by Adam Tooze in Chartbook 325…The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying but the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.
Yuval Noah Harari on the eclipsing of human intelligence
Sean Illing of The Gray Area interviews Yuval Noah Harari…If the internet age has anything like an ideology, it’s that more information and more data and more openness will create a better world. The reality is more complicated. It has never been easier to know more about The world than it is right now, and it has never been easier to share that knowledge than it is right now. But I don’t think you can look at the state of things and conclude that this has been a victory for truth and wisdom. What are we to make of that? More information might not be the solution, but neither is more ignorance.
How rising global heat connects catastrophic floods on four continents
by Scott Dance in The Washington Post…At this time of year, that flood potential amped up by global warming can become especially evident.
Scaling: The state of play in AI
by Ethan Mollick in One Useful Thing…With continued advancements in model architecture and training techniques, we’re approaching a new frontier in AI capabilities. The independent AI agents that tech companies have long promised are likely just around the corner. These systems will be able to handle complex tasks with minimal human oversight, with wide-ranging implications. As the pace of AI development seems more certain to accelerate, we need to prepare for both the opportunities and challenges ahead.
Facing global risks with honest hope
From (ASRA) Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment report Facing global risks with honest hope….Transforming Multidimensional
Challenges into Multidimensional
Possibilities
Superbugs ‘could kill 39m people by 2050’ amid rising drug resistance
by Kat Lay in The Guardian…Child deaths from infections see ‘remarkable’ decline but AMR fatalities of over-70s likely to rise by 146%, study finds
Analysis: Drug-resistant infections are on the rise – so why aren’t we getting any new antibiotics?
Global trends are polarizing us: Can democracy handle it?
by Richard Heinberg in resilience.org….Today the world faces historically unique stresses that are likely to be increasingly polarizing for many societies. These stresses can be divided into three groups—environmental, economic, and technological. After examining these, we’ll explore two questions: first, is democracy inherently more polarizing than autocratic forms of government? And second, are democracies or autocracies better at handling crises?
National resilience guidance: A collaborative approach to building resilience
In National resilience guidance, a paper by FEMA.gov…This Guidance is intended to help all individuals, communities, and organizations understand our nation’s Vision for resilience, the key Principles that
must be applied to strengthen resilience, and the Resilience Players and Systems That Contribute to Resilience.
Publication: Extreme temperatures and the profitability of large European firms
by Bellocca, Gian Pietro Enzo, et al in e-Archivo…The lack of a clear negative effect of extreme temperatures over firm’s profitability points out one of the reasons why it is so difficult to fight against climate change, while being harmful, it can be profitable.
A few rules for predicting the future by Octavia E. Butler
by Octavia E. Butler in Common Good Collective…So why try to predict the future at all if it’s so difficult, so nearly impossible? Because making predictions is one way to give warning when we see ourselves drifting in dangerous directions. Because prediction is a useful way of pointing out safer, wiser courses. Because, most of all, our tomorrow is the child of our today. Through thought and deed, we exert a great deal of influence over this child, even though we can’t control it absolutely. Best to think about it, though. Best to try to shape it into something good. Best to do that for any child.
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...
Jan
14
2025
Wanted: An early-warning system for the end of the world
by Charlie Cooper in Politico…Some experts believe we could hit catastrophic climate ‘tipping points’ in a matter of years. The U.K. government, with a bit of...
Jan
13
2025
Worlds within Us: Wisdom and Resilience of Indigenous Women Elders
How does one measure the intentions of a life? This is a question that Tekatsi:tsia’ kwa Katsi Cook (Wolf Clan, Mohawk Nation, New York) asks in her...
Jan
13
2025
Hope in the Face of the Polycrisis
by Jacob Bornstein & Mesa Sebree in Mediators Foundation…Historically, the leading causes of mass disruption across the world can be boiled down to the...
Jan
13
2025
Climate change forged a new reality in 2024: ‘This is life now’
by Diana Baptista in Context…In 2024, billions of people endured heatwaves, storms and floods; 2025 is set to be worse as man-made climate change wreaks...
Dec
30
2024
Policy brief: Nature for resilience
From UNDRR….Healthy and resilient ecosystems are key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals as well as the objectives of the Sendai Framework for Disaster...
Dec
29
2024
Great power politics Adam Tooze on Bidenomics
by Adam Tooze in London Review of Books…America’s more liberal-minded spokespeople may talk about America limiting itself to defending a small yard with a high...
Dec
28
2024
The Regeneration Handbook: System-changing strategies
by Don Hall in Resilience.org…CATL supports them all by organizing events, creating educational resources, facilitating collaboration and resource sharing, and...
Dec
27
2024
Derailment risk: A systems analysis that identifies risks which could derail the sustainability transition
by Laurie Laybourn in Earth Systems Dynamics…How will the effects of climate change, nature loss, and other environmental change impact our ability to tackle the...
Dec
26
2024
Looking Back at the Future of Humanity Institute
by Tom Ough in Asteriskmag.com…The rise and fall of the influential, embattled Oxford research center that brought us the concept of existential risk.
Dec
21
2024
Responding to platform firm power: differing national responses
by Angela Garcia Calvo in New Political Economy…In the second half of the 1990s, the commercial internet emerged as a remarkable connectivity tool that promised...