Integrated Assessments of Tipping Points - Societal Tipping Points

I came across a recently published paper by Kopp et.al. (2016) which effectively clarifies the multitude of terms used in characterizing tipping points and introduces integrated thinking to link interactions between tipping points and society. For all you human geographers out there, I aim to evaluate and summarize the author's findings and introduce the concept of societal tipping elements which will be explored in future posts.

The authors adopted the definition of climatic tipping point and tipping elements proposed by Lenton et.al. 2008 (mentioned in the last blog post) but identifies a glaring gap in the current discourse of tipping points. The authors identifies that the link between changes in the physical earth system and subsequent socio-economic consequences are either non-existent in scientific research or are often unclear. Socioeconomic tipping points are defined as the critical threshold at which the resilience of social systems (subjected to positive feedback loops) are breached and adaptative options/response exhibit nonlinear and exponential change. System inertia means that considerable change may already be committed but critical thresholds may be realized and passed at a later date. This will either have considerable socioeconomic impacts if certain climate tipping elements are triggered abruptly or may render certain consequences as irrelevant if realized change occur in millennial scale. The authors proposed 4 socioeconomic tipping elements which may be beneficial or detrimental to human wellbeing:

1. Technology - Technological diffusion and exponential growth in adaptive technology
2.  Civil Conflict - Failure to adapt lead to lower resilience and increased risks of civil conflict
3.  Migration - Climate-induced migration and forced displacement
4. Environmental Policy - long-term incremental policy changes interrupted by abrupt change to new policy state/Change in public opinions

The authors also suggested looking back at historically large scale economic tipping points/shocks in order to identify possibly climate-linked causes which may consist of socioeconomic/climatic tipping elements. Possible economic shocks may include banking crises, environmental disasters, sluggish growth rates, international warfare or political restructuring. These historical economic shocks may help date the onset of certain tipping points of tipping elements and may provide valuable information to determine trade-offs or linkages between different tipping elements (eg. Extreme weather/change of state in regional atmospheric circulation may threaten global financial systems or induce migration and ultimately induce international warfare).

Changing population of British Banks -
example of historical socioecnomic tipping point as
suggested by Bentley et.al 2014

All identified socioeconomic tipping elements may cause exponential growth rates in certain societal response when a critical threshold is breached and economic shocks are induced. Kopp et.al. 2016 introduces socioeconomic tipping elements as elements likely to be triggered by the breaching of certain climatic tipping points and suggests convincingly that these non-linear socioeconomic responses will be evidence of the trajectory in which human society might go in the future. While the date of such critical thresholds for these future socioeconomic tipping elements are difficult to determine, or even impossible to define, assessments which integrates climatic tipping elements with socioeconomic tipping elements and economic shocks are needed to adequately assess the costs/risks of climate change and identify possible reasons for action/inaction.

Apocalypse?

Welcome back! Before I discuss the scientific studies on potential tipping points, I wish to discuss the use of the term and the public discourse it created (for all you human geographers out there). In this post, I aim to discuss possible implications/pitfalls  of tipping points in science communication. Arguments across the physical and social sciences have argued against the portrayal of climate change using overly apocalyptic language and questions have been raised to whether it is scientific probable for tipping points to be global in scale and non-climatic. 

'Discourse of catastrophe' (Hulme, 2006)

The often obsession with the idea of potential tipping points and the constant usage of exaggerated rhetoric and language of fear in media is not without controversy. In one of the most public criticism of the current environmental change discourse,  climatologist and former director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Prof. Mike Hulme points out under the current discourse, climate change are often presented as being catastrophic to be worthy of any media and public attention. Claiming that the apocalyptic view of environmental change are merely language of fear rather than the language of science, Hulme argues that it would lead to weakened communication and willingness for behavioural change. Ending on a rather depressing note, Hulme worries that this 'discourse of catastrophe' may lead to inaction and usher society along a negative, reactionary trajectory. While I believe that this portrayal of climate change is not the most effective way to encourage action, I do think that Hulme's claims that the language of catastrophe is not used in science is untrue. Discerning whether the current discourse is one grounded in scientific truth, Risbey (2008) rightly identified that empirical and theoretical science aiming to describe urgency and threat does contain terms and rhetoric which are described as not being the language of science by Hulme. It is also not sensible to disregard genuinely catastrophic consequences as whether or not consequences from critical thresholds are considered catastrophic differs in different locations, to different people and at different times. Impacts of anthropogenic activities on climate change can be therefore be projected and described scientifically as 'alarming' without being automatically equated to 'alarmist'.

