One of the major worries about climate tipping points is that it’s impossible for anyone, even the smartest of scientists, to say with any certainty how soon each of them might be reached or what will happen then.
Could one tipping point trigger another?
Yes, probably, but we don’t for sure which ones or exactly how. And we can’t really predict the timing or the magnitude of positive feedbacks and cascading effects, when multiple tipping points might overlap and reinforce and possibly amplify each other.
It’s not the fault of the scientists. They’re doing the best they can with the evidence and the tools they have. But it’s all quite unpredictable because they have never been in this position before. No one ever has.
What capitalist industry and commerce has done just in the last three decades, pumping nearly a *trillion* tons of CO₂ into the air, has no precedent. Never before in Earth’s history has so much carbon dioxide been added to the atmosphere over such a short period of time.
Because human lifespans are short, 30 years may seem like a long time to us — but in geological terms, that’s merely the blink of an eye. On such a scale, it’s literally as if we have detonated a bomb.
Welcome to the nightmare.
Climate scientists know. 
