Life in the Global Polycrisis

The Long View

— 25 June 2025 —
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 science to guide policy decisions”, Lobell, the lead study author, says in a press release. He adds that there may be “blind spots” on specialised crops, such as coffee, cocoa, oranges and olives, which “don’t have as much modelling” as key commodity crops, noting: “All these have been seeing supply challenges and price increases. These matter less for food security, but may be more eye-catching for consumers who might not...
Mar 05 2025

A ‘second tree of life’ could wreak havoc, scientists warn

by Carl Zimmer in The New York Times…Research on so-called mirror cells, which defy fundamental properties of living organisms, should be prohibited as too...
May 02 2025

Casual Loop Diagrams handbook

by Michael Lawrence…Like many other forms of systems diagrams (and network diagrams), CLDs are composed of elements and connections. But unlike many others, CLDs...
Jun 11 2025

The impunity of the unscathed: Risk, elite security, and the rage of MAGA populism

by Nils Gilman in Small Precautions…MAGA, in its rawest form, embodies the fury of those who feel that the burden of these risks has been disproportionately...
Jun 10 2025

Critical responses to global systemic risk in an era of polycrisis

by Ruth Richardson in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Science…As grand challenges intensify and intersect across the globe, policymakers and decision...
Jun 10 2025

Big tech and the US digital-military-industrial complex

by Andrea Coveri, et al, in Intereconomics…The link between Big Tech and the military apparatus brings back traditions of economic thought too often forgotten or...

"We cover the polycrisis. News, analysis, & opinion. Science, politics, & culture."

Omega

Pandemics

Polycrisis

Critical responses to global systemic risk in an era of polycrisis

by Ruth Richardson in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Science…As grand challenges intensify and intersect across the globe, policymakers and decision makers at all levels continue to face mounting pressures. Increasing fiscal and financial constraints, cognitive overload, and a persistent lock-in to crisis response modes prevent—or, indeed, derail—the development of long-term policies and actions needed to move toward a safer, more just, and sustainable future.

Systemic risk and the polycrisis

by Florian U. Jehn in Existential Crunch…We now know that global systemic risk is the potential for disruption on a global scale, which is then realized because a single element in the system fails. The polycrisis is essentially the perfect storm we are experiencing right now of multiple global systemic risks being triggered at the same time, making each other worse and leading to a much more difficult response, as you have to put out so many fires at once.

Resilience

Casual Loop Diagrams handbook

by Michael Lawrence…Like many other forms of systems diagrams (and network diagrams), CLDs are
composed of elements and connections. But unlike many others, CLDs also include
feedback loops that connect elements in a circular pattern. This handbook explains
each of these three features, provides step-by-step instructions for drawing CLDs,
then presents three examples of CLDs that elucidate crucial real-world phenomena.

Building trust for resilient societies: The global listening project amplifies local voices

by Heidi Larson in Myriad USA…Larson would like the GLP to play a role in a new approach to preparedness and resilience. “I hope that policymakers and programs put people at the center of these responses,” she says. “Obviously we need scientific, technical, and structural preparedness. But we also need to involve people more, to listen to them, and to engage with them before the next big crisis.”

The verbs of resilience

by Andrew Zolli…I’ll be referring to resilience in the “property of systems and people” context noted above, to describe the (mostly) beneficial ability to persist, recover or even thrive amid disruption.

Environment

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 science to guide policy decisions”, Lobell, the lead study author, says in a press release.

He adds that there may be “blind spots” on specialised crops, such as coffee, cocoa, oranges and olives, which “don’t have as much modelling” as key commodity crops, noting:

“All these have been seeing supply challenges and price increases. These matter less for food security, but may be more eye-catching for consumers who might not otherwise care about climate change.”

The planetary politics of everyday life

by Nils Gilman in Small Precautions…In conclusion, the analysis provided by La Fabrique Écologique powerfully argues that the ecological transition in France, and likely elsewhere, is stalled not because the science is unclear or the public unwilling, but because the dominant strategies have ignored the fundamental prerequisites of social justice and economic security.

