MORRISVILLE, VERMONT/OSLO – The consequences of climate tipping points are almost too big to imagine. The thought that, over the course of a few decades, the Amazon rainforest could become a savannah, or coral reefs could become extinct, seems like science fiction. Given how many people have been lulled into a false sense of control over the environment, it is perhaps even harder to grasp that incremental changes in temperature and rainfall irreversibly reorganize planetary-scale systems.