The person who briefed me on the change in prediction of global climatic modeling, pushing the recovery back 75 years, also said this:

"If you are in a flying 747 flying directly at another one, then it appears as a very very tiny spec in the sky, until you get close enough to see it, and then it gets really really big, really really fast, and then you are dead."

He also said this about stable equilibrium: You can roll a glass in a circle on a table, and it can roll in a circle for a long time, but if it falls off the table, it is going to take some effort to get back to equilibrium.

We have little idea what equilibrium is, and we also have less idea about what it will take to get back to it, after leaving it.

See: "The Day After Tomorrow." (2004)