The importance of timescales for the emergence of environmental self-regulation

► We identify competing timescales in a reduced version of the original Daisyworld model. ► It is found that the reduced model retains much of the expected behaviour. ► Homeostasis may only occur beyond a critical ratio of albedo and forcing timescales. ► Closed form expressions are found for damping of shocks, and oscillation onset. ► Spatially embedded Daisyworlds are found to exhibit identical fixed points.