Well beyond 68 feedback loops and counting...

I have reported many times in this space that self-reinforcing feedback loops, sometimes called tipping points, are numerous. I identified 68 self-reinforcing feedback loops in my Climate Change Summary, each rooted in peer-reviewed literature. I stopped counting on 2 August 2016. Several additional self-reinforcing feedback loops have subsequently been reported. Only one is required to ensure that climate change is irreversible. As I have pointed out frequently in this space, positive feedback loops—otherwise known as tipping points—cannot be reversed, and they are bad news on the climate front. They are called tipping points because they cause systems to tip in the wrong direction.

From CNN on 13 October 2025 comes a story titled The planet has entered a ‘new reality’ as it hits its first climate tipping point, landmark report finds. Here’s the lede: “The planet is grappling with a “new reality” as it reaches the first in a series of catastrophic and potentially irreversible climate tipping points: the widespread death of coral reefs, according to a landmark report produced by 160 scientists across the world.”

The next paragraph provides an overview of what has happened and what is likely to follow: “As humans burn fossil fuels and ratchet up temperatures, it’s already driving more severe heat waves, floods, droughts, and wildfires. But there are even bigger impacts on the horizon. Climate change may also be pushing Earth’s crucial systems — from the Amazon rainforest to polar ice sheets — so far out of balance they collapse, sending catastrophic ripples across the planet.”

One of the “160 scientists across the world,” a co-author of the report, is then quoted: “We are rapidly approaching multiple Earth system tipping points that could transform our world, with devastating consequences for people and nature.”

The next two short paragraphs provide some history: “Warm water corals are the first, according to the report.

Since 2023, the world’s reefs have been enduring the worst mass bleaching event on record as oceans reach record high temperatures, with more than 80% affected. What was an underwater riot of color and life is being replaced with a bleached, seaweed-dominated landscape.”

The story at CNN includes an embedded link to an article in the renowned peer-reviewed journal, Nature. The paper in Nature is titled Coral die-off marks Earth’s first climate ‘tipping point,’ scientists say. Here’s the subtitle: “A surge in global temperatures has caused widespread bleaching and death of warm-water corals around the world.” The peer-reviewed paper in Nature is open-access only for the first seven paragraphs. The third paragraph includes an embedded link to The Global Tipping Points Report 2025. This is the report written by 160 scholars. They represented 23 countries and 87 institutions.

The Global Tipping Points Report 2025 begins with a subsection titled “12 Key Messages.”

The first of these key messages is: “Since the first Global Tipping Points Report in 2023, understanding of tipping point risks has increased. Already at 1.4°C of global warming, warm water coral reefs are crossing their thermal tipping point and experiencing unprecedented dieback, impairing the livelihoods of hundreds of millions who depend on them. Parts of the polar ice sheets may also have crossed tipping points that would eventually commit the world to several metres of irreversible sea-level rise affecting hundreds of millions. Crossing tipping points reduces Earth’s ability to cope with human interference, further amplifying impacts, making it a fundamental human rights issue.”

As you can probably imagine, this first of 12 Key Messages is enough to trigger a long response from me. I’ll try to keep this short. “Already at 1.4°C of global warming.” Really? Governments of the world concluded we had eclipsed the 2 C Rubicon in October 2023. For 160 authors to conclude that Earth’s temperature is 1.4°C above the 1750 baseline is astonishing. There are either 160 misinformed authors or 160 authors attempting to misinform the masses. Either is disappointing.

It gets worse with the second of 12 Key Messages: “Global warming is projected to overshoot 1.5°C within a few years, placing humanity at even greater risk. Climate change and deforestation together put the Amazon rainforest at risk of widespread dieback below 2°C, threatening incalculable damage to biodiversity and impacting over a hundred million who depend on the forest. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation … is also at risk of collapse below 2°C, which would radically undermine global food and water security and plunge northwest Europe into severe winters. Preventing climate tipping points should be a legal imperative.” I agree. Unfortunately, the people creating the legal imperatives do not include me. Apparently, they also do not include the 160 authors of The Global Tipping Points Report 2025.

We have 10 more Key Messages. I will relay only small bits of each of them, and I will limit my responses. Key Message number three begins with: “Every fraction of a degree and every year over 1.5°C matters for preventing climate tipping points.” Wait, what? Only one self-reinforcing feedback loop is required to guarantee that anthropogenic climate change is irreversible. This report already admits we crossed that Rubicon. Furthermore, the designed-to-fail Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admitted climate change is irreversible with its IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate, published 24 September 2019. We already know, and this report from 160 authors agrees, that climate change is irreversible.

Key Message number four includes these two sentences: “The window for preventing some damaging, irreversible tipping points is rapidly closing. … They commit the world to global warming that will likely exceed 2°C before 2100.” Considering Earth is already beyond 2 C, as concluded by governments of the world in October 2023, I’d say it’s very likely that “global warming … will likely exceed 2°C before 2100.”

Key Message number five includes these two sentences: “For warm-water coral reefs, the Amazon rainforest and other ecosystems at risk of tipping, reducing non-climate stressors can help increase their resilience to tipping. … Ultimately, however, global warming will need to be reduced below 1.5°C towards 1°C to prevent the permanent loss of coral reefs.” Say it with me, folks: too little, too late.

