• AA5B@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Depends on what you mean by tipping point and it’s an important distinction.

    You are right that we are not only stuck with climate change but have zoomed past the target that might have left reasonably adaptable changes. We’re leaving a real challenge for the next generation. But if that’s the result and civilization survives the resulting instability, the climate should recover for our great grandchildren.

    The bigger challenge is “tipping point”. I don’t know if that’s what you meant but there are a series of projected climatic tipping points that will not only make things markedly worse for humans but are permanent (on the scale of human civilization). I don’t believe we’re able to predict any with any accuracy but I recall a prediction that were already greater than 50% of having triggered at least one. These are things like AMOC collapse, melting of Greenland glaciers, melting west Antarctic ice shelf, etc

    We’ve seen in the news repeatedly this summer the Greenland ice sheet melting faster than ever, causing a slowdown of AMOC currents …. So they also build on each other and we don’t yet know whether/when the tipping point is locked in, when there’s no longer any hope of preventing it