Karina Benessaiah

TL;DR: It is proposed that focusing only on instrumental or intrinsic values may fail to resonate with views on personal and collective well-being, or “what is right,” with regard to nature and the environment, and it is time to engage seriously with a third class of values, one with diverse roots and current expressions: relational values.

TL;DR: The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment paradoxically found that human well-being has increased despite large global declines in most ecosystem services as discussed by the authors, and the authors assess four explanations of these divergent trends: (1) We have measured wellbeing incorrectly; (2) wellbeing is dependent on food services, which are increasing, and not on other services that are declining.

TL;DR: The authors argue that the focus on direct use and economic quantification is often limiting and can detract from environmental research and effective management, in part by crowding out other understandings of human-environment relationships.

TL;DR: The term tipping point has experienced explosive popularity across multiple disciplines over the last decade as mentioned in this paper, and there has been a discussion within the SES research community about the appropriate use of the term tipping points, especially the relatively novel term "social tipping point."