ABSTRACT
In analyzing socio-ecological systems or simulating their behavior into the future, biophysical laws that govern aspects of nature can give an “envelope of regularities” in projections or analyses (but complex natural systems also have strong nonlinearities). The broad envelope of regularities can define the “environmental space” within which human societies operate. But contingent events, which may be difficult to impossible to predict, often determine the trajectories of socio-ecological systems within that space and are thus crucially important to how the future will actually unfold. As we continue to create the future, we need to know more about the range of possibilities.
