Tipping Points and Regime Shifts: Fact, Fiction, or Fantasy?

A rapid change (“tipping point”) in current (e.g., social, political, or environmental) conditions can propel the current state of a system into a new state (a.k.a. a “regime shift”). Forecasting tipping points and forestalling or accelerating regime shifts have received substantial theoretical attention both because they present interesting mathematical and statistical challenges and because they are of pressing interest to social planners, policy- and decision-makers, environmental managers, and conservation biologists, among many others. But definitions and identification of tipping points and regime shifts presuppose a number of implicit assumptions about “how the world works”. More nuanced descriptions and understanding of the ever-present changes in our socio-cultural-political-technological environment require us to make explicit our unspoken or hidden assumptions about how we think the world works.

 

Aaron studies the disintegration and reassembly of ecosystems following natural and anthropogenic disturbances; thinks about the relationship between the Dao and the intermediate disturbance hypothesis; and reflects on the critical and reactionary stance of Ecology relative to Modernism. On weekends, he works wood.