ECONOMY

Big tech and the US digital-military-industrial complex

by Andrea Coveri, et al, in Intereconomics…The link between Big Tech and the military apparatus brings back traditions of economic thought too often forgotten or intentionally removed, such as the twentieth century theories of imperialism and monopoly capital (Hobson, 1902; Baran & Sweezy, 1966). The debate on the military-industrial complex, a concept associated with President Eisenhower’s farewell address in 1961, also regains relevance. However, it seems to have been transformed into a digital-military-industrial complex where the key actor, Big Tech, share the peculiarity of being, at the same time, big market players, controllers of technologies essential to citizens’ lives and indispensable partners of the military apparatus. This makes the integration of state and private capital even closer and more complex than in the past.

It’s time for a new approach to the current context

by Phil Buchanan in CEP…Just in the past weeks I’ve heard leaders at philanthropic funders say things like ‘we’re trying to be small right now,’ ‘the lawyers are advising us to stay under the radar,’ ‘we’re letting others do the talking right now,’ ‘we’re laying low until we understand what everything will look like in six months.

Politics

The impunity of the unscathed: Risk, elite security, and the rage of MAGA populism

by Nils Gilman in Small Precautions…MAGA, in its rawest form, embodies the fury of those who feel that the burden of these risks has been disproportionately offloaded onto them, while the beneficiaries of the modern system — the “elites” — remain largely untouched. Consider the climate change debate: for many in the MAGA base, the imposition of green policies is perceived as a direct attack on their livelihoods, a demand by scientific and intellectual elites that they make personal sacrifices for a problem they feel they did not create (and which may not even exist, according to many of them) and which are not a burden for those advocating for the changes.

People

The bioregional vision of Donella Meadows

by Isabel Carlisle in Bioregional Learning Center… ‘Helping people and cultures all over the world develop and express their own capacity to solve their own problems, consistent with their own needs and with the ecosystems around them. And doing that through enhancing the power within all cultures and peoples to combine intellectual knowing and intuitive knowing, reasoning about the earth and living in consonance with it.’ This became the project that the Balaton Group of practitioners (mainly scientists and systems thinkers) was formed around.

The transformative power of intersectionality

by Rana Zincir Celal…..The concept of intersectionality recognizes the multidimensionality of inequality and the interconnection of different forms
of discrimination. It analyzes the role, function and impact of
power structures on discrimination and privilege. An intersectional perspective can be used to draw attention to existing
systems of oppression in society and to challenge, break
through and change them. Intersectionality thus holds the
potential for promoting social justice, solidarity and fairness.

Love in the time of the polycrisis: 21new signs of emergence

by Susan Grelock Yusem in Commonweal.org…..As we live through extremes, like social turmoil, extreme weather, pandemic, and economic instability, we also hold complex emotional experiences: hope and despondency, courage and fear, joy and grief.

Community

Zero-problem philanthropy

by Christian Seelos in SSIR…Moving away from endless problem-solving and toward creating healthy context.

Culture

Reading Octavia Butler in a time of change

by Shady Grove Oliver in AfroLAnews.org…Through her writing, Butler models the concept of having a found family – people one chooses to surround themself with for security and companionship. She demonstrates how small acts of kindness and acceptance can have a ripple effect.

Philanthropy by the numbers

by Aaron Horvath in The Hedgehog Review…If the question is how to do more good with your giving, then the answer MyGoodness provides comes with crisply quantified moral clarity.

Worldviews

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 feel like the next great foundation for scientific progress. Big companies are spending billions on large machines, but the buy-in costs of working at the frontiers of AI are so high that no university has the exascale-class machines needed to run the latest AI models. We’re at a place now where we, meaning the government, can revitalize that pact by investing in the infrastructure to study AI for the public good.

Navigating complexity: Embracing the human pace

by Dark Matter Labs on Medium…Many-to-Many is designed for groups who want to collaborate to solve complex challenges but require new ideas about value, ownership, and power.

“Putting America First” — Undermining health for populations at home and abroad

by Christopher P. Duggan, M.D., M.P.H., et al. in The New England Journal of Medicine…In the initial months of the Trump administration, numerous executive orders have led to a chaotic dismantling of U.S. foreign-assistance and global health efforts. These orders have already had, and will continue to have, severe adverse effects on vulnerable populations globally. But they also have serious implications for people in the United States.

Bookshelf

Grow that stack by your bedside — check out this selection of some of the most compelling work we’re reading.

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