Why the world needs its own immune system

by Atul Gawande in The New York Times…A global immune system must be built for speed. Speed in detecting that a pattern of illness might be unusual and dangerous. Speed in diagnosis. Speed in alerting public health officials and tracing the path of exposure. Speed in getting treatment to the sick and preventive measures to the well.

An ancient Chinese text that’s surprisingly relevant today

by Richard Heinberg in Resilience.org….I’ll leave the last words to the Old Master, this time from the Bahm translation:
Whenever someone sets out to remold the world, experience teaches that he is bound to fail.
For Nature is already as good as it can be.
It cannot be improved upon.
He who tries to redesign it, spoils it.
He who tries to redirect it, misleads it.

Visualizing the top global risks in 2024

from the World Economic Forum….From a broader perspective, key structural forces are influencing global risks looking ahead. They include technological acceleration, climate change, shifts in geopolitical power, and a widening demographic divide.

A year in crises

by Tim Sahay in Phenomenal World…https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/a-year-in-crises.

Nate Hagen’s end of year look at 2024

by Eric Lee in Medicum.com….So I’m not going to apologize that the following short reflection is is on the dark side. I’m trying to describe what ’24 may look like. And there’s a lot of things that are converging.

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...
Nov 29 2024

Trees as infrastructure

from Dark Matter Laboratories…An open source model to support municipalities in transitioning toward resilient urban forest management practices

Nov 28 2024

An emerging third option: Reclaiming democracy from dark money & dark tech

by Otto Scharmer in Medium…What does that tell us about democracy? Democracy is under strain globally, with mass misinformation eroding citizens’ ability to...
Nov 27 2024

Heat-related mortality in Europe during 2023 and the role of adaptation in protecting health

by Eliso Gallo, et al. in Nature…The year of 2023 was the warmest on record globally and the second warmest in Europe. Here we applied epidemiological models to...
Nov 26 2024

A logic for the future: International relations in the age of turbulence

by Stephen Heintz in the Rockefellerl Brothers Fund…Many of the causes and consequences of present-day turmoil are transnational or even global in nature. These...
Nov 26 2024

A brittle network

by Steve Lohr in The New York Times…The biggest and most valuable companies also carry the most risk to the economy as a whole. They are linked to more users, so...
Nov 23 2024

He’ll try, but Trump can’t stop the clean energy revolution

by Matt Simon in Grist…The cost of renewables is plummeting, heat pumps are selling like crazy, and red states are raking in cash from the IRA.

Nov 22 2024

I’m finally into ‘prepping’ and ready for the apocalypse

by Eva Wiseman in The Guardian…Piles of loo paper, a years worth of tinned goods and snake-proof boots. No wonder prepping has become a lifestyle choice

Nov 21 2024

Extreme weather cost $2tn globally over past decade, report finds

by Ajit Niranjan in The Guardian…US suffered greatest economic losses, report commissioned by International Chamber of Commerce finds, followed by China and...
Nov 20 2024

The Commune Form: The Transformation of Everyday Life

A leading radical historian looks at the global resurgence of the commune and asks how they can become sites of liberationWhen the state recedes, the commune-form...
Nov 20 2024

Risks on the horizon: Insights for a resilient future

by the Joint Research Centre of European Commission in the EU Policy Lab…In a world where the only constant is change, policymakers are faced with an accelerating...