Life in the Global Polycrisis
The Long View
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.
"What we do: Hope & heartbreak & all points of view."
Omega
Pandemics
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 dangerous, biologists said.
‘Unprecedented risk’ to life on Earth: Scientists call for halt on ‘mirror life’ microbe research
by Ian Sample in The Guardian…Experts warn that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could put humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections
Malaria Is Surging in Ethiopia, Reversing a Decade of Progress Against the Disease
by Maya Misikir and Stephanie Nolen in The New York Times…Climate change, civil conflict and growing resistance to insecticides and treatments are all contributing to an alarming spread of cases.
Polycrisis
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.
A Logic For The Future
from the Long Now Foundation…Stephen Heintz and Kim Stanley Robinson will discuss our polycrisis, and the swift and holistic reform of global governance institutions that is needed to respond to these urgent transnational and planetary challenges we are facing.
What is this era of calamity we’re in? Some say ‘polycrisis’ captures it
by Matthew Cantor in The Guardian…The term ‘polycrisis’ has gained traction as we face one disaster after another. It’s overwhelming – but diagnosing the catastrophe is the first step to addressing it.
Resilience
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.
Playing with time: Introducing a foresight practice to build hopeful futures through transformative stewardship
by Cat Tully in School of International Futures…I want to help us unstick from this present, apply a practical set of approaches to help our communities navigate the uncertainty ahead, and develop our agency for building hopeful futures. And provide a post-polycrisis narrative to inspire change-makers around the world who want to take collective, transformative action.
Environment
The future is in our roots
from blog by Nnimmo Bassey…When one part of an ecosystem is destroyed, it impacts or destroys all the other parts. This means, nothing exists in isolation of everything else. Thus, the web of life is the interrelationships that hold everything together – something we often do not think about.
The last drops of Mexico City
by Rodrigo Cervantes and Jérôme Sessini on longlead.com…Every day, for most of her life, Norma, a 68-year-old woman from the outskirts of Mexico City, has struggled to get something that many of us take for granted: drinking water.
We’ve failed to stop climate change — this is what we need to do next
by Ben Spencer in The Sunday Times…While we can still limit warming by cutting emissions, we now face having to adapt to more extreme weather
ECONOMY
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.
For many of us, it doesn’t cost much to improve someone’s life, and we can do much more of it
by Hannah Ritchie in Our World in Data…Most countries spend less than 1% of their national income on foreign aid; even small increases could make a big difference.
Elite fragmentation in the United States: Global or domestic phenomenon?
by Mark Mizruchi in American Behavioral Scientist…The actions of societal elites exert a disproportionate impact on events and outcomes in their home societies. These actions are driven by a combination of factors internal and external to their nation.
Politics
Martial Law: A Guide
by Sincerely, T…Martial law can dramatically alter daily life and limit personal freedoms. Remaining informed, prepared, and organized is essential. If resistance is necessary, prioritize peaceful and lawful methods to protect yourself and your community.
The militia and the mole
by Joshua Kaplan in Propublica…A Freelance Vigilante: A wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover, climbing the ranks of right-wing militias. He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell his family or friends.
An emerging third option: Reclaiming democracy from dark money & dark tech
by Otto Scharmer in Medium…In short — the key to the profound changes that our current polycrisis is calling for lies in the cultivation of the social soil. Every one of us can be (and is) a gardener or farmer of that soil. In our forthcoming book Presencing we outline the core practices for doing so.
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
Future Signals – what we’re watching for in 2025
From Nesta…Our annual series about the trends and developments that are set to shape the coming year
Zero-problem philanthropy
by Christian Seelos in SSIR…Moving away from endless problem-solving and toward creating healthy context.
The Earth Does Not Speak in Prose, A conversation with Paul Kingsnorth
Interviewed by Charlotte Du Cann, Paul Kingsnorth, writer and Dark Mountain co-founder….writes about forging a language that can speak with and for the more-than-human world.
Culture
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.
Octavia Butler on creativity, the power of our obsessions, and how we become who we are
by Maria Popova in The Pocket…“Love quiets fear. And a sweet and powerful positive obsession blunts pain, diverts rage, and engages each of us in the greatest, the most intense of our chosen struggles.”
How jazz shaped the civil rights movement
by Lesley McClurg in interview of Larry Tye on KQED.org…He profiles the trio in his new book, “The Jazzmen.” In it, he pieces together over 250 interviews, including family members and former bandmates, to illustrate how their appeal among both Black and white audiences paved the way for the Civil Rights Movement. Tye joins us to share more.
Worldviews
Google confirms Gmail upgrade—3 billion users must now decide
by Zak Doffman in Forbes…In the last year we have seen one Gmail/Workspace AI upgrade after another. This won’t stop. And so it will become ever more important for users to be clear as to what they’re agreeing, how it works, and what opt-ins and opt-outs are available.
Are we living through a catabolic collapse?
by Zaid Hassan on LinkedIn…Unlike theories that frame collapse as an external shock, catabolic collapse suggests that the mechanism of decline is internal, driven by the growing mismatch between resource consumption and available inputs.
2024 Future Perfect 50 list
From Vox…innovators, thinkers & changemakers working to make the future
a better place.
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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