No climate tipping point---still lots of time

It isn’t. And it’s important to understand that it isn’t. Taken at rational face value, the feeling that the planet is just years away from sliding beyond  invites . At the same time, the perception of an imminent climate cliff seemingly rules out long-term planning in favor of emergency measures, skewing discussion of climate policies in ways that .

Looking ahead, the key message that the scientific community and climate advocates should reinforce is that  over . There is no tipping point beyond which Mother Earth wrestles control of the whole climate system away from human beings and proceeds to punish us for our sins.

Although the lack of an impending climate cliff may seem to dilute the impetus for climate action, the knowledge that humanity has a  actually imparts great responsibility upon us. It’s up to us not only to realize a more positive future for humans and nature but also to define the conditions in which we will have to build that vision.

In many ways, the term “tipping point” in climate science was predisposed to be misunderstood. Both components of the term invite confusion.

First, the word “tipping” implies the rapidity of an unbalanced cart toppling over. Yet in practice, many climate science papers and reports suggest that rapid changes of state for tipping elements—say, systematic shifts that take just 20 years or less—are , not the rule. Components of the climate system are sluggish on human time scales, and thus many Earth system components change over the course of decades, if not centuries or millennia. For example, future carbon release from and sea-level rise from will take place over several hundred years.

To an earth scientist thinking , that does seem like a very rapid transition relative to the glacial pace at which the Earth system typically changed prior to the industrial revolution. To a layperson who thinks about a stacked pile of blocks or the leaning tower of Pisa tipping over, however, rapid means something different. This discrepancy in perspectives leads to differing expectations for how climate tipping elements behave and how quickly or slowly their impacts unfold.