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 if something happens to them, all the people who depend on them suffer. Think of Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, which is Google’s corporate parent. They are dominant hubs in fields like cloud computing and software, online advertising and e-commerce. If they go down, they can disrupt your daily routines, or your company’s.
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.
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
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 India
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 flourishes. This was as true in Paris in 1871 as it is now whenever ordinary people begin to manage their...
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 pace of global shifts, uncertainty and unforeseen events that make long-term planning impossible.
Global catastrophic risk assessment
by Henry H. Willis, et al, in RAND….The risk management practices needed to address the sorts of risks covered in this report improve understanding of the risks, prevent the occurrence of the hazard or threat, or reduce the consequences of the event if it occurs.
Mike Davis, California’s ‘prophet of doom’, on activism in a dying world: ‘Despair is useless’
by Lois Beckett in The Guardian…lHis warnings of ecological and social breakdown have proved accurate. But with months to live, Davis is anything but defeated
The forces of chance
by Brian Klaas in aeon…Social scientists cling to simple models of reality – with disastrous results. Instead they must embrace chaos theory
A philanthropic theory of systems transformation for advancing equity in the polycrisis
by Michael Quinn Patton & Ruth Richardson in The Foundation Review…Intervening to mitigate and reverse the effects of the polycrisis challenges change agents, program designers, foundations, and evaluators to move beyond traditional
project-level thinking and autonomous foundation grantmaking to engage in
collaborative, principles-driven systems transformation.
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
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...
Jul
03
2025
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...
Jul
02
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
01
2025
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...
Jun
16
2025
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...
Jun
12
2025
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...
Jun
11
2025
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...
Jun
10
2025
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...
Jun
10
2025
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,...