evidence: For the set of likely future scenarios we face today, the climate science literature has not identified any approaching global tipping point after which runaway climate change intensifies beyond humanity’s ability to arrest it. While tipping elements of the climate system—like Arctic permafrost thaw and loss of Amazon forest area—do influence total warming, the magnitude of this influence is substantially smaller than the societal factors that will ultimately determine the planet’s climate trajectory. [...] It isn’t. And it’s important to understand that it isn’t. Taken at rational face value, the feeling that the planet is just years away from sliding beyond a catastrophic point of no return invites unproductive fatalism. At the same time, the perception of an imminent climate cliff seemingly rules out long-term planning in favor of emergency measures, skewing discussion of climate policies in ways that can be counterproductive. [...] In fact, they are not irrevocably bad. The consequences of climate change are still within the power of human beings to mitigate, nor will humans ever be powerless to reduce or cushion the impacts of a warmer world through adaptation. The research literature shows that even middle-of-the-road climate mitigation pathways can dramatically reduce the rate and extent of permafrost thaw and limit the long-term loss of ice sheets. Limiting end-of-century warming to 2-3°C will essentially eliminate any risk of significant climate feedbacks from seafloor-frozen methane hydrates. And a combination of budding progress toward decarbonization and more recent climate research has already greatly reduced the likelihood of the worst-case future climate scenarios.