Tipping Points

Perhaps two of the most commonly asked questions about Covid-19 hysteria and the formulation and implementation of the disastrous policies across the globe in response to the Chinese virus are: why are we so willing to give up our freedoms, and how the hell did we get here? Excellent questions both. The answers may lie, at least partly, in the arguments of two popular works of non-fiction published over the last two decades. They are Nudge, written by Obama apparatchik Cass Sunstein and his academic offsider Richard Thaler, and The Tipping Point, by the airport bookshop star, Malcolm Gladwell. The former is a work of behavioural economics-for which Thaler received the Nobel Prize in economics in 2017-the latter a work of sociology that launched Gladwell as a writer. I am sure Gladwell wasn't intending to be prophetic or ironic when he said: "Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread like viruses do".

The Communicating Climate Risk toolkit draws together best practice on the effective communication of climate information from across STEM, social sciences, and arts and humanities. It provides users with insights, recommendations, and tools for all forms of climate-related communication and decision-making, and identifies open problems.

The article reviews the origins, precursors, and main proponents of climate change tipping points, and the debates that the tipping point concept has occasioned. The importance of dynamical systems theory, GAIA theory, and abrupt climate change to the main proponents of tipping point warning systems is noted and situated in historical context. The ‘semantic confusion’ that animates contemporary debates,
it is suggested, results not simply from a narrow conception of tipping points, but from inattention to the way metaphor was used to reshape climate policy. A deeper understanding of dynamical systems theory and its origins (both mathematical and metaphorical) is recommended for addressing the value of tipping points in policy.

"Patterns in War Dynamics. WARning 2020". In this study, complexity and network science are applied to the dynamics and development of the (International) System. This study shows that the System periodically becomes critical and produces "systemic wars". The typical dynamics that are revealed in this study are a consequence of laws of physics that apply also to the System. Systemic wars are instrumental in rebalancing the System, and in periodically producing "upgraded" international orders that allow for further growth and development. The patterns that can be observed in the war dynamics of the System, make it possible to predict these dynamics and the System's direction of development.
Data-analysis shows that the System will again become critical around 2020 (+/- two years).
This study shows that intensifying war dynamics pose an existential threat to human kind: Systemic wars will cause increasing damage and suffering and will put our climate system at (additional) risk: Fundamental change is a prerequisite for our survival.
This study was initially published in 2016. The publication "On the Thermodynamics of War and Social Evolution" (2019) provides a scientific explanation for the war dynamics that can be observed.

This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier's archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: http://www.elsevier.com/copyright

This paper explores further what is behind the descriptor of William Carey being the ‘father of modern mission’.  It does so, not to prove, disprove or discredit the title that has been bestowed upon him, but rather to seek to understand his motivation, his passion and his theological reasons for thinking the way he thought and accomplishing the things he set out to do.  It also explores what external factors gave rise to him being credentialed with the mantle of the fatherhood of mission to the world as we know and understand it today.

L'impact des activités humaines sur le climat, la biodiversité et les ressources disponibles est tel que nous sommes en train de changer d’époque. Certains scientifiques parlent d’anthropocène, une nouvelle ère dans l’échelle des temps géologiques. D’autres évoquent de grande probabilités d’effondrement civilisationnel. Mais alors : pourquoi les gens ne changent-ils pas ?

"Society is reliant on infrastructure services, such
as information and communication technology, energy, water,
and food supply, but also on governmental, cultural, and
search and rescue organizations. The goal of project Kritis-
KAT at the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster
Assistance in Germany is the development of generic criteria
for the identification and evaluation of infrastructures regarded
as “critical” for society. Acknowledging that full protection
against all threats and cascading effects is not possible, the
approach focuses on the impacts rather than the prevention
of threats. The development of generic criteria requires the
prioritization of infrastructures and identification of their key
characteristics for civil protection purposes, risk management
activities, and strategic proactive planning. For this purpose,
the development of a national critical infrastructure priority
inventory is based on a thorough examination of the range of
criteria typically used in similar approaches. The specific focus
of this paper is to identify and simplify essential characteristics
of infrastructure criticality. The main outcome of this study is
the development of common criteria generally applicable to a
variety of infrastructures."

This paper explores how a formal strategic planning process will help Intactivism succeed. In particular, it explores what we have learned from experts on social change movements regarding the “tipping point” phenomenon—that moment in time when an idea previously thought to be radical or controversial becomes a mainstream issue, and the movement’s alternative is suddenly accepted by the general public.

