Tipping Points @Exeter

What connects the Arab Spring, the loss of Arctic sea-ice, the onset of depression, and the mass-extinction of species? All of them have been described as ‘tipping points’ – be they on a personal, social, ecological or Earth system scale. The language of a ‘tipping point’ emerged from sociological studies in the 1960s, but since its popularisation by Malcolm Gladwell, it has been liberally applied to a range of phenomena. Currently there is much scientific excitement around the possibility that all manner of tipping points from epileptic seizures to abrupt climate changes share common early warning signals, including increasing variability and slowing down in response to perturbations. Climate scientists and mathematicians at Exeter are busy developing these methods and identifying environmental tipping points. Ecologists are trying to understand the drivers of regime shifts in ecosystems and species extinctions. But the motivation for 'Tipping Points @Exeter' was to see if this provocative metaphor could make a truly cross-disciplinary link to research in social science and the humanities, on behaviour change, mood disorders, changing social norms, conflict and political revolutions. As an institution we are aspiring to provide inter-disciplinary solutions to the problems of today and tomorrow – could ‘Tipping points’ provide a motivating research theme?

The first session of the workshop featured short talks on a variety of environmental tipping points:

• Professor Pete Ashwin (Mathematics and Computer Science) - Introduction to Bridging the Gaps and the workshop
• Professor Tim Lenton (Geography) - Early warnings of tipping
• Dr Sebastian Wieczorek (Mathematics and Computer Science) - Classifying tipping behaviours
• Dr Richard Wood (Met Office Hadley Centre) - Tipping ocean circulation
• Zoë Thomas (Geography) - Detecting tipping points in climate systems
• Dr Anne Le Brocq (Geography) - Tipping ice sheets
• Professor Peter Cox (Mathematics and Computer Science) - Tipping the Amazon
• Dr Ilya Maclean (Biosciences) - Tipping extinctions
• Dr Hywel Williams (Biosciences) - Tipping evolutionary regime shifts

After the break, the focus shifted to personal and social tipping points: 

• Dr Tim Kurz (Psychology) - Moral tipping points in relation to public responses to climate change
• Dr Mark Tarrant (Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry) - Tipping (health) behaviour change
• Professor Chris Dickens (Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry) - Tipping depression
• Professor Anne Barlow (Law) - Tipping points for family regulation?
• Professor Todd Kaplan (Economics) - Tipping points in finance and markets; and tipping revolutions

Following the presentations, participants wrote their ideas on three 'discussion tables' with the following themes:

• Generic ‘early warnings’ across disciplines/systems: could this form the basis of a cross-disciplinary theme/grant proposal?
• Content of ERC Synergy proposal on tackling climate tipping points.
• Assessing impacts of crossing tipping points.

The workshop concluded with feedback from the table facilitators on emerging ideas and a buffet lunch.

For more background on this topic, you can download a British Academy Review on Tackling Tipping Points , in which Professor Tim O’Riordan FBA and Professor Tim Lenton explain the importance of ‘tipping points’ in understanding convulsive change in the world, and offer a manifesto for creating ‘benign’ tipping points to prepare us for future shocks.

We welcome any further thoughts and ideas, both from those who were at the event and those who weren't: please contact Tim Lenton or Helen Butler.

Documents

University of Exeter staff can download the Tipping Points Presentation (Warning: 25.9 MB file) and Tipping Points discussion table notes