We are like a person that eats too much. We always knew that we should eat less, but we got away with it for some time and didn't gain that much weight in the beginning. However, now we need new pants and our blood pressure is through the roof. We can no longer deny reality.
So, can we get our shit together, live healthy and lose weight/CO2?
Many obese people can't change, but some do succeed. So there is hope. More and more people in this body of ours realise that we should stop listening to the parts that want to go to the all you can eat fossil buffet every day.
This parallel between individual overeating and global overheating is a central trope for Ian McEwan's novel Solar (2010). The increasingly overweight protagonist is called "the expanding universe" at one point.