The authors use Boolean and dynamic network models to investigate how the the interactions of climate tipping elements (Greenland Ice Sheet, West Antarctic Ice Sheet, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), El Niño-Southern Oscillation, and Amazon rainforest) could produce domino effects (or tipping cascades) across other tipping elements. They find that tipping points in the Greenland […]
The authors seek to build an analytical framework to help explore climate change’s contribution to Global Catastrophic Risk, including the role of its indirect and systemic impacts.
Assessing Climate Change’s Contribution to Global Catastrophic Risk Read More »
Starting from the premise that society will collapse in the near-term, Jem Bendell argues that rather than debating the inevitability of that collapse we should consider what to do when it happens. He proposes a “deep adaptation agenda” as a framework for community dialogue to face the challenges, including four themes: resilience, relinquishment, restoration, and
Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy (revised 2nd edition) Read More »
Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens confront the possibility of civilizational collapse within our lifetimes, examining scientific evidence of growing systemic crises. They connect abstract scientific findings to everyday experiences, linking the Anthropocene to our daily lives.
How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for our Times Read More »
Mark Swilling proposes that “we need to understand the dynamics of the current global polycrisis as the emergent outcome of intersections between four dimensions of transition: socio-metabolic transition, techno-economic transition, socio-technical transition and long-term global development cycles. When understood as multiple cycles that intersect concurrently and asynchronistically across these four dimensions, the emergent outcome can
The Age of Sustainability: Just Transitions in a Complex World Read More »
The paper proposes that reinforcing feedbacks could push the earth system toward a planetary threshold past which lies an irreversible “Hothouse Earth” scenario that catastrophically disrupts ecosystems, societies, and economies. The authors suggest that a deep transformation based on a fundamental reorientation of human values and operating systems is necessary, as well as resilience-building strategies
Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene Read More »
William E. Rees asserts that humanity is heading to a critical ecological situation that diminishes the prospect of continued civilized existence, and considers why, despite the magnitude of the threat, the world community is not acting sensibly. He further explains how social inequality and the current political agenda obstruct effective action.
Staving Off the Coming Global Collapse Read More »
In this essay, Joseph Masco argues that the word “crisis” has become a counterrevolutionary term in American media and politics, used to stabilize existing conditions rather than address problems of militarism, economy, and the environment. By assessing nuclear and climate dangers, he suggests alternative approaches for creating positive futures without relying on the current discourse
The Crisis in Crisis Read More »
The authors argue that the world constitutes a tightly coupled, global complex system that endogenously generates systemic risks and vulnerabilities as it grows more complex. After discussing complexity, risk, and networks as key elements of their framework, they provide case studies of global systemic risk in trade, finance, infrastructure, climate change, and public health. The
The Emergence of Global Systemic Risk Read More »
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
Critical Transitions in Nature and Society Read More »
