By Mira Rojanasakul et al, in The New York Times…..“From an objective standpoint, this is a crisis,” said Warigia Bowman, a law professor and water expert at the University of Tulsa. “There will be parts of the U.S. that run out of drinking water.”
What the fossil fuel industry doesn’t want you to know
In TedX with Al Gore……In a blistering talk, Nobel Laureate Al Gore looks at the two main obstacles to climate solutions and gives his view of how we might actually solve the environmental crisis in time. You won’t want to miss his searing indictment of fossil fuel companies for walking back their climate commitments — and his call for a global rethink of the roles of polluting industries in politics and finance.
RISD’s center for complexity developing design manual for maintaining life on earth
by Tim Maly on RISD.org…RISD’s Center for Complexity (CfC) has served as a think tank bringing together transdisciplinary experts and academics with real-world practitioners and policy makers. This summer the group is expanding its nuclear security research to include other threats to the planet and human civilization. Here CfC Senior Lead Tim Maly discusses the insights they have uncovered.
The actual risks of generative AI – extended quotes
by Peter Leyden in The Great Progression….I would say that probably even 10 years from now, if you want to get the most objective and comprehensive advice or information on any subject, you’re going to consult a machine, not a human being.
Canada in the year 2060
by Anne Shibata Casselman in Maclean’s….“Some years we’re going to have to restrict water and essentially ration it. And there’ll be other years when we’ll perhaps be one of the few places in the world that can still produce food reliably.”
Degrowth: The awakening of consciousness before an alternative
by Juan Ignacio Marin in Resilience.org….It is important to emphasize that the ideals of degrowth do not advocate a defense of economic poverty, but rather call for sufficiency. The emphasis on the true meaning of the term consumption — distinguishing it from consumerism — seeks to introduce a change in our way of life that reflects sufficiency, what we truly need.
Climate-changing human activity could lead to 1 billion deaths over the next century, according to new study
by Jeff Renaud in Phys.org…..”If you take the scientific consensus of the 1,000-ton rule seriously, and run the numbers, anthropogenic global warming equates to a billion premature dead bodies over the next century. Obviously, we have to act. And we have to act fast.”
We are witnessing the first stages of civilization’s collapse
by Michael T. Klare in The Nation….Will our own elites perform any better than the rulers of Chaco Canyon, the Mayan heartland, and Viking Greenland?
How Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, and Andreessen—four billionaire techno-oligarchs—are creating an alternate, autocratic reality
by Jonathan Taplin in Vanity Fair…..In an excerpt from his new book, The End of Reality, the author warns about the curses of AI and transhumanism, presenting the moral case against superintelligence.
Yep, it’s bleak, says expert who tested 1970s end-of-the-world prediction
by Gaya Herrington in The Guardian…A controversial MIT study from 1972 forecast the collapse of civilization – and Gaya Herrington is here to deliver the bad news
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
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...
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...