Studies on the impact of climate change and sea level rise usually take climate scenarios as their starting point. To support long-termwatermanagement planning in the Netherlands, we carried out a study that started at the opposite end of the effect chain. In the study we refer to three aspects of water management, flood defense, drinking water supply, and protection of the Rotterdam Harbour. We examined whether, and for how long, current water management strategies will continue to be effective under different climate change scenarios. We did this by applying the concept of ‘adaptation tipping points’, and reached it if themagnitude of change is such that the current management strategy can no longer meet its objectives. Beyond the tipping points, an alternative adaptive strategy is needed.
By applying this approach, the following basic questions of decision makers are answered: what are the first issues that we will face as a result of climate change and when can we expect this. The results show, for instance, that climate change and the rise in sea level aremore likely to cause a threat to the freshwater supply in the west of the Netherlands than flooding. Expressing uncertainty in terms of the period that the existing strategy is effective (when will a critical point be reached) was found to be useful for the policy makers.

The Communicating Climate Risk toolkit draws together best practice on the effective communication of climate information from across STEM, social sciences, and arts and humanities. It provides users with insights, recommendations, and tools for all forms of climate-related communication and decision-making, and identifies open problems.

This paper formally defines tipping points as a discontinuity between current and future states of a system and introduces candidate measures of when a system tips based on changes in the probability distribution over future states. We make two categorical distinctions between types of tips relevant in social contexts: The first differentiates between direct tips and contextual tips. A direct tip occurs when a gradual change in the value of a variable leads to a large, i.e. discontinuous, jump in that variable in the future. A contextual tip occurs when a gradual change in the value of one variable leads to a discontinuous jump in some other variable of interest. We argue that while scholars and writers often focus on direct tips, contextual tips are frequently more consequential in that they make direct tips possible, such as when human rights conditions in a state deteriorate creating the potential for an uprising. The second differentiates tips between outcomes that belong to the same class – such as tips from one equilibrium to another – from tips that result in a change in the outcome class, such as tips that occur when an equilibrium system becomes chaotic or complex. Both distinctions matter for theoretical and empirical classifications of tipping points.

The first millennium AD encompasses the Roman period (12 BC to AD 450) and the Early Middle Ages (AD 450 to 1050). In the Netherlands, this millennium saw population growth, steep decline and subsequent revival. In addition, many changes occurred in the physical landscape, marking a transition from a mainly natural prehistorical lowland landscape to an increasingly human-affected landscape. This paper synthesises the main landscape changes and human-landscape interactions in the Netherlands during this dynamic period. The degree of landscape change is compared between the coastal plain, the delta and the Pleistocene sand area. Human activities caused major often unintended geomorphological changes in all studied landscapes. Landscape sensitivity to human impact, however, strongly varied as a function of preceding landscape state. The most prominent changes took place in many parts of the coastal plain, where back-barrier peatlands transformed into open tidal basins. Presence of compaction-prone peat and intensified artificial drainage led to subsidence. This precondition and slow anthropogenic forcing combined, made the area more sensitive to stochastically occurring storms, which could serve as tipping points for large-scale drowning. Eventually, major peatlands turned into tidal areas that for many centuries would remain unsuitable for habitation. Human-induced peatland subsidence also led to the formation of the new Hollandse IJssel and Lek river branches. This marked a major reorganisation of the river network in the lower Rhine-Meuse delta. In the middle and upstream parts of the delta, the landscape was more stable. Yet, settlements on the natural levees show adaption to increasing flooding frequency from the Late Roman period onwards. The settlements shifted towards higher positions, while route networks between them largely remained intact. Smaller-scale landscape changes were found in the Pleistocene sand area. Here, local sand drifting occurred, most frequently occurring close to human movement corridors. Drift sand intensity became larger as population density increased after c.AD 900.

Climate change has created potential major threats to global biodiversity. The multiple components of climate change are projected to affect all pillars of biodiversity, from genes over species to biome level. Of particular concerns are ―tipping points‖ where the exceedance of ecosystem thresholds will possibly lead to irreversible shifts of ecosystems and their functioning. As biodiversity underlies all goods and services provided by ecosystems that are crucial for human survival and wellbeing, this paper presents potential effects of climate change on biodiversity, its plausible impacts on human society as well as the setting in addressing a global crisis. Species affected by climate change may respond in three ways: change, move or die. Local species extinctions or a rapidly affected ecosystem as a whole respectively might move toward its particular ―tipping point‖, thereby probably depriving its services to human society and ending up in a global crisis. Urgent and appropriate a...

Complex systems inspired analysis suggests a hypothesis that financial meltdowns are abrupt critical transitions that occur when the system reaches a tipping point. Theoretical and empirical studies on climatic and ecological dynamical systems have shown that approach to tipping points is preceded by a generic phenomenon called critical slowing down, i.e. an increasingly slow response of the system to perturbations. Therefore, it has been suggested that critical slowing down may be used as an early warning signal of imminent critical transitions. Whether financial markets exhibit critical slowing down prior to meltdowns remains unclear. Here, our analysis reveals that three major US (Dow Jones Index, S&P 500 and NASDAQ) and two European markets (DAX and FTSE) did not exhibit critical slowing down prior to major financial crashes over the last century. However, all markets showed strong trends of rising variability, quantified by time series variance and spectral function at low freq...

