When the world reaches a tipping point, so must we

by David Ojok, CRC Communications

There’s a strange poetry in the phrase “tipping point”. It sounds like balance and motion meeting at the same breath, a moment when the world either bends toward collapse or renewal. The new Global Tipping Points Report reminds us that our planet’s systems are approaching thresholds that can’t simply be “fixed” by returning to what was. It’s unsettling. But for those of us in coral restoration, it’s also familiar.

Because reefs live in the language of tipping points. A single degree of heat can rewrite a coastline. A single cyclone can undo years of patient work, or, sometimes, reveal resilience we didn’t know was there. Every restoration site is its own small experiment in defiance, asking: What if this is the place that tips the story the other way?

At the Coral Restoration Consortium (CRC), we see this work not just as science, but as a rehearsal for a regenerative world. Practitioners, researchers, and local communities are already building the muscle memory of repair, proving that even at the edge of change, there’s room for action. Every coral outplanted, every regional group meeting, every story shared across borders becomes a quiet counterweight to despair.

If the world is tipping, maybe our role is not to hold it still, but to help it land softly, on a foundation built by those who refused to stop caring.

Read the Global Tipping Points Report (2025): https://global-tipping-points.org