by Jeffrey Kluger in Time…By century’s end, up to 20% of all Earth’s land could experience abrupt ecosystem transformation, such as forests becoming grasslands, with attendant extinction and collapse of ecosystems. Farming could suffer too.
Using emergence to take social innovations to scale
by Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze on Margaretwheatley.com…Emergence is the fundamental scientific explanation for how local changes can materialize as global systems of influence. As a change theory, it offers methods and practices to accomplish the systems-wide changes that are so needed at this time. As leaders and communities of concerned people, we need to intentionally work with emergence so that our efforts will result in a truly hopeful future.
Big tech’s class war politics
by John Ganz in Unpopularfront.news…I think we are in a crisis of hegemony moment: neoliberalism is dying, but its replacement is yet to be born. And, as in pre and post-hegemonic times, the field of politics is fragmented and incoherent, there’s no hegemonic class or portion of a class that’s able to lead, so everything reverts to “the economic-corporate phase,” when different social interests seek their own short-term benefits rather than coalescing behind a vision of social development.
A ‘doom loop’ of climate change and geopolitical instability is beginning
by Laurie Laybourn in The Conversation…It is a common refrain to say that geopolitics gets in the way of climate action. From the war in Ukraine to trade tensions, each year seems to bring another immediate priority that diverts focus from the imperative to act on climate change.
Collaboration and empathy as evolutionary success stories
by Daniel Christian Wahl in Medium.com…Spreading the story of why we care about life and the health of the whole and sharing the narrative of interbeing is culturally creative meta-design. By sharing the new and ancient story of interbeing we facilitate the emergence of diverse regenerative cultures scale-linked by empathy and cooperation.
Does talking about climate ‘tipping points’ inspire action — or defeat?
by Kate Yoder in Grist…Kopp said that the emphasis on climate tipping points might have made sense as a call to action 20 years ago, when the consequences of climate change weren’t so obvious. But in 2024, the hottest year ever recorded, its effects are apparent, with floods, fires, and heat waves noticeably worse than they used to be.
The great abandonment: what happens to the natural world when people disappear?
by Tess McClure in The Guardian…As populations move and shrink, people are leaving long-occupied places behind. Often they leave everything in place, ready for a return that never comes. In Tyurkmen, Christmas baubles still hang from the curtain rails in empty houses, slowly being wrapped by spiders. In one abandoned home, a porcelain cabinet lay inside a crater of rotted floorboards, plates still stacked above a spare packet of nappies for a visiting grandchild. Occasionally, abandonment happens all at once, when a legal ruling or evacuation sends people scuttling. But mostly, it is haphazard, creeping, unplanned. People just go.
Implications of the polycrisis for resilience in humanitarian action
Cascade Institute presents Thomas Homer-Dixon…Implications of the polycrisis for resilience in humanitarian action. A Forum for European and Central Asia National Society Leaders.
Global emergence of regional heatwave hotspots outpaces climate model simulations
by Kai Kornhuber, et al. in PNAS…Multiple recent record-shattering weather events raise questions about the adequacy of climate models to effectively predict and prepare for unprecedented climate impacts on human life, infrastructure, and ecosystems. Here, we show that extreme heat in several regions globally is increasing significantly and faster in magnitude than what state-of-the-art climate models have predicted under present warming even after accounting for their regional summer background warming.
Multisolving
Creating Systems Change in a Fractured World For most of Elizabeth Sawin’s career, she was not a multisolver. Instead, she worked on a single, albeit immensely important problem: climate change. Despite tremendous effort—long hours of teaching, attending conferences,...
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...
Feb
14
2025
Creative but disorganised: why philanthropy won’t solve the polycrisis
by Barry Knight in Alliance Magazine…‘There are massive problems; climate, conflict, the economy are chief among them. Our international system for dealing...
Feb
13
2025
Strategic foresight toolkit for resilient public policy
from OECD…..A Comprehensive Foresight Methodology to Support Sustainable and Future-Ready Public Policy
Feb
12
2025
Playing with Time: Introducing a foresight practice to build hopeful futures through transformative stewardship
by Cat Tully in School of International Futures (SOIF)…My hope is that I inspire you to join in: to act, connect, support, and become part of a global movement...
Feb
11
2025
Rolling out the doughnut
in Beshara Magazine…We talk to Leonora Grcheva of the Doughnut Economics Action Lab about how Kate Raworth’s innovative economic theory is being translated into...
Feb
10
2025
Philanthropy and digital civil society: Blueprint 2025
by Lucy Bernholz in Blueprint 2025…Philanthropy and Digital Civil Society: Blueprint is an annual industry forecast about the ways we use private resources for...
Feb
10
2025
Futures Lab
in Futures Lab report in Horizon 2045…We look for evidence of the future that’s coming and in some cases is already here.
Feb
07
2025
From risk to resilience: Wildfires and the insurance industry’s climate reckoning
Doug Parsons interviews Dr. Carolyn Kousky in America Adapts the Climate Change Podcast…Carolyn shares insights on how the industry can respond to these...
Feb
06
2025
China’s ageing population: A demographic crisis is unfolding for Xi
by Laura Bicker in BBC…Over the next decade, about 300 million people, who are currently aged 50 to 60, are set to leave the Chinese workforce. This is the...
Feb
05
2025
Anthropocene under dark skies: The compounding effects of nuclear winter and overstepped planetary boundaries
by Florian Jehn in EGU…The analysis of global catastrophic events often occurs in isolation, simplifying their study. In reality, risks cascade and...
Feb
04
2025
Climate models can’t explain what’s happening to Earth
by Zoë Schlanger in The Atlantic…Global warming is moving faster than the best models can keep a handle on.