Climate Foresight 2025

Cairney (2012b, 122) explores the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory as a model demonstrating such phenomena. Issues remain in “stasis” for long periods of time, before a stimulant event instigates a “revolution”. Enough instances of “revolution” promote a “gradualism” of change over time (see Figure 10). Figure 10 - Punctuated Equilibrium Theory as an Example of Virtuous Inflection Points, as discussed in Cairney (2012b) Levin et al. (2012, 134-136) also highlight avenues f or achieving long-term systemic change via virtuous inflection points - being points of precipitous change that disrupt the inertia of the statusquo. Levin et al. (2012) argue that long term systems change requires “Stickiness”, or “lock-in” after which trajectories are difficult to alter; “Entrenchment”, embedding support, which results from changing mindsets, values, and norms (see O’Brien 2018 and Meadows 1999); and“Expansion”, long-term shifts in pract ical, p olitical, and personal factors, which drive inflection points. Climate Foresight: Transforming the Voluntary Carbon Markets, by Roger Spitz & James Balzer 22 © Disruptive Futures Institute, March 2025