'Existential Threat to Civilization': Planetary Tipping Points Make Climate Bets Too Dangerous, Scientists Warn

This is a deeply important article for us all to read and act upon. It is estimated that 70% of the American population are currently unaware and uninformed about the dire threat of the climate crisis and the urgent need for dramatic changes NOW. Consequently, and because I am a mother and grandmother and have been a lifelong advocate for children and all beings, I post again and again and again the vital need to inform ourselves and to act. There is no time left to squander on the status quo and realism or political candidates who do not make the climate emergency their top priority. There is one, and only one, candidate for the presidency whose plan and allocated funding is equal to the enormity of the crisis and that is Bernie Sanders. No other candidate for the highest office comes close. And that is connected to Bernie Sanders being the only candidate who is NOT a capitalist. The domination culture — which has its roots in patriarchal, neoliberal, predatory capitalism — must be dismantled and a dramatically different system birthed in its place, one which cares for and protects life rather than destroys it. May we all unite to in the struggle to make this happen! Our children are counting on us to stand strongly on the right side of history at this time in our human evolution. — Molly

While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) introduced the idea of tipping points two decades ago, the paper notes,  it was long believed that what climatologists refer to as "large-scale discontinuities" in the planet's natural system were "considered likely only if global warming exceeded 5°C above pre-industrial levels." According to the researchers, however, more recent information and data—including the most recent IPCC summaries—suggest these frightening "tipping points could be exceeded even between 1 and 2 °C of warming"—that means this century, possibly within just decades.

"I don't think people realize how little time we have left," said one co-author of a new paper warning that the systems of the natural world could cascade out of control sooner than was previously thought.

By Jon Queally

Citing an "existential threat to civilization," a group of top climate scientists have put out a new paper warning that the latest evidence related to climate tipping points—when natural systems reach their breaking point and cascading feedback loops accelerate collapse—could mean such dynamics are "more likely than was thought" and could come sooner as well.

In the paper, published as a commentary in the journal Nature on Wednesday, the group of researchers summarize the latest findings related to the threat of tipping points as part of effort to "identify knowledge gaps" and suggest ways to fill them. "We explore the effects of such large-scale changes," the scientists explain, "how quickly they might unfold and whether we still have any control over them." 

While the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) introduced the idea of tipping points two decades ago, the paper notes, it was long believed that what climatologists refer to as "large-scale discontinuities" in the planet's natural system were "considered likely only if global warming exceeded 5°C above pre-industrial levels." According to the researchers, however, more recent information and data—including the most recent IPCC summaries—suggest these frightening "tipping points could be exceeded even between 1 and 2 °C of warming"—that means this century, possibly within just decades.

"I don't think people realize how little time we have left," Owen Gaffney, a global sustainability analyst at the Stockholm Resilience Center at Stockholm University and a co-author of the paper, told National Geographic.  "We'll reach 1.5°C in one or two decades, and with three decades to decarbonize it's clearly an emergency situation."

Gaffney added, "Without emergency action our children are likely to inherit a dangerously destabilized planet."

According to the paper:
If current national pledges to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions are implemented—and that’s a big 'if'—they are likely to result in at least 3°C of global warming. This is despite the goal of the 2015 Paris agreement to limit warming to well below 2°C. Some economists, assuming that climate tipping points are of very low probability (even if they would be catastrophic), have suggested that 3°C warming is optimal from a cost–benefit perspective. However, if tipping points are looking more likely, then the 'optimal policy' recommendation of simple cost–benefit climate-economy models⁴ aligns with those of the recent IPCC report². In other words, warming must be limited to 1.5 °C. This requires an emergency response.

Among the key evidence that tipping points are underway, the paper highlights a litany of global hot spots where runaway warming could unleash—or is already unleashing—dangerous feedback loops. They include: frequent droughts in the Amazon rainforest; Artic sea ice reductions; slowdown in Atlantic Ocean currents; fires and pests in the northern Boreal forest; large scale coral reef die-offs; ice sheet loss in Greenland; permafrost thawing in Eastern Russia; and accelerating melting in both the West and East Antarctic.     

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