Another potential pitfall of constant discussion on abrupt climatic tipping points is the subsequent emphasis on technocratic solutions. The more urgent an issue is presented as being, the more attention is paid on technological and anthropocentric solutions to ensure 'business as usual'. As Crist (2007) identified, instead of changing the means at which the current social organisation operates, the focus on technological fixes may detract importance from other environmental challenges which cannot be tackled via technological means (eg. biodiversity loss/species extinction). This dominant framing of climate change may therefore have led to 'techno-arrogance' and an increasing perception that geoengineering are reasonable and inevitable. There is therefore a need to recognise that non-climatic elements (biosphere integrity, plastics and other planetary boundaries) are fundamentally impacted by anthropogenic activities independently from climate change and would not be tackled under the prevailing discourse of technical solutions (eg. renewable energy, carbon sequestration). 

The Way Forward

I hope this post will highlight the controversy surrounding the issue of tipping points. A semantic debate on the meaning of global tipping points does indeed risk diverting attention away from local/regional policies or mitigation actions. Finally, a shift in language from asserting whether something will happen, which may easily be reduced as alarmist, to when and the time range in which it could happen (Maslin and Austin 2012) would ultimately be a much more effective way to stimulate planning and action to impending thresholds. 

'Little things can make a big difference'

Welcome back to my blog! In this post, I will endeavour to discuss the emergence of 'tipping point' as a concept in mainstream scientific communication and public discourse. 

Emergence of Tipping Points

The basic principle behind climatic tipping points can be attributed to the journalist/sociologist Malcolm Gladwell. In the 2000 book 'The Tipping Point', Gladwell theorized the presence of sudden, dramatic shifts in sociological/behavioural phenomena under the influence of rapidly spreading ideas and messages, popularizing the notion that 'little things can make a big difference'. This was subsequently quoted directly in Lenton et.al. (2008), one of the first comprehensive review of climatic tipping points. The widespread emergence of tipping points in mainstream scientific literature and public discourse on climate change can be traced back to a 2005 American Geophysical Union address by world renowned climate scientist James Hansen in which climate tipping points were defined as irreversible critical points (Russil and Nyssa 2009). Scientific research on global climate change prior to the mainstreaming of tipping points rarely appreciate the full range of outcomes. 'Climate alarmism' were often used to describe the very few assessments which considered events defined as 'low probability' but with extreme consequences (Schneider 2004). Since Hansen's 2005 address, tipping points have since been a major part of climate research and scientific communication. It was included in the latest IPCC report with scientists concluding with medium confidence that a continued rise in temperature will increase the risk of crossing climatic thresholds and thereby triggering abrupt and irreversible changes (IPCC 2014).

Defining Tipping Points

Theories and modelled results previously described as being too uncertain and alarmists are now considered mainstream and scientific. A plethora of different terms with slightly different or overlapping meanings had emerged since in mainstream scientific literature. These terms may include 'dangerous climate change', 'state shift', 'regime shift', 'abrupt change' and 'threshold' and their uses are often rather confusing and chaotic (Lenton 2013). All of which recognize the enormity of anthropogenic influence but may differ in terms of irreversible conditions, hysteresis and abruptness. While I realize that descending into a semantic debate about the definition of tipping points detracts from the urgency of the situation, it is definitely advantageous to identify some key differences between the terms from which I will adopt a general definition which future posts will be based upon. Listed below are definitions of the most used terms with some overlapping elements:

