Think back to the idyllic days of balancing with your best friend on a see-saw. Remember the rush of launching upwards just as they were heading down? That euphoric feeling of near flight as you crossed the tipping point, rising just a few inches off of your seat? Fun with a capital F.
Part of what made see-saws a blast was that you could anticipate that exhilarating, slightly out-of-control moment, and were ready to hang on for dear life, secure in knowing that the upward motion would eventually stop and you'd head back to earth. Now try to imagine balancing on that see-saw blindfolded. Since you aren't able to anticipate your sudden meteoric rise, you might not be hanging on tight enough when you should. The situation gets quite scary, quite fast. And just to push this fast and loose metaphor a little further, let's say that once you suddenly start flying upwards with no hands, you're launched across the playground, with disastrous results.
Well, a new study indicates that the earth is threatened with a similar potentially catastrophic tipping point as a result of human-induced climate change.
According to Alan Hastings, professor in UC-Davis' Department of Environmental Science and Policy, the planet is increasingly at risk of sudden, unpredictable climate shifts, making it difficult to identify tipping points that could cause irreversible destruction. So, as much as we'd like to look to warning signs about impending problems, the study suggests that we may not be able to predict when they will occur. Hastings explains:
Our new study found, unfortunately, that regime shifts with potentially large consequences can happen without warning — systems can 'tip' precipitously. This means that some effects of global climate change on ecosystems can be seen only once the effects are dramatic. By that point returning the system to a desirable state will be difficult, if not impossible.
So much for hanging on to the handle bars. While it's certainly upsetting to think that we could be suddenly caught off-guard by a drastic ecological "regime shift", as Hastings refers to them, I definitely don't think the threat should preclude us from taking precautions to prepare for those shifts. And we should certainly continue to work towards reducing global greenhouse gas emissions in order to lower our risk of reaching such a tipping point. We're no longer on the playground, so it's time we got serious about our actions.
Photo: rptnorris' Flickr photostream/Creative Commons
Photo: nzgabriel's Flickr photostream/Creative Commons
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