Topic 3: What are the management implications of tipping points for sustainability?

How does the existence of tipping points influence appropriate approaches to sustainable development? Specifically, what are the values and shortcomings of 'leading indicators' of change in human-environment systems? What are the implications of tipping points in socio-ecological systems for global metrics of sustainability?

This is the paper that I mentioned in response to questions, on changes in relative prices. It divides goods into "environmental" (nonmarket) and market, assumes we would allocate a certain percentage of our income to nonmarket goods (10%), and assumes a particular substitutability between market and nonmarket goods (0.5 - other models are implicitly assuming perfect substitutability). This is enough to produce a much more radical emissions path using the DICE model.

Key paragraph: 

"For example, global agriculture is said to represent 24 percent of global GDP (Stern Review, p. 67). A 1-percent loss of

agricultural output might be estimated to reduce global GDP by .24 percent. Basic logic,

however, tells us that a 50-percent loss of agricultural production would reduce global GDP

by much more than 12 percent, and a 100-percent loss would reduce GDP by more than

24 percent of GDP. The mechanism behind this would be escalating food prices: As food became

more and more scarce, its relative price would rise so fast that the dwindling food supplies

would crowd out everything else and approach 100 percent of total GDP."

Previously William Clark wrote:

How does the existence of tipping points influence appropriate approaches to sustainable development? Specifically, what are the values and shortcomings of 'leading indicators' of change in human-environment systems? What are the implications of tipping points in socio-ecological systems for global metrics of sustainability?