We live whipsawed by “polycrisis.” That’s the word historian Adam Tooze uses to describe multiple, simultaneous systemic crises that intensify as they collide, resulting in dire and deadly disruptions.
Our stuff weighs more than all living things on the planet
Our built environment now weighs more than all the living things, including humans, on the globe.
A new Banksy mural adorns a destroyed building in Ukraine
Anonymous graffiti artist Banksy, who is known for sending political messages, has revealed a new mural on a building destroyed by shelling in Ukraine.
Resilience for compounding & cascading events
There was a time not long ago when disasters would strike one at
a time, and communities would have time to recover and rebuild.
Today, however, there is a new normal regarding disasters, one in
which most do not occur as isolated events and instead seem to pile
on one another, often unleashing new devastation on a community
before it has had a chance to recover from the prior disaster.
Wealth as territory of transition
In the US alone, about $35 trillion to $70 trillion in wealth will transfer from one generation to another in the next twenty years. Most of this wealth will move between family members in the wealthiest 0.1%. Pundits, economists, financial advisors and others are calling this the “largest generation wealth transfer in history.”
Limits and Beyond
Edited by Ugo Bardi & Carlos Alvarez Pereira
In 1972, a book changed the world.
The Club of Rome commissioned a report that shifted how we see what humans are doing to the planet. Looking back five decades later, what happened next, what did we do and not do, what did we learn, and what happens now?
It’s official: ‘Permacrisis’ is 2022’s word of the year
We’ve all been living in a state of permanent crisis, a “permacrisis” if you will, according to lexicographers at the U.K.-based Collins Dictionary who have anointed it the word of the year for 2022.
Ecosocial collapse & the Lithium Triangle in Argentina, Bolivia & Chile
Dr. Maristella Svampa and Enrique Viale joined Tom Kruse from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to discuss what the predominant narrative around the polycrisis–framed by North American and European-based institutions–is missing when it fails to incorporate perspectives from the Global South.
Majority of world’s food producers risk being cooked by climate change
Worsening global heatwaves pose a threat to 70 percent of the world’s agricultural and food production between now and 2045, a recent study by risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft has found.
The past, present, and urgent future of rationing
Managing increasing demand for water, clean air, minerals, energy, and food is rapidly becoming one of our greatest challenges. What strategies are available to us? Are there alternatives to winners and losers? Stan Cox’s work on looks at these pressing topics through the lens of rationing in his recent piece published by the FAN Initiative.
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...
Apr
18
2025
Systemic risk and the polycrisis
by Florian U. Jehn in Existential Crunch…We now know that global systemic risk is the potential for disruption on a global scale, which is then realized because a...
Apr
15
2025
It’s time for a new approach to the current context
by Phil Buchanan in CEP…Just in the past weeks I’ve heard leaders at philanthropic funders say things like ‘we’re trying to be small right now,’ ‘the lawyers are...
Apr
14
2025
Building trust for resilient societies: The global listening project amplifies local voices
by Heidi Larson in Myriad USA…Larson would like the GLP to play a role in a new approach to preparedness and resilience. “I hope that policymakers and programs...
Apr
11
2025
The future is in our roots
from blog by Nnimmo Bassey…When one part of an ecosystem is destroyed, it impacts or destroys all the other parts. This means, nothing exists in isolation of...
Apr
10
2025
The verbs of resilience
by Andrew Zolli…I’ll be referring to resilience in the “property of systems and people” context noted above, to describe the (mostly) beneficial ability to...
Apr
09
2025
Google confirms Gmail upgrade—3 billion users must now decide
by Zak Doffman in Forbes…In the last year we have seen one Gmail/Workspace AI upgrade after another. This won’t stop. And so it will become ever more important...
Apr
09
2025
The last drops of Mexico City
by Rodrigo Cervantes and Jérôme Sessini on longlead.com…Every day, for most of her life, Norma, a 68-year-old woman from the outskirts of Mexico City, has...
Apr
08
2025
A Logic For The Future
from the Long Now Foundation…Stephen Heintz and Kim Stanley Robinson will discuss our polycrisis, and the swift and holistic reform of global governance...
Apr
07
2025
We’ve failed to stop climate change — this is what we need to do next
by Ben Spencer in The Sunday Times…While we can still limit warming by cutting emissions, we now face having to adapt to more extreme weather
Apr
04
2025
For many of us, it doesn’t cost much to improve someone’s life, and we can do much more of it
by Hannah Ritchie in Our World in Data…Most countries spend less than 1% of their national income on foreign aid; even small increases could make a big...