As far as sudden mass extinction, I believe we've already reached the tipping point, but the unraveling processes of ecosystems take decades or even centuries.

As far as sudden mass extinction, I believe we've already reached the tipping point, but the unraveling processes of ecosystems take decades or even centuries. Big systems crash slow (even in computers! compare a nanosecond-scale hardware fault with a microsecond-scale SIGSEGV with a millisecond-scale NullPointerException with a seconds- or minutes-scale crash of a large web service; that's literally 9 orders of magnitude difference). Earth systems are starting to crash. Look at recent articles about the Great Barrier reef or the loss of kelp forests off the coast of California. These are just the leading edge of things coming apart, the snapping and cracking of support lines starting to come apart. Other things are coming apart at different timescales. Like the forests in Utah and Arizona that dying from higher elevations down due to warming, or being invaded by invasive species. In the midwest where I am, over just a few decades, farmland and forest turned into subdivisions. Raccoons, possum, deer, turtles, frogs, all disappearing. Lightning bugs disappearing. In California again, Monarchs disappearing. Fire up Google Maps/Earth. Turn off all labels, and just pick a random place on Earth that isn't a desert. Chances are it's farms or turning into farms or suburbs or city. And land use change has accelerated. We've more tractors, backhoes, bulldozers, dumptrucks, roads, and gasoline than ever before. The ability to move dirt, cut down trees, landscape, build--growing exponentially. The Amazon is going, square mile by square mile, never to return. And with it, all the intricate little things alive there. We need meat! We'll either crash or keep going. If we keep going, most life on this planet is threatened. And we aren't slowing down. We are speeding up. Like growing a watermelon in a lightbulb. Our entire society is a tech machine that's eating it all. Bye, rabbits.