"Earth’s warming could trigger sweeping changes in the natural world that would be hard, if not impossible, to reverse."

"Right now, every moment of every day, we humans are reconfiguring Earth’s climate bit by bit. Hotter summers and wetter storms. Higher seas and fiercer wildfires. The steady, upward turn of the dial on a host of threats to our homes, our societies and the environment around us.

We might also be changing the climate in an even bigger way.

For the past two decades, scientists have been raising alarms about great systems in the natural world that warming, caused by carbon emissions, might be pushing toward collapse. These systems are so vast that they can stay somewhat in balance even as temperatures rise. But only to a point.

Once we warm the planet beyond certain levels, this balance might be lost, scientists say. The effects would be sweeping and hard to reverse. Not like the turning of a dial, but the flipping of a switch. One that wouldn’t be easily flipped back."

Raymond Zhong and Mira Rojanasakul report for the New York Times August 11, 2024. [2]