The term polycrisis is not and won’t be uncontested. Nor will its companion term, “resilience,” which we also use. Over time, both terms will be adopted as forms of greenwashing. They will become overused just as “sustainability” became overused.
“If you could win the popular imagination, you change the game”: Why we need new stories on climate
People without much sense of history imagine the world as static. They assume that if the present order is failing, the system is collapsing, and there is no alternative. A historical imagination equips you to understand that change is ceaseless. You only have to look to the past to see such a world, dramatically different half a century ago, stunningly so a century ago.
Davos man must pay
The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, has always been more than a little problematic. But in recent years, the annual gathering of the rich and powerful has become an increasingly wasteful exercise in vanity.
The best way to deal with shocks is by combining diverse responses
Humankind’s best chance to deal with looming turbulences and crises is by diversifying response strategies
The verbs of resilience
The clusters are focused on building regenerative capacity, sensing emerging risks, responding to disruption, and learning and transformation.
So we’re in a polycrisis. Is that even a thing?
A lot of the folks trying to sound profound in the hallways at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week had just the word: “Polycrisis.” That’s what we’re in, apparently.
An even deadlier pandemic could soon be here
A pelican suspected to have died from H5N1 avian influenza on a beach in Peru in December.Credit…Ernesto Benavides/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images
Why are so many Americans dying right now?
According to one tabulation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 300,000 additional Americans have died over the past three years whom we would not have expected to in more normal times. David Wallace-Wells Link to full article in The New...
New accelerator for systemic risk assessment launches, Ruth Richardson named executive director
“This moment of intersecting crises calls each one of us to act courageously and passionately to safeguard our future,” said Ruth Richardson, incoming Executive Director of ASRA.
Omega Resilience Awards seeking fellows in India who are responding to the polycrisis
The Omega Resilience Awards' partner organization in India, StartUp!, is actively screening and interviewing candidates to become the first ORA India Fellows. The Omega Resilience Awards (ORA) provides fellowships, research grants, and media creation to support new...
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...