People who follow climate change are often told there is a "tipping point," a single moment after which it will be too late to reverse the damage caused by our excessive use of fossil fuels. Yet experts say this concept is misleading, with one scientist — James Hansen, who played a key early role in raising climate change awareness — describing the phrase as "greatly overused and misused."
Powerful institutions seemingly disagree. The World Economic Forum uses the phrase "tipping point" when describing the various environmental consequences that will ensue once Earth warms more than 1.5º Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The European Space Agency declares that "climate tipping points are elements of the Earth system in which small changes can kick off reinforcing loops that ‘tip’ a system from one stable state into a profoundly different state."
