Seeing through Complexity
WHAT’S NEW
Coronavirus will change the world. It might also lead to a better future
What’s happening in response to the worldwide spread of the SARS CoV-2 virus (and COVID-19, the disease it causes) is a vivid example of a global 'tipping event,' in which multiple social systems flip simultaneously to a distinctly new state.
RESEARCH
I’m the Founder and Director of The Cascade Institute, a Canadian research centre addressing the full range of humanity’s converging environmental, economic, political, technological, and health crises. Using advanced methods for mapping and modeling complex global systems, Institute researchers identify and help implement high-leverage interventions that could rapidly shift humanity’s course towards fair and sustainable prosperity.
A Complex Systems Approach to the Study of Ideology: Cognitive-affective Structures and the Dynamics of Belief Change
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
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.