The term 'tipping point' has experienced explosive popularity across multiple disciplines over the last decade. But confusion and divergent opinions about what it means remains. Our new paper aims to create the foundation for a discussion about the appropriate use of the term tipping point.

(chapter published in Black, Sandy (ed) (2012) The sustainable fashion handbook, New York: Thames & Hudson)

Fashion is full of paradoxes and certainly one of the most profound is how we try to express individuality using only ready-made objects whose meanings are primarily created outside of ourselves. We assemble an outfit that we want to use to express our modest uniqueness; individual but at the same time not too individual. We try to say something personal through fashion, yet it can never be totally autonomous, just like we cannot have our own personal language, since it has to be somehow shared to work as communication. Fashionable expression is thus stuck in-between the heteronomous process of creation as a communication tool and the autonomous will of the wearer to express something personal.

When the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic started to manifest itself across the globe at an unprecedented pace and magnitude, the various emergency response strategies pursued by highly affected countries in Europe raised many questions about their supposed effectiveness. To contain the outbreak, a rapid and adequate emergency response was vital to control emergent public health risks, but emergency management was challenged by large uncertainty due to many unknowns about crucial determinants of the outbreak, determining the effectiveness of the response, which was often derived from uncertain information. This paper aims to draw lessons from the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and it presents a review of strategies for emergency response pursued in eight European countries, including tipping points that triggered strategy shifts in emergency response. The paper shows that: (i) these countries have a culturally determined preference for policy response style (Mediterranean, continental and liberal style) depending on their relative scores on power distance and uncertainty avoidance, which (ii) is reflected in the initially adopted control paradigm and the associated strategy; (iii) Mediterranean countries (Italy, France, Spain) with high levels of power distance and uncertainty avoidance have a tendency to respond to new unknown situations by deploying strong rule-based regulatory systems which offer mental security and social order, whereas continental (Germany and Austria) and liberal countries (the Netherlands, the UK and Sweden) do this to medium and much lower extents.

Authors: van Ginkel, K., Botzen, W.J.W., Haasnoot, M., Bachner, G., Steininger, K., Hinkel, J., Watkiss, P., Boere, E., Jeuken, A., Sainz de Murieta, E., Bosello, F.

Tipping points have become a key concept in research on climate change, indicating points of abrupt transition in biophysical systems as well as transformative changes in adaptation and mitigation strategies. However, the potential existence of tipping points in socio-economic systems has remained underexplored, whereas they might be highly policy relevant. This paper describes characteristics of climate change induced socio-economic tipping points (SETPs) to guide future research on SETPS to inform climate policy. We review existing literature to create a tipping point typology and to derive the following SETP definition: a climate change induced, abrupt change of a socio-economic system, into a new, fundamentally different state. Through stakeholder consultation,
we identify 22 candidate SETP examples with policy relevance for Europe. Three of these are described in higher detail to identify their tipping point characteristics (stable states, mechanisms and abrupt change): the collapse of winter sports tourism, farmland abandonment and sea-level rise-induced migration. We find that stakeholder perceptions play an important role in describing SETPs. The role of climate drivers is difficult to isolate from other drivers because of complex interplays with socio-economic factors. In some cases, the rate of change rather than the magnitude of change causes a tipping point. The clearest SETPs are found on small system scales. On a national to continental scale, SETPs are less obvious because they are difficult to
separate from their associated economic substitution effects and policy response. Some proposed adaptation measures are so transformative that their implementations can be considered an SETP in terms of ‘response to climate change’. Future research can focus on identification and impact analysis of tipping points using stylizedmodels, on the exceedance of stakeholder-defined critical thresholds in the RCP/SSP space and on the macro-economic impacts of new system states.

In recent years, research on diffusion process in social networks has grown in a variety of fields including computer science, physics, and biology. However, often times research in these individual disciplines becomes stove-piped. In this book, we focus on cutting-edge research in social network diffusion bringing together a range of ideas from these disciplines with the goal of creating a single volume that examines these ideas.

We sought to cover many of the most important concepts, models, and methods from these areas. We felt by exploring a variety of work from different fields that we could help open the door to more innovative findings in this fascinating area of diffusion in social networks.

Preprint currently available - book to be released by Springer in Fall, 2015.

