>The rapidly developing science of tipping points is refining what is considered safe, with increasing evidence that above 1°C lurk potentially rapid and irreversible changes to the Earth system that could have catastrophic consequences. Given that we are about to breach 1.5°C of warming, the only way we would be able to reduce some tipping point risks would be to reduce the amount of warming itself. The good news is that if we rapidly phased out the burning of fossil fuels at the same time as decarbonising our food systems, then the natural biogeochemical cycling processes of the Earth would remove all the extra carbon we have put into the atmosphere, and temperatures would fall. The bad news is that will take about 100,000 years.
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>The rapidly developing science of tipping points is refining what is considered safe, with increasing evidence that above 1°C lurk potentially rapid and irreversible changes to the Earth system that could have catastrophic consequences. Given that we are about to breach 1.5°C of warming, the only way we would be able to reduce some tipping point risks would be to reduce the amount of warming itself. The good news is that if we rapidly phased out the burning of fossil fuels at the same time as decarbonising our food systems, then the natural biogeochemical cycling processes of the Earth would remove all the extra carbon we have put into the atmosphere, and temperatures would fall. The bad news is that will take about 100,000 years.