Synchronous failure: the emerging causal architecture of global crisis

Date

2015

Authors

Homer-Dixon, Thomas
Walker, Brian
Biggs, Reinette
Crepin, Anne-Sophie
Folke, Carl
Lambin, Eric F
Peterson, Garry
Rockstrom, Johan
Scheffer, Marten
Steffen, Will

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Resilience Alliance

Abstract

Recent global crises reveal an emerging pattern of causation that could increasingly characterize the birth and progress of future global crises. A conceptual framework identifies this pattern’s deep causes, intermediate processes, and ultimate outcomes. The framework shows how multiple stresses can interact within a single social-ecological system to cause a shift in that system’s behavior, how simultaneous shifts of this kind in several largely discrete social-ecological systems can interact to cause a far larger intersystemic crisis, and how such a larger crisis can then rapidly propagate across multiple system boundaries to the global scale. Case studies of the 2008-2009 financial-energy and food-energy crises illustrate the framework. Suggestions are offered for future research to explore further the framework’s propositions.

Description

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Citation

Source

Ecology and Society

Type

Journal article

Book Title

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Access Statement

Open Access

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Restricted until