~ WEBINAR EVENT SERIES CO-SPONSORS ~
The FAN Initiative, Millennium Alliance for Humanity and Biosphere, The Resilience Project & The New School at Commonwealth
Ghastly Discussions & Response
Global polycrisis: The causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement
Multiple global crises—including the pandemic, climate change, and Russia’s war on Ukraine—have recently linked together in ways that are significant in scope, devastating in effect, but poorly understood. Dr. Michael Lawrence, a Fellow at the Cascade Institute Read...
What this climate scientist wants you to know about human nature
On a clear winter day the world starts to spin backward. The sun rises over New York City, sputters at its midday height, and then sets eastward over the Atlantic. The trade winds reverse course; the ocean currents turn retrograde. Rain begins to fall in the Sahara...
The world economy is on the brink of epochal change
The world economy is like a supercomputer that churns through trillions of calculations of prices and quantities, and spits out information on incomes, wealth, profits, and jobs. This is effectively how capitalism works—as a highly efficient information-processing...
Counter-hegemony and polycrisis I: how to eat and how to think
Using Gramscian and Fanonian theories, this paper examines counter-hegemony through two 20th-century movements: Italian mondine (rice weeders) and the Black Panther Party. These movements met crises of social reproduction with collective political action, developed...
Experts: Which climate tipping point is the most concerning?
Last week, hundreds of scientists, policymakers and journalists flocked to the University of Exeter to attend an international conference on “tipping points”. The conference saw experts discussing the dangers of a range of Earth system tipping points, including...
BRICS in 2025
A global technological revolution is under way, with China at the helm. China’s leaders call it the mobilization of “new quality productive forces,” referring to “great changes unseen in a century.” In the increasingly hamstrung West, each headline-grabbing advance is...
The business of betting on catastrophe
The pandemic bonds — a financial device made up by one of the world’s most powerful institutions, the World Bank — can seem like a great idea for raising money to fight pandemics. Money is pooled ahead of time, rather than waiting for governments to pony up monies to...
Global drought hotspots report catalogs severe suffering, economic damage
Fueled by climate change and relentless pressure on land and water resources, some of the most widespread and damaging drought events in recorded history have taken place since 2023, according to a UN-backed report launched today. Prepared by the U.S. National...
Droughts worldwide pushing tens of millions towards starvation, says report
Drought is pushing tens of millions of people to the edge of starvation around the world, in a foretaste of a global crisis that is rapidly deepening with climate breakdown. More than 90 million people in eastern and southern Africa are facing extreme hunger after...
Thinking long-term about infrastructure
Imagining long-term futures is hard, but it is more necessary than ever, as we wrestle with decisions about how best to adapt to the long-term effects of climate change. It is hard because significant change tends to happen on generational timescales, and long term...
They asked an A.I. chatbot questions. The answers sent them spiraling.
Before ChatGPT distorted Eugene Torres’s sense of reality and almost killed him, he said, the artificial intelligence chatbot had been a helpful, timesaving tool. In recent months, tech journalists at The New York Times have received quite a few such messages, sent by...
Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future
Corey J.A. Bradshaw, Paul R. Ehrlich, Andrew Beattie, Gerardo Ceballos, Eileen Crist, Joan Diamond,Rodolfo Dirzo, Anne H. Ehrlich, John Harte, Mary Ellen Harte, Graham Pyke, Peter H. Raven1 William J. Ripple, Frédérik Saltré Christine Turnbull, Mathis Wackernagel and Daniel T. Blumstei
An international group of 17 leading physical and social scientists, including OMEGA Advisory Board member Joan Diamond, have produced a comprehensive yet concise assessment of the state of civilization, warning that the outlook is more dire and dangerous than is generally understood.
The paper has generated over a thousand media articles and interviews which suggests that public interest is extremely high despite competing news– insurrection, inauguration, and pandemic.
This Ghastly study has been covered in media organizations including CNN World, Reuters, The Guardian, International Business Times, Taipei Times, The Irish Times, and the University of California among many others.
See full article published by Frontiers in Conservation Science, 13 Janurary 2021.