Global polycrisis: The causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement

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.

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.

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.

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.

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Jul 06 2023

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On r/collapse, people are ‘kept abreast of the latest doom’. Its moderators say it’s not for everyone

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Global wheat yields would be ‘10%’ higher without climate change

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Q&A with Jason Pruet

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