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.
Reading Octavia Butler in a time of change
by Shady Grove Oliver in AfroLAnews.org…Through her writing, Butler models the concept of having a found family – people one chooses to surround themself with for security and companionship. She demonstrates how small acts of kindness and acceptance can have a ripple effect.
Navigating complexity: Embracing the human pace
by Dark Matter Labs on Medium…Many-to-Many is designed for groups who want to collaborate to solve complex challenges but require new ideas about value, ownership, and power.
Critical responses to global systemic risk in an era of polycrisis
by Ruth Richardson in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Science…As grand challenges intensify and intersect across the globe, policymakers and decision makers at all levels continue to face mounting pressures. Increasing fiscal and financial constraints, cognitive overload, and a persistent lock-in to crisis response modes prevent—or, indeed, derail—the development of long-term policies and actions needed to move toward a safer, more just, and sustainable future.
Big tech and the US digital-military-industrial complex
by Andrea Coveri, et al, in Intereconomics…The link between Big Tech and the military apparatus brings back traditions of economic thought too often forgotten or intentionally removed, such as the twentieth century theories of imperialism and monopoly capital (Hobson, 1902; Baran & Sweezy, 1966). The debate on the military-industrial complex, a concept associated with President Eisenhower’s farewell address in 1961, also regains relevance. However, it seems to have been transformed into a digital-military-industrial complex where the key actor, Big Tech, share the peculiarity of being, at the same time, big market players, controllers of technologies essential to citizens’ lives and indispensable partners of the military apparatus. This makes the integration of state and private capital even closer and more complex than in the past.
More in this tag
Jul
06
2023
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...
Jul
18
2025
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...
Jul
17
2025
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...
Jul
16
2025
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...
Jul
15
2025
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...
Jul
14
2025
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...
Jul
11
2025
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...
Jul
10
2025
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...
Jul
09
2025
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
Jul
08
2025
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...
Jul
07
2025
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...