Anticipation-induced social tipping: can the environment be stabilised by social dynamics?

Abstract In the past decades, human activities caused global Earth system changes, e.g., climate change or biodiversity loss. Simultaneously, these associated impacts have increased environmental awareness within societies across globe, thereby leading to dynamical feedbacks between social and natural system. Contemporary modelling attempts of dynamics rarely incorporate such co-evolutions interactions are mostly studied unidirectionally through direct remembered impacts. Acknowledging that additional capability for foresight, this work proposes a conceptual feedback model socio-ecological co-evolution with specific construct anticipation acting as mediator Our reproduces results from previous sociological threshold models bistability if one assumes static environment. Once environment changes in response societal behaviour, instead converges towards globally stable, but not necessarily desired, attractor. Ultimately, we show future ecological states then leads metastability where desired can persist long time. We demonstrate foresight form an important mechanism which, once its time horizon becomes large enough, fosters tipping behaviour stabilise prevents potential collapse.