When the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic started to manifest itself across the globe at an unprecedented pace and magnitude, the various emergency response strategies pursued by highly affected countries in Europe raised many questions about their supposed effectiveness. To contain the outbreak, a rapid and adequate emergency response was vital to control emergent public health risks, but emergency management was challenged by large uncertainty due to many unknowns about crucial determinants of the outbreak, determining the effectiveness of the response, which was often derived from uncertain information. This paper aims to draw lessons from the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and it presents a review of strategies for emergency response pursued in eight European countries, including tipping points that triggered strategy shifts in emergency response. The paper shows that: (i) these countries have a culturally determined preference for policy response style (Mediterranean, c...

The Communicating Climate Risk toolkit draws together best practice on the effective communication of climate information from across STEM, social sciences, and arts and humanities. It provides users with insights, recommendations, and tools for all forms of climate-related communication and decision-making, and identifies open problems.

Institutions are norms that undergird organisations and are reflected in laws and practices. Overtime institutions take root and persist, as they are path dependent. This makes them change-resistant. So, it is puzzling when institutions change. One such puzzle, in the Indian context, has been the enactment of the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) in 2005, which brought about institutional change by transforming the ‘information regime’ in India. But why did the government upend the norm of secrecy, which had historically been persisting and entrenched within the Indian state? This book uses archival material, internal government documents, and interviews to understand the why and the how of institutional change. The book demonstrates that the institutional change was a result of an incremental and gradual process of emerging ‘ideas’ resulting in a ‘tipping point’.

Tipping points have become a key concept in research on climate change, indicating points of abrupt transition in biophysical systems as well as transformative changes in adaptation and mitigation strategies. However, the potential existence of tipping points in socio-economic systems has remained underexplored, whereas they might be highly policy relevant. This paper describes characteristics of climate change induced socio-economic tipping points (SETPs) to guide future research on SETPS to inform climate policy. We review existing literature to create a tipping point typology and to derive the following SETP definition: a climate change induced, abrupt change of a socio-economic system, into a new, fundamentally different state. Through stakeholder consultation, we identify 22 candidate SETP examples with policy relevance for Europe. Three of these are described in higher detail to identify their tipping point characteristics (stable states, mechanisms and abrupt change): the col...

In this paper institutions are treated as stabilized sets of expectations, an approach that encourages investigation of how cultural formations, political regimes, global financial arrangements, and other institutions can be both reliable and yet also subject to sudden and sometimes catastrophic transformations. We examine conditions that make political cascades, or tipping, more or less likely. We report findings from computer-assisted agent-based modelling experiments designed to test Timur Kuran’s preference falsification model for explaining the possibility, but rare occurrence of, revolutionary political cascades. Since it run on a computer, our operationalized model of Kuran’s theory is is a necessarily precise and elaborated refinement of the incompletely specified version presented by Kuran.  Our purpose is to go beyond his explanation for why political cascades can occur, albeit rarely, to explore the conditions that make them more or less likely.  Our specific focus is on the impact of the amount of knowledge about the state of the entire system possessed by citizens with stronger or weaker inclinations to publicly express their anti-regime sentiments. The “zone of knowledge” of individuals is an unexamined variable whose importance is unrecognized but implied by Kuran’s analysis.  . We find that with some reasonable but crucial refinements Kuran’s preference falsification theory works to explain the pattern observed in the political world of rare but sweeping cascades of; that the amount of knowledge individuals have about the behavior of the population is crucial to shaping the probability of a cascade; and that variation in the myopia of “early followers” is considerably more important for determining the likelihood and comprehensiveness of sudden political transformations  than the influence of first movers or the contribution of other plausible factors.

¿Puede haber tipping points en la teología? ¿Podemos imaginarnos puntos de inflexión que cambian todo el pensamiento teológico, y que resultan ser irreversibles? ¿Puede haber momentos de crisis teológicas sin retorno, que debemos atravesar para llegar a una comprensión más auténtica y más liberadora del mensaje cristiano para nuestro tiempo?

This study leads the reader to some remote Kashubian villages, located on the shores of Lake Słupino, Poland. The residents of these villages have witnessed uncanny transformations of their once familiar lake in recent years. Through changes in color, odor and matter, Słupino has obtruded itself to call out the problem of pollution. How does the lake express itself? How does it affect the everyday life of the inhabitants? To approach the specific interaction between the lake and the inhabitants (thus non-human and human), the author conducted sensory ethnography and conversed with residents affected by the problem. The categories call, care and Stimmung are used to analyze the gathered empirical material. These categories enable a variety of perspectives on the phenomenon and, thus, let us approximate what can be characterized as posthuman: First, the lake-problem is viewed from the activity of the calling lake, and then the argumentation is built up from the activity of the caring inhabitants. Finally, both perspectives are integrated with the category Stimmung, into which the lake and the inhabitants are immersed. The present study shows that the posthuman is not merely an artificial category but can be found in the research field by an (European) ethnologist, as intersecting with everydayness, memory and activity and, thus, be perceived from an emic perspective.