Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter, Laver Building (Level 8), North Park Road, Exeter EX4 4QE, UK.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2020 Mar 16;375(1794):20190123. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0123. Epub 2020 Jan 27.
Tipping points exist in social, ecological and climate systems and those systems are increasingly causally intertwined in the Anthropocene. Climate change and biosphere degradation have advanced to the point where we are already triggering damaging environmental tipping points, and to avoid worse ones ahead will require finding and triggering positive tipping points towards sustainability in coupled social, ecological and technological systems. To help with that I outline how tipping points can occur in continuous dynamical systems and in networks, the causal interactions that can occur between tipping events across different types and scales of system-including the conditions required to trigger tipping cascades, the potential for early warning signals of tipping points, and how they could inform deliberate tipping of positive change. In particular, the same methods that can provide early warning of damaging environmental tipping points can be used to detect when a socio-technical or socio-ecological system is most sensitive to being deliberately tipped in a desirable direction. I provide some example targets for such deliberate tipping of positive change. This article is part of the theme issue 'Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions'.
tipping 点存在于社会、生态和气候系统中，在人类世，这些系统之间的因果关系越来越紧密。气候变化和生物圈退化已经发展到我们已经触发破坏性环境 tipping 点的地步，为了避免未来更糟糕的情况，我们需要在耦合的社会、生态和技术系统中找到并触发可持续发展的积极 tipping 点。为了帮助实现这一目标，我概述了 tipping 点如何在连续动力系统和网络中发生，以及不同类型和规模的系统之间的 tipping 事件之间可能发生的因果相互作用，包括触发 tipping 级联所需的条件、 tipping 点的早期预警信号的可能性，以及它们如何为有意推动积极变化提供信息。特别是，为破坏性环境 tipping 点提供早期预警的相同方法可用于检测社会技术或社会生态系统何时对被有意推向理想方向最为敏感。我提供了一些此类积极推动变革的目标示例。本文是主题为“气候变化与生态系统：威胁、机遇与解决方案”的一部分。
