The Managed Retirement of the Climate Tipping Point Concept from Public Discourse
By
Going South
Summary
This article argues that the scientific concept of "tipping points" in Earth system science was deliberately discredited and retired from public discourse through a coordinated 15-year institutional effort involving scientists who originally defined it. The piece contrasts the original scientific meaning (dangerous climate thresholds) with the now-dominant social metaphor (positive adoption curves), suggesting a managed erasure of what the author considers the most dangerous concept in climate science.
Source
bskyThe Managed Retirement of the Climate Tipping Point Concept from Public Discourseextinctionati.substack.comKey quotes
· 3 pulledThere is a concept in Earth system science so politically dangerous that it required a fifteen-year operation to discredit it.
The concept is the tipping point.
Not the social tipping point — the hopeful metaphor about solar panel adoption curves and schoolyard fashion trends that now dominates the popular usage of the term.
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