Watch EJN’s 2023 #EarthDay webinar on the global polycrisis — what does this newly-popular term mean, why is it important for climate and environmental journalism and how can reporters uncover relevant angles and story ideas?
Adapt or die: Jem Bendell’s radical vision to survive the climate crisis
By Lucy Jones in GQ….The founder of the Deep Adaptation movement – which predicts that climate change will lead to nothing less than social collapse – has divided climate scientists and supercharged protest movements. Critics call him a doomsayer. Others say he’s the only one acknowledging the truth
Artificial Intelligence and The superorganism
Nate Hagens interviews Daniel Schmachtenberger on The Great Simplification….What is the role of intelligence vs wisdom on our current global pathway, and can we change course? Does artificial intelligence have a role to play in creating a more stable system or will it be the tipping point that drives our current one out of control?
Global polycrisis as a pathway for economic transition
By Zack Walsh, Polycrisis Transition Consultancy….This article is part of an ongoing collaboration between the United Nations Development Programme (Bureau for Program & Policy Support’s Strategic Innovation Unit & the Inclusive Growth/Chief Economist) and One Project. The purpose of the collaboration is to connect expertise in new economics with an emerging understanding of the global polycrisis. In this first article, we synthesize existing work and identify potential connections between these two fields. We seek to identify economic alternatives that provide systemic and proactive responses to the global polycrisis and propose potential supporting roles for development organizations like the UNDP.
On the ‘Polycrisis’: Part I
by Bo Harvey….“There is no single vital problem, but many vital problems, and it is this complex intersolidarity of problems, antagonisms, crises, uncontrolled processes, and the general crisis of the planet that constitutes the number one vital problem.”3
The Desert of the Anthropocene: An ongoing installation from artist Ravi Agarwal
The long engagement is a part of an ongoing investigation into the current state of the nature, both as a crisis which traverses a political realm, but also a cultural contestation of how ‘nature’ is thought of in the era of the Anthropocene.
The worst-case scenario for drought on the Colorado River
By Umair Irfan, Vox.com…One in eight Americans depend on a river that’s disappearing.
Navigating the polycrisis–life in turbulent times
By Michael Lerner, Angle of Vision…The polycrisis has many names—cascading crises, the metacrisis, the permacrisis, the great unraveling, the great simplification, “the end of the world as we know it” [TEOTWAWKI], and more. In Latin America it’s called “eco-social collapse.” The French call it “collapsologie.” Or one can simply call it turbulent times or a rapidly changing world.
Global rice shortage is set to be the biggest in 20 years
There’s a strained supply of rice as a result of the ongoing war in Ukraine, as well as weather woes in rice-producing economies like China and Pakistan.
The surprising thing A.I. engineers will tell you if you let them
by Ezra Klein, The New York Times…This is an example of “alignment risk,” the danger that what we want the systems to do and what they will actually do could diverge, and perhaps do so violently. Curbing alignment risk requires curbing the systems themselves, not just the ways we permit people to use them.
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...
Sep
18
2025
A philosophy of crisis – Miguel de Beistegui
by Alexis Papazoglou on The Philosopher and the News….How can philosophy help us understand the different types of crisis, from the arena of science to that of...
Sep
17
2025
AI and democratic publics
by Henry Farrell & Hahrie Han in Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University…A project studying how advanced AI systems may harm, or help...
Sep
16
2025
Introducing Noema VI: Paradigm shifts
by Nathan Gardels in Noema…Profound transformations occurring simultaneously mark our new Age of Upheaval.
Sep
15
2025
Bioregional coordination: Sacred work in a time between worlds
by Benjamin Life in Omniharmonic…Start small. Start where you are. Start with what you have. But start. Because the infrastructure for life-affirming governance...
Sep
15
2025
Reframing the future
by Patrick Dowd of The Long Now Foundation…The practice of reframing how we think about time has been woven into Long Now’s DNA since our inception, and yet...
Sep
12
2025
Resilience science must-knows: A road to action for decision-makers
by the Global Resilience Partnership…This is more than a report—it’s a movement to ensure resilience and adaptation science translates into action and impact. It...
Aug
19
2025
Resilience revisited 014: Beyond the binary of “Resilience is Resistance” – Imagining resilience as oscillation
by Tamzin Ractliffe on LinkedIn…Here’s the challenge this powerful formulation reveals: existing power structures are also extraordinarily resilient at...
Aug
01
2025
The world economy is on the brink of epochal change
by Mark Blyth in The Atlantic…Capitalism’s operating system is due for a major upgrade. How that turns out depends on enormously consequential political...
Jul
31
2025
Why is ChatGPT telling people to email me?
by Kashmir Hill in The New York Times…reporter who writes about A.I. finds her work is catching on — with the Chatbot she often writes about.
Jul
30
2025
Dimensions of the Great Turning
from The Work That Reconnects Network,,,In the Work That Reconnects we uplift and celebrate the story of the Great Turning, the essential shift to a way of living and...