Lean back on a chair to the balance point, and you will appreciate that sometimes a small change makes a big difference to a system. A tiny nudge one way or another can determine whether you end up back upright or in a very different state – sprawled on your back on the floor. At such a tipping point, once change gets under way, it is self-propelling – thanks to strong amplification within the system (you and the chair). This makes change abrupt and hard to reverse.

I have spent over two decades researching dangerous tipping points of self-propelling change in the Earth system. These are among ...

 

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