Trees as infrastructure

from Dark Matter Laboratories…An open source model to support municipalities in transitioning toward resilient urban forest management practices

Heat-related mortality in Europe during 2023 and the role of adaptation in protecting health

by Eliso Gallo, et al. in Nature…The year of 2023 was the warmest on record globally and the second warmest in Europe. Here we applied epidemiological models to temperature and mortality records in 823 contiguous regions from 35 countries to estimate sex- and age-specific heat-related mortality in Europe during 2023 and to quantify the mortality burden avoided by societal adaptation to rising temperatures since the year 2000.

A logic for the future: International relations in the age of turbulence

A logic for the future: International relations in the age of turbulence

by Stephen Heintz in the Rockefellerl Brothers Fund…Many of the causes and consequences of present-day turmoil are transnational or even global in nature. These conflicts have no regard for borders and are not responsive to solutions devised and implemented by individual nation-states or the existing ecosystem of multilateral institutions.

A brittle network

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.

The Commune Form: The Transformation of Everyday Life

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...

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 15 2025

Experts: Which climate tipping point is the most concerning?

from Carbon Brief…I am particularly worried about tipping points that involve the biosphere and humans due to breaching thresholds for heat or drought that then...
Jul 14 2025

BRICS in 2025

by Tim Sahay and Kate Mackenzie in Phenomenal World…There are now two competing global models of energy and influence: one based on fossil fuels, one on green...
Jul 11 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 10 2025

Global drought hotspots report catalogs severe suffering, economic damage

by United Nations press release…Food, water, energy crises, human tragedies in 2023-2025 detailed in sweeping analysis by U.S. National Drought Mitigation Center...
Jul 09 2025

Droughts worldwide pushing tens of millions towards starvation, says report

by Fiona Harvey in The Guardian…Water shortages hitting crops, energy and health as crisis gathers pace amid climate breakdown

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...