate compared to the radical 2025 global fossil fuel use reductions now required to save humanity from extinction. 

5. We currently cannot get our total atmospheric carbon ppm levels back down to anywhere close to our previously safe level of carbon, 270-350 ppm, for sustainable human success. Carbon 270-350 ppm is the long-term human-safe level at which our climate could re-stabilize again, but only after hundreds or thousands of years. 

6. While it may be theoretically still possible to reach the 2025 global fossil fuel reduction targets, to do so, we also have to resolve most, if not all, of the many climate change challenges listed below. And finally,

7. Please remember the horrible time limitation that most, if not all, of these challenges must also be globally resolved by the end of 2025. That also means we must be able to scale up to globally adequate fossil fuel reduction levels by the end of 2025. (After the reasons overview below, the expanded reason linked pages will fully explain why we have until the end of 2025 and, if we are very lucky, until sometime before 2031 (as our atmospheric carbon level reaches toward carbon 450 ppm.)

By the time you finish this article, will you be able to judge whether the climate change emergency is fixable IN TIME to prevent our near-total extinction?

A quick overview and summary of the 30+ reasons why climate change and runaway global heating may be out of our control

(If you want to learn more about any of the scores of reasons listed in the overview, detailed and expanded explanations and documentation for each reason are found further down the page.)

1. The extremely well-financed global fossil fuel cartel and its lobbyists have been using their highly effective climate change disinformation, misinformation, and undue influence campaigns on politicians, national and international government agencies, the global media, and individual citizens for many decades. Most people worldwide now believe the false global fossil fuel cartel reduction targets, their false climate change solutions, and their false climate change reduction progress reports are honest.

Please read this critical article on how the global fossil fuel cartel's global disinformation campaigns and other criminal acts have prevented our governments from effectively reducing global fossil fuel use for 60 years and from subsidizing and expediting humanity's transition to clean, green energy generation and green home and business applications.