Polycrisis Resource Library

The Polycrisis Resource Library is a growing collection of media that help to understand polycrisis, develop strategies to address polycrisis, and build a field of polycrisis analysis.

Polycrisis Research and Analysis Roadmap

Michael Lawrence, Megan Shipman, Scott Janzwood, Constantin Arnscheidt, Jonathan Donges, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Christian Otto, Pia-Johanna Schweizer, Nico Wunderling

This Roadmap, a collaboration between the Cascade Institute, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, the Research Institute for Sustainability – Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, and the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, presents a…

Our polycrisis demands a radically new approach to risk management

Ruth Richardson

Ruth Richardson, the Executive Director of the Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment, argues that the “escalating global polycrisis demands an urgent and transformative shift in how we assess, anticipate, and…

World Polycrisis Hangs on US Politics

Hugo Dixon

Hugo Dixon proposes that the “future of Ukraine, world trade, climate change, and relations between superpowers the United States and China depends to a great extent on whether Trump wins…

FuturePod Interview with Drs. Megan Shipman and Michael Lawrence

FuturePod

In this episode of FuturePod, host Dr. Peter Hayward speaks with Drs. Megan Shipman and Michael Lawrence of the Cascade Institute about the current global polycrisis, and their recently published…

Positive Pathways report

Michael Lawrence and Megan Shipman

This Cascade Institute report explores how to translate an understanding of polycrises into actionable strategies to alleviate them. It suggests ways in which polycrisis analysis can build on existing approaches…

Causal Loop Diagrams handbook

Michael Lawrence

In this handbook, Cascade Institute Polycrisis Fellow Michael Lawrence explains how to read and draw a causal loop diagrams (CLD)–a systems mapping technique that helps us to think through our…

The Disruption Nexus

Roman Krznaric

Roman Krznaric explores the conditions in which crises lead to transformative societal change. He finds that transformative responses are most common in conditions of war, disaster, revolution, and disruption. The…

Libraries in Response Session 103: “Polycrisis R Us!”

Libraries in Response

Libraries in Response, produced by the Gigabit Libraries Network, is a webinar series focusing on how libraries are responding to health, social, economic, political, and climate crises. In this episode,…

SONAR 2024: New Emerging Risk Insights

Swiss Re Institute

The Swiss Re Institute, the research arm of Swiss Re Reinsurance, harnesses their risk knowledge in re/insurance to produce data driven research with partner organizations, shared via publications such as…

“The Whole World is in a Terrible State o’ Chassis”

Jeremy Brecher

This blog post is the first in a series of posts in which Jeremy Brecher advocates a Global Green New Deal as the remedy to polycrisis. He argues that the…

About the Resource Library

The Polycrisis Resource Library includes resources that:

  • Comment on the polycrisis as a concept and as a present global reality
  • Undertake similar analysis using different—but related—concepts
  • Analyze crisis interactions among multiple global systems

Though not exhaustive, the Library strives to present a diverse representation of views on different aspects of the polycrisis discussion, and will be updated as that discussion evolves. Search for resources with the keyword search bar, or by using the drop-down menus to filter for type of resource, global systems addressed, and key themes.

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