What Will Earth Look Like When These 6 Tipping Points Hit?

There are too many powerful greedy people in the world who could watch this and say "I can live with that."

AS an outdoor person and an organic farmer 80 years old I have seen the loss of many insect, and bird species that we need to pollinate our food...so sad, scary.

The tipping point happened 40 years ago when we didn't make the changes we should have. We love talking about the doom but we never did anything about it.

And here we are, 10 months later, and some climate experts are starting to admit that the climate is changing faster than they had expected. This is because we humans talk and talk, but precious few will do much to really change their lifestyle.

"WE STILL HAVE TIME" , is the phrase of procrastination and feeds into denial. Discovered 140 years ago, to have the alarm bell rung repeatedly over the years as nothing changed enough, always ending with , "WE STILL HAVE TIME," clearly didn't work. No one in a movie theater fire would ever say such a thing.

I remember as a child in the UK how I used to catch salamanders in wild pools. Nobody told me not to! But how many kids today have ever seen salamanders in their natural habitat?

Have you noticed that there are hardly any bugs on the windshield any more when driving down the highway? We have known about the issues of pollution, heat islands et al since the 1970s but humans don't do anything until a situation is critical. In 2015 when I saw the Mendenhall glacier near Juneau, Alaska which had retreated eight kilometres (five miles) my thought was that it was too late; we had already hit the tipping point.

I’m an American living in southern Mexico. I’ve been here 13 years. The rainy season used to start in mid May. Now it starts mid July. We are receiving less that half the rain than previous years. It’s really scary to me. Scariest of all are the climate deniers who really just want to get as rich as they can. They don’t believe the science. They choose not to believe! God help us.

As a scientist/ ecologist this video was an under statement imo. We're already hitting several tipping points and the impacts of plus 5m sea level rise were glossed over with rose coloured glasses. Not stated were the loss of 1000s of other ecosystems such as peat lands, alpine and sub alpine areas, cool temperate rainforests, wetlands, the sub arctic etc. The impact on human populations is also glossed over imo. Societies will increasingly fall into economic collapse and chaos and we can see that starting already in 2022.

I have already made massive changes, I relocated away from the coast, downsized and created a 5 acre native edible food forest for my family and wildlife. I now have apex predators visiting from a wildlife corridor behind my land. I built 2 ft high hugelkultur beds around my house to berm and moderate indoor temps and grow food without irrigation. I compost and do not use pesticides or fertilizers. I switched electric appliances for manual. Every year my heating bill has dropped, in part due to better passive solar use. My old truck gets 33 mpg and I doubt I will change it. I am looking at an ebike, but only drive once a week into town. If a collapse shut off my electricity (community solar), I have a partially underground shed that maintains better temperatures. Takes a lot more than me, though.

I remember being a child in the 1980's Across the street from our house in town was a large empty lot/yard filled with grass, dandelions, flowers, etc. In mid-afternoon one day I walked over to check it out. There were so many bees, butterflies, dragonflys and other insects flying around. I felt like I was a kid on Heaven exploring the world outside. Yet since the mid-90's to today, all these critters disappeared or are so rare to see.

Only thing I have to say about this as a 2000s kid is "Well, we're fucked."

Imagine building a machine in your home. There's a side effect of the mechanics that causes a fire, but otherwise works fine. So you just keep working it while it burns more and more of your home, yet you still have that machine going. We're insane as a people.

Dear PBS Terra, you REALLY need to talk about "overshoot". Climate change isn't the only environmental disaster we are facing. We (the humans) simply can't keep "overshooting" Mother Nature's ability to heal the planet. Dumping toxins in the rivers, cutting down rain forests, sucking all the water out of the ground, overfishing, plastic in the ocean, spraying pesticides on everything, etc. We have got to spot over-exploiting the planet. To put it bluntly, capitalism needs to be scaled back. Even if electric vehicles and solar panels keep us below 1.5c, it won't make any difference if the Earth is a burned out wreck.

I went last year to Hawaii, the Big Island which I have visited four times the last thirty years and all of my favorite snorkeling spots are now 90% devoid of marine life. I saw the destruction gradually happening in each visit. Last time we went was last spring and I'm never going back again. Its heartbreaking. People don't care to wear sunscreen and bug juice that is less damaging to reefs plus they touch the corals which just kills them. Shame on these people that don't give a damn!

You could add what this means for worldwide crop yield. Like, in numbers of people who no longer have something to eat.

As an avid amateur gardener nearing 70, I have seen dramatic changes in the garden. Where I live went from a zone 5 to a zone 6. Some of my annuals, like snapdragons have gone from annuals to perennials. I can now grow plants & shrubs that couldn’t take the winter temps in the past. Nothing will change in the US until we do reach a tipping point (flooding in Houston for example). When someone’s income (fossil fuel industry) is on the line, they will continue to fund anti-climate research & dissemination. Just like the tobacco industry did starting in the 60s. I’m hoping our leaders recognize this eminent threat, but I fear it is already too late. Don’t invest in coastal properties for now, especially in FL. Or lower Manhattan & Long Island for that matter. Phoenix will become unlivable. Potable water problems in the west will continue to worsen.

I was scuba diving in the Maldives and they actually gave us colored filters to put over our goggles to make all the dead, white coral look livelier and more colorful. I could not believe it.

Not only is it too late, it's accelerating at an alarming rate. It's going to be terrifying for the next ten years fighting to get action as disasters become hourly issues. Not daily, hourly. And only when it is entirely too late and everyone can see and experience it, will we finally call for real change. And cry and and cast sullen, sombre and sorry about the inaction. Remember this: when the devastation have been weekly crises, the govts have nearly doubled fossil fuel subsidies. Hard to change when the politicians sold out.

Sky news released a video yesterday talking about record temperatures yesterday. The thing that shocked me, was how many people commented they didn't care but most didn't believe it.