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.
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Source
Ecology and Society
Type
Journal article
Book Title
Entity type
Access Statement
Open Access
License Rights
DOI
10.5751/ES-07681-200306