Polycrisis in the anthropocene: An invitation to contributions and debates

Polycrisis in the anthropocene: An invitation to contributions and debates

by Michael Lawrence in Cambridge University Press…The popularity of the term polycrisis suggests a growing demand for new thinking
about the world’s intersecting crises, but loose and haphazard uses of the concept impede knowledge
generation. The special issue, “Polycrisis in the Anthropocene,” aims to close the gap.

7 Structural Shifts:

by Indy Johar in Dark Matter… Furthermore, it is also becoming increasingly apparent that as we shift away from our current material economy — a system that has generated abundance for some segments of society and scarcity for others — we are entering an era marked by greater scarcity. This transition could potentially lead us towards a novel concept of abundance. However, this journey is not without its challenges. As we begin to encounter the limitations inherent in our economies, particularly the rise of net-zero-sum scenarios, the risk of conflict and war further escalates.

Has the “Polycrisis” overwhelmed us?

Has the “Polycrisis” overwhelmed us?

by Mark Leonard in Project Syndicate…Today’s global crises are not only competing for policymakers’ finite attention; they are increasingly feeding one another in unpredictable ways. Add the uncertainty around this year’s high-stakes elections in the United States and elsewhere, and you have a recipe for a Davos meeting defined by angst and paralysis.

The 100-Year extinction panic is back, right on schedule

by Tyler Austin Harper in The New York Times…Climate anxiety, of the sort expressed by that student, is driving new fields in psychology, experimental therapies and debates about what a recent New Yorker article called “the morality of having kids in a burning, drowning world.” Our public health infrastructure groans under the weight of a lingering pandemic while we are told to expect worse contagions to come. The near coup at OpenAI, which resulted at least in part from a dispute about whether artificial intelligence could soon threaten humanity with extinction, is only the latest example of our ballooning angst about technology overtaking us.

Friction is growing

by Bill McKibben in Resilience.org…The past decade of global natural catastrophes has been the costliest ever. Warmer temperatures have made storms worse and contributed to droughts that have elevated wildfire risk. Too many new homes were built in areas at risk of fire.

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...
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,...
Jun 10 2025

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...
Jun 10 2025

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...
Jun 10 2025

‘All of his guns will do nothing for him’: lefty preppers are taking a different approach to doomsday

by Aaron Gell in The Guardian…Liberals in the US make up about 15% of the prepping scene and their numbers are growing. Their fears differ from their better-known...
Jun 10 2025

Chartbook 380 Trump’s futurism: Elon’s rockets and fewer dolls for “baby girl” – Part I.

by Adam Tooze in Chartbook 380…They characterize Trump’s politics as “end times fascism”, a politics which rather than constructively seeking to form a liveable...
May 14 2025

From polycrisis to metacrisis: a short introduction

by Rufus Pollock and Rosie Bell in Life Itself.org…Our new white paper on the polycrisis and metacrisis: what they are, how they are distinct, how they are...