Biden and the spectre of polycrisis

Adam Tooze — the Columbia scholar and FT contributor — coined the term polycrisis in late 2022. His idea was that the world is faced with so many crises that there is a genuine risk they could spill into each other and merge. His analogy was to the firestorms that enveloped Hamburg and Dresden during the second world war from the sheer volume of bombs dropped by the allies. It is a horrific vista but I think intentionally effective in shaking us out of our siloed complacencies. The link between climate change and war is well understood — think of Syria and the battle between different ethnic groups for scarce water resources.

Edward Luce

Read full article by Edward Luce in the Financial Times