Welcome to the Tipping Point

Welcome to the Tipping Point

Monday, 13 April 2015 09:59
By Quincy Saul, Truthout | Op-Ed

"Ah, this dear old planet! All is clear now. We know ourselves; we now know of what we are capable." —Albert Camus, The Fall

It is the worst of times and the best of times; the end of the world and the beginning of the world. The tipping points between creation and extinction, between apocalypse and revelation, are everywhere you look. Like the fabled kingdom of God, the tipping points are inside you and all around you.

It's easy to get lost in the information age, and a vague foreboding sense of doom sprinkled with distractions isn't the best path to peace and justice through the turbulent times ahead. Edward Gibbon, writing about the decline and fall of empire, wrote that, "The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators." So we must learn to navigate. A survey of the tipping points that define our precarious calendars and geographies may help - to understand our world, to understand ourselves and to guide both into better harbors.

As Camus said, all is clear now - we know we are capable of both dreadful and beautiful deeds. We need only to look at the world, and then look into the mirror, and decide if we will fulfill or betray the mission history has put before us; we who live at the tipping points; we who are the tipping points.

All around you: They each have their unique dynamics, but they are all converging. They have distinct and diverse causes and effects, but they all feed into each other. What they have in common is that they are all happening now, and that tomorrow may be too late.

Ocean acidification: If it's difficult to picture the parts-per-million carbon content of the atmosphere, and how it will affect life on earth, instead picture acid being poured into the ocean - about 22 million tons per day. With or without climate change, the accelerating acidification of the oceans is one of the most deadly things happening on the planet, with the most far-reaching consequences. The tipping points come at different times for different species - but at a certain point, organisms can no longer survive. The first big tipping point is the level of acidity at which coral reefs can no longer form, and studies indicate we are hovering at this tipping point today. The death of coral reefs will be quickly followed by the collapse of all the oceanic food chains. The second and even more apocalyptic tipping point will arrive when even plankton - also threatened by warming water - can't survive. Some predict that if business as usual continues, plankton extinction could arrive by the end of the century. Then the lungs of the planet will collapse, and the last words of Eric Garner will speak for the whole human race. ................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/30121-welcome-to-the-tipping-point