This document discusses planetary boundaries, tipping points, and their implications for global governance and sustainability. It makes three key points:
A) Global decision-making should be grounded in maintaining ecosystem balance and resilience against external perturbations. Adaptive feedback loops allow natural systems to achieve dynamic equilibrium.
B) Systems can pass tipping points if perturbations persist, causing disruption and potentially irreversible consequences. Tipping points exist in all complex systems, regardless of our ability to identify them.
C) Understanding planetary boundaries and tipping points through science is crucial to collective action addressing nine boundaries that threaten Earth systems. An international, system-based approach is needed to achieve sustainable development at this critical junction.
Persuasive and Communication is the art of negotiation.
Intuition of Planetary Boundaries
1. Bangkok, Thailand / Page 1 (2) Edition: June 12, 2022
Intuition of Planetary Boundaries
Tipping Points and Global Governance Implications to the Sustainable
Ecosystems at Today's Critical Junction
Siripong Treetasanatavorn
Sloan Fellow, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Planetary Boundaries and Sustainability Governance Implications:
A. Lead global decision-making complex on the premise of ecosystemic balance:
• Commanding intuition of the planetary boundaries grounds itself on the
premise of ecosystem regime that regulates and adapts equilibrium dynamics
in nature toward stability and resilience on a whole-of-system level, especially
against exacerbating consequence from external perturbation (implications of
ecosystem resilience from self-regulating services¹);
• Adaptive feedback mechanism indeed lies at heart at the fundamentals of
such regulating function in the natural ecosystem, essentially by harnessing
checks and balances with competing and complementary forces inherent to
the governance dynamics, thereby effectively establishing sustainability and
resilience substantive to the ecosystem function as a whole;
B. Embrace science in identification of tipping points in global stewardship dialogs:
• Regime shift from the dynamic equilibrium is however possible especially
once external perturbation persists, and thereby potentially causing systemic
disruption and jeopardizing long-run structural balance, often with irreversible
consequences to the ecosystem governance — without returning pathways;
• Tipping point as characterized above is in fact inherent to the nature of just
about any dynamic systems regardless of one’s capabilities to recognize such
existence, considering in particular complexity and intricacy of the required
structural decision conducive to maintaining the highgrounds of the desirable
equilibrium provided the challenge at hand (see discussion of the Aral Sea in
the aftermath of the water ecosystem collapse², also as shown in the Exhibit);
C. Transcend governance ambition with planetary sciences as key guiding principle:
• Science of planetary boundaries and human capabilities in response on the
aforementioned premises are therefore key and pivotal to the collective action
addressable to at least nine scientifically-established planetary boundaries,
that cause vulnerabilities to the state of the earth systems with irreconcilable
and irreversible consequences, essentially in shared forward-looking ambition
of the international community towards the global sustainable achievement3
.
2. S. Treetasanatavorn. Intuition of Planetary Boundaries
Edition: June 12, 2022 Bangkok, Thailand / Page 2 (2)
Exhibit: Evolution of the Aral-Sea Dynamic System in Demonstration of the Regime
Shift Beyond Tipping Point (Source: Stockholm Resilience Centre 2020)
References (in appearance order):
1. See introductory discussion of the planetary boundaries at the Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences (2011):
https://www.stockholmresilience.org/publications/publications/2011-10-18-the-
anthropocene-from-global-change-to-planetary-stewardship.html
2. See consequential impact at the Aral Sea beyond the tipping point from BBC (2018):
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44159122
3. See discussion of all nine planetary boundaries in broader sustainable development
context at Science (2015): https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1259855; See also final
remarks by the President of Stockholm+50 Conference (2022), particularly in
advocacy of a system approach at today's global climate crossroads:
https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/40110/Key%20Messages%2
0and%20Recommendations%20-%20Formatted.pdf