Global polycrisis: The causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement
by Dr. Michael Lawrence at The Cascade Institute….. In this framework, a global crisis arises when one or more fast-moving trigger events combines with slow-moving stresses to push a global system out of its established equilibrium and into a volatile and harmful state of disequilibrium. We then identify three causal pathways—common stresses, domino effects, and inter-systemic feedbacks—that can connect multiple global systems to produce synchronized crises.
What this climate scientist wants you to know about human nature
by Kate Marvel in Atmos…I don’t know which of these worlds is more likely. Science says that as long as human beings emit greenhouse gases by cutting down trees and burning fossil fuels, the planet will keep getting warmer. Physics says this will mean higher sea levels, heavier rainfall, worse and longer droughts. It says nothing about how we should feel about this. And it says nothing about what we’ll decide to do. The future remains uncertain. But I’m sending my children there, and they are never coming back. I think about it every day. And then, I feel.
The world economy is on the brink of epochal change
by Mark Blythe in The Atlantic…Capitalism’s operating system is due for a major upgrade. How that turns out depends on enormously consequential political choices.
Counter-hegemony and polycrisis I: how to eat and how to think
by Raj Patel in The Journal of Peasant Studies…Through examining twentieth-century counter-hegemonic movements, particularly the Italian mondine and the Black Panther Party, this paper advances a theoretical understanding of how counter-hegemony emerges through experimental renegotiations of world-ecological relations. This analysis demonstrates how movements dialectically integrate material practice with intellectual formation, producing new social relations within the interstices of hegemonic power. The mondine struggles against mosquitos and exploitative labour conditions, like the Panthers’ hidden gardens and breakfast programmes, illustrate a crucial theoretical insight: counter-hegemony operates not merely as critique but as practical experimentation with the very boundaries between social and ecological reproduction.
Experts: Which climate tipping point is the most concerning?
from Carbon Brief…I am particularly worried about tipping points that involve the biosphere and humans due to breaching thresholds for heat or drought that then ripple into food availability, livelihood and ecosystems.
BRICS in 2025
by Tim Sahay and Kate Mackenzie in Phenomenal World…There are now two competing global models of energy and influence: one based on fossil fuels, one on green technologies and a new model of sustainable development. China’s technology is finding new markets around the world because lots of people want it. But there is so far no real wraparound support of finance, trade, and tech transfer—as no new international order of sustainable governance has yet been built. The critical question of the future of BRICS lies with its member countries’ willingness and ability to effect broader collaboration in the fields of technology, trade, and finance. A quarter of the way to the twenty-second century, everything is up for grabs.
The business of betting on catastrophe
by Susan Erikson in MIT Press…
World Bank pandemic bonds paid out only after death tolls passed a threshold. They’re part of a booming market where investors turn calamity into capital.
Global drought hotspots report catalogs severe suffering, economic damage
by United Nations press release…Food, water, energy crises, human tragedies in 2023-2025 detailed in sweeping analysis by U.S. National Drought Mitigation Center
and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification
Droughts worldwide pushing tens of millions towards starvation, says report
by Fiona Harvey in The Guardian…Water shortages hitting crops, energy and health as crisis gathers pace amid climate breakdown
Thinking long-term about infrastructure
by School of International Futures…75 years is a long enough period of time for the world to change in ways that are unanticipated. For this reason, scenarios that take a longer term view should have within them elements that are genuinely discomfiting.
They asked an A.I. chatbot questions. The answers sent them spiraling.
by Kashmir Hill in The New York Times…Generative A.I. chatbots are going down conspiratorial rabbit holes and endorsing wild, mystical belief systems. For some people, conversations with the technology can deeply distort reality.
On r/collapse, people are ‘kept abreast of the latest doom’. Its moderators say it’s not for everyone
by Sam Wolfson in The Guardian…‘This is the idea of catabolic collapse: that what we’re living through is a series of crises … It’s not going to be a sudden event.’ A subreddit tracking apocalyptic news in a calm, logical way comforts users who believe the end times are now
The business of betting on catastrophe
by Susan Erikson in MIT Press…World Bank pandemic bonds paid out only after death tolls passed a threshold. They’re part of a booming market where investors turn calamity into capital.
Can we see our future in China’s cameras?
by Megan K. Stack in The New York Times…It’s not that our government is using the surveillance infrastructure in the same manner as China. It’s that, as far as the technology goes, it could.
Global wheat yields would be ‘10%’ higher without climate change
by Orla Dwyer in Carbon Brief…Climate science has “done a remarkable job of anticipating global impacts on the main grains and we should continue to rely on this science to guide policy decisions”, Lobell, the lead study author, says in a press release.
He adds that there may be “blind spots” on specialised crops, such as coffee, cocoa, oranges and olives, which “don’t have as much modelling” as key commodity crops, noting:
“All these have been seeing supply challenges and price increases. These matter less for food security, but may be more eye-catching for consumers who might not otherwise care about climate change.”
Q&A with Jason Pruet
by Kyle Dickman in Los Alamos National Laboratory…For a variety of reasons, government support for big science has been eroding since then. Now, AI is starting to feel like the next great foundation for scientific progress. Big companies are spending billions on large machines, but the buy-in costs of working at the frontiers of AI are so high that no university has the exascale-class machines needed to run the latest AI models. We’re at a place now where we, meaning the government, can revitalize that pact by investing in the infrastructure to study AI for the public good.
The impunity of the unscathed: Risk, elite security, and the rage of MAGA populism
by Nils Gilman in Small Precautions…MAGA, in its rawest form, embodies the fury of those who feel that the burden of these risks has been disproportionately offloaded onto them, while the beneficiaries of the modern system — the “elites” — remain largely untouched. Consider the climate change debate: for many in the MAGA base, the imposition of green policies is perceived as a direct attack on their livelihoods, a demand by scientific and intellectual elites that they make personal sacrifices for a problem they feel they did not create (and which may not even exist, according to many of them) and which are not a burden for those advocating for the changes.