Research Papers

Impact 2024: How Donald Trump’s Reelection Could Amplify Global Inter-systemic Risk

October 4, 2024
Thomas Homer-Dixon, Michael Lawrence, Megan Shipman, Luke Kemp

The report precisely assesses how a second Trump administration could supercharge global economic, geopolitical, environmental, and pandemic risks and how those risks could then combine to escalate the world’s already severe polycrisis.

Earth knots

Global polycrisis: The causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement

June 18, 2023
Michael Lawrence, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Scott Janzwood, Johan Rockström, Ortwin Renn, and Jonathan F. Donges

Multiple global crises have recently linked together in ways that are significant in scope, devastating in effect, but poorly understood.

The Roubini Cascade: Are we heading for a Greater Depression?

December 4, 2020
Michael Lawrence and Thomas Homer-Dixon

This research involves a system map of Nouriel Roubini’s argument that the world is heading into a Greater Depression.

Synchronous Failure: The Emerging Causal Architecture of Global Crisis

August 28, 2015
Thomas Homer-Dixon, Brian Walker, Reinette Biggs, Anne-Sophie Crépin, Carl Folke, Eric F. Lambin, Garry D. Peterson, Johan Rockström, Marten Scheffer, Will Steffen, Max Troell

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 Conceptual Structure of Social Disputes: Cognitive-Affective Maps as a Tool for Conflict Analysis and Resolution

August 6, 2014
Thomas Homer-Dixon, Manjana Milkoreit, Steven Mock, Tobias Schröder, and Paul Thagard

Thomas Homer-Dixon et al. | We describe and illustrate a new method of graphically diagramming disputants’ points of view called cognitive-affective mapping (CAM).

Consider the Global Impacts of Oil Pipelines

August 6, 2014
Wendy J. Palen, Thomas D. Sisk, Maureen E. Ryan, Joseph L. Árvai, Mark Jaccard, Anne K. Salomon, Thomas Homer-Dixon and Ken P. Lertzman

Wendy Palen, Thomas Homer-Dixon, et al. | As scientists spanning diverse disciplines, we urge North American leaders to take a step back: no new oil-sands projects should move forward unless developments are consistent with national and international commitments to reducing carbon pollution.

A Complex Systems Approach to the Study of Ideology: Cognitive-affective Structures and the Dynamics of Belief Change

August 27, 2013
Thomas Homer-Dixon, Jonathan Leader Maynard, Matto Mildenberger, Manjana Milkoreit, Steven J. Mock, Stephen Quilley, Tobias Schröder, and Paul Thagarde

Thomas Homer-Dixon et al. | We propose a complex systems approach to the study of political belief systems, to overcome some of the fragmentation in the current scholarship on ideology.

Detecting and Coping with Disruptive Shocks in Arctic Marine Systems: A Resilience Approach to Place and People

January 22, 2012
Eddy Carmack, Thomas Homer-Dixon, et al

It seems inevitable that the ongoing and rapid changes in the physical environment of the marine Arctic will push components of the region’s existing social-ecological systems—small and large—beyond tipping points and into new regimes.

Tipping Toward Sustainability: Emerging Pathways of Transformation

October 6, 2011
Frances Westley, Thomas Homer-Dixon, et al

This article explores the links between agency, institutions, and innovation in navigating shifts and largescale transformations toward global sustainability. Our central question is whether social and technical innovations can reverse the trends that are challenging critical thresholds and creating tipping points in the earth system, and if not, what conditions are necessary to escape the current lock-in.

Complexity Science

January 28, 2011

Complexity science isn’t a fad. I will offer a brief survey of some core concepts and ideas, and I will make a strong case that . . . they can help us develop new strategies for generating solutions and prospering in this world.

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