Key Message number six includes these opening and closing sentences: “Since 2023, there has been a radical acceleration in the uptake of clean technologies worldwide, notably solar PV power and electric vehicles. … The more people who act, the more they influence others to act.” Whereas I agree with outspoken writer, speaker, and public figure Edward Abbey that “action is the antidote to despair,” I also agree with him that “when the situation is hopeless, there is nothing to worry about.” As I have reported many times, five peer-reviewed papers indicate that civilization is a heat engine, regardless how it is powered. So-called clean technologies provide no answers to our predicament.

This video is already too long to hold the attention of many people. I will stop at the halfway point of Key Messages. A future video will address the final six Key Messages.

Part 2

As I indicated in a previous video, CNN published an article on 13 October 2025 titled The planet has entered a ‘new reality’ as it hits its first climate tipping point, landmark report finds. It led to The Global Tipping Points Report 2025, which was written by 160 authors. This latter report contained 12 Key Messages, 6 of which I covered in the previous video. I will begin this video with points 7 through 12 in Global Tipping Points 2025.

Unfortunately, The Global Tipping Points Report 2025 refers to tipping points as negative or positive. This is very confusing. Most scholars, including me in my previous writing and speaking, refer to tipping points as negative phenomena. They are synonymous with self-reinforcing feedback loops, which are clearly negative for society and our continued existence. In the realm of anthropogenic climate change, positive feedback loops produce a negative outcome. As I have pointed out frequently in this space, positive feedback loops—otherwise known as tipping points—cannot be reversed, and they are bad news on the climate front. They are called tipping points because they cause systems to tip in the wrong direction.

Point seven states, “The most effective policies to trigger positive tipping points in the energy system are generally policy mandates to phase in clean technologies and transition away from fuelled ones. These include bans on the future sale of petrol/diesel cars, diesel trucks and gas boilers in key markets. They can make clean alternatives better and cheaper for everyone, helping eliminate the 75% of greenhouse gas emissions linked to the energy system, and transition away from fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner.” I doubt I need to point out that civilization is a heat engine, according to five peer-reviewed papers by Professor Tim Garrett at the University of Utah.

Point eight states, “All sources of public and private finance can be engaged to reduce the cost of capital for low-carbon technologies and resilient infrastructure, particularly for the benefit of Global South countries. The costs of climate finance must also take into account the long-term economic and health benefits of climate action and the far greater costs of inaction or delay.” Call me cynical, but benefiting Global South countries has rarely been considered by countries intent upon fast-tracking economic growth. In addition, “the long-term economic and health benefits of climate action” remain a low priority for countries intent upon maximizing economic growth.

Point nine indicates that “positive tipping points are already reducing energy prices worldwide, accelerating access to cheap electricity for those that lack it, and benefitting the economies of net fossil fuel importing countries where three-quarters of people live. Engaging communities in rapid transition can help ensure that decarbonization also achieves social developmental goals of combatting hunger, poverty and inequality. Digital public infrastructure can support fairness and shared prosperity by delivering essential financial, healthy, educational, and other social and economic services, particularly in low-and middle income countries.” Again, I have seen little interest from countries in the Global North intent upon providing assistance to countries in the Global South. The prevailing sentiment throughout history has been exploitation of the Global South by wealthy countries in the Global North.

Point 10 addresses policy issues in a stunningly naïve fashion: “Policy changes are needed worldwide to help eliminate the 25% of greenhouse gas emissions linked to food, farming, and deforestation and in so doing, help reverse global biodiversity loss. … These changes ae necessary to liberate land for regenerating nature.” Again, countries in the Global North are intent upon mining the Global South, not maintaining or increasing biodiversity. As the global economy continues its fast track down the already flushed toilet, this situation is likely to worsen. As it does, I suspect the masses will be screaming for increased economic growth, not increased biodiversity.

Point 11 proceeds with stunning naivety: “Nature regeneration can be positively tipped, and social tipping points are already spreading nature positive initiatives, including marine protected areas. Action to protect indigenous rights, support, community-led conservation initiatives, ensure fair and transparent valuing of nature and establish rights of nature, can help trigger further positive tipping points for nature.” It is difficult to disagree with this positive outlook. However, achieving these goals has proven quite challenging throughout history. Reversing the human desire for monetary gain is a great idea. We’ll need important policy changes, rather than Pollyanna statements such as presented in this point.

Point 12 continues the naivety, with a focus on collective actions: “Positive tipping points can cascade between different parts of society and the economy. Catalysing collective action from civil society … is key to helping trigger positive tipping points and giving policymakers a mandate to act. Policy action should target super-leverage points that can trigger cascading positive change across sectors. Only with a combination of decisive policy and civil society action can make the world tip its trajectory from facing existential climate tipping point risks to seizing positive tipping point opportunities.”

This entire document reads like something written in the 1960s. It’s filled with positive actions that would have created a much better world, had they been applied in the 1960s and after. Instead, the combination of too many humans and the human proclivity for the acquisition of material possessions has taken us down the irreversible path of an undesirable future.

Author

"Dr. Guy McPherson is an internationally recognized speaker, award-winning scientist, and the world’s leading authority on abrupt climate change leading to near-term human extinction. He is professor emeritus at the University of Arizona, where he taught and conducted research for twenty years. His published works include 14 books and hundreds of scholarly articles. Dr. McPherson has been featured on TV and radio and in several documentary films. He is a blogger, cultural critic, and co-host of his own radio show “Nature Bats Last.” Dr. McPherson speaks to general audiences across the globe, and to scientists, students, educators, and not-for-profit and business leaders who seek their best available options when confronting Earth’s cataclysmic changes." ^source