• Tipping Element - policy-relevant, subsystems that can be tipped into qualitatively different states by small, but significant perturbations (Lenton et.al. 2008) 
• Threshold - critical point that once surpassed will trigger some kind of non-linear change

• Regime Shift  - (Ecology) large, long-lasting re-organization of system structure to alternative stable state either through abrupt shock or gradual erosion of system strength by internal feedbacks or external influence (Biggs et.al. 2009). May be abrupt, smooth or discontinuous. (Can occur in social systems as well)

• Hysteresis - Irreversible regime shift across multiple stable states where the ceasing of perturbation does not lead to system returning to its original state (Barnosky et.al. 2012)

• Bifurcation - A change in equilibria possibly resulting in the transition to a new set of stable conditions which will inevitably lead to irreversibility (Barnosky et.al. 2012)

To avoid confusion, I will be referring to 'tipping point' as a term meaning potentially abrupt reversible (non-bifurcation) or irreversible change across social and environmental systems (across ecological, socio-economic, climatic). This definition, though simplistic, allows me to comment on elements with different tipping behaviour, going beyond some who may narrowly define tipping points (Barnosky et.al. 2012; Lenton and Williams 2013).

Tipping the scales!

Hello and welcome to my blog! As part of my undergraduate module in 'Global Environmental Change', I will be blogging weekly about the latest research, important findings and my own opinions on environmental change issues over the course of the next three months. 

I have chosen to blog about possible unexpected outcomes of global environmental change: the thresholds, boundaries and targets within both the physical system and the societal dimension. I aim to explore a wide range of topics from climatic thresholds/tipping points to 'dangerous climate change' and the possible onset of the Anthropocene as a new geologic epoch resulting from anthropogenic impacts. 

Surprises!

Global environmental change is highly complex and is weaved intricately within a series of interconnected systems (ocean, terrestrial, atmosphere). Such complexity means that unexpected 'surprises' are likely to exist with increasing anthropogenic forcing (Schiender, 2004). Epitomized by dramatized movies linking climate change with global catastrophe, these scientifically probable and increasingly likely non-linear responses of the climate system have often made viral rounds on social media and news outlet with exaggerated headlines. As a physical geographer, I actively seek for the truth and scientific evidence within it. However, bombarded with such headlines, while some may rightly regard it as exaggerated truth, some may reject/ignore such theories or worse, outright reject the notion of climate change, finding the consequences unbelievable or unpalatable. It is therefore with this in mind that I wish to address the following in this blog:

1) How did tipping points enter mainstream scientific research and public discourse?
2) Are there examples of scientifically recognized critical thresholds caused by anthropogenic induced climate change? How are thresholds determined?
3) Have the earth system experienced tipping points before in history?
4) How do scientists define the exact time when critical thresholds are surpassed and tipping points occur? Have certain critical thresholds already been surpassed?
5) How did/can the notion of tipping points/thresholds be applied to societal and policy terms?

Source

Any desire for effective mitigation policies and strategies must 1) take into account unexpected consequences leading to tipping points and 2) identify current trajectory and quantify the timing and extent at which a certain threshold was or will be surpassed. This idea was championed by the 'Planetary Boundaries' based upon thresholds and the decreasing resemblance with Holocene-like system states (Steffen et.al. 2015b). The quantification of thresholds and current status of anthropogenic influence allows society to adapt, mitigate and avoid any impending boundaries. As the concept is rather general and over-arching, I will instead focus on specific tipping points on both global and sub-continental scales in this blog.

Source

The Anthropocene - The ultimate threshold

Global environmental change and its associated impacts will be the single most important challenge for generations to come. From global warming and rising sea levels to marine pollution and invasional meltdown, humans have had an immense impact on complex natural systems and processes. Recognising humans as a major geological and morphological force, Crutzen and Stoermer (2000) proposed 'Anthropocene' as a new geological epoch succeeding the Holocene. If formally ratified, the timing and exact beginning of the Anthropocene would clearly mark the single most significant threshold from which the influence of humans would have set Earth on an irreversible trajectory away from natural system behaviour.