Theory Building Archives - Page 3 of 3

Further Explication of the Mega-Crisis Concept and Feasible Responses

The article analyzes the concept of mega-crisis in comparison with crisis. It defines the mega-crisis as a “set of interacting crises that is severe in impact, complex in nature and global in fallout, with no distinct start and end points.” The authors conclude that stakeholder engagement, design-oriented planning, symbolic communications, and case study research are […]

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The Trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration

The authors update the ‘Great Acceleration’ graphs of socio-economic and Earth System trends from 1750 to 2010, differentiating between wealthy, emerging, and other countries. Earth system indicators continue their long-term rise, with notable acceleration in the mid-20th century driven by human activities. The year 1950 therefore represents the most convincing start date for the Great

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Globally Networked Risks and How to Respond

Dirk Helbing demonstrates that “Systemic failures and extreme events are consequences of the highly interconnected systems and networked risks humans have created. When networks are interdependent this makes them even more vulnerable to abrupt failures.” He surveys key concepts in complexity and network science, draws upon examples of financial meltdowns and crowd disasters, and ultimately

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Anticipating Critical Transitions

The authors define a “tipping point” in terms of “a catastrophic bifurcation, where a minor trigger can invoke a self-propagating shift to a contrasting state.” Such “critical transitions” appear in nature and society but remain difficult to predict. The authors propose that complex systems with feature high connectivity and high homogeneity are particularly vulnerable to

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Critical Transitions in Nature and Society

From shallow lakes that flip from clear to turbid water to major climate shifts, big shifts in social norms to the collapse of societies and ecosystems, Marten Scheffer shows that many complex systems undergo “critical transitions” (or “regime shifts”) between multiple stable states (or “equilibria”). In these transitions, slow and often unseen change in a

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Overcoming Systemic Roadblocks to Sustainability: The Evolutionary Redesign of Worldviews, Institutions, and Technologies

The authors propose that socio-ecological systems feature the co-evolution of ecological systems and self-reinforcing complexes of (human) worldviews, institutions, and technologies (WITs). Contemporary WITs arose in a world of abundant resources and immense potential for growth but are now reaching the biophysical limits of the ecosphere. The authors thus advocate a deliberate shift from and

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Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability in Social-Ecological Systems

The authors argue that “the stability dynamics of all linked systems of humans and nature emerge from three complimentary attributes: resilience, adaptability, and transformability” (p. 1), then distinguish and clarify these core concepts. “Resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the

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