Tipping points occupy a central, rising, profile in the sustainability lexicon. Because of the increasing focus on the effects of climate change and the possibility that they could be irreversible, this rising profile is important to understand. A tipping point is defined as a critical threshold in a dynamic system. Once a system's tipping point is crossed, the properties of that system fundamentally change: It goes from stable (potentially returning to some desired state) to unstable (moving inexorably toward an undesirable state). This blog post lays out the basic mechanics associated with tipping points.