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.

Systemic Risks: The New Kid on the Block

Ortwin Renn

Ortwin Renn proposes that societies are good at conventional risk management, which focusses on discrete events like a fire or car accident, but increasingly challenged by systemic risks where a…

The Emergence of Global Systemic Risk

Miguel A. Centeno, Manish Nag, Thayer S. Patterson, Andrew Shaver, and A. Jason Windawi

The authors argue that the world constitutes a tightly coupled, global complex system that endogenously generates systemic risks and vulnerabilities as it grows more complex. After discussing complexity, risk, and…

The Trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration

Will Steffen, Wendy Broadgate, Lisa Deutsch, Owen Gaffney, and Cornelia Ludwig

The authors update the ‘Great Acceleration’ graphs of socio-economic and Earth System trends from 1750 to 2010, differentiating between wealthy, emerging, and other countries. Earth system indicators continue their long-term…

Synchronous Failure: The Emerging Causal Architecture of Global Crisis

Thomas Homer-Dixon, Brian Walker, Reinette Biggs, Anne-Sophie Crépin, Carl Folke, Eric F. Lambin, Garry D. Peterson, Johan Rockström, Marten Scheffer, Will Steffen, and Max Troell

The authors argue we are increasingly witnessing a new form global crises they characterize as “synchronous failure.” This form of crisis “is more biophysical in origin, more inter-systemic in manifestation,…

A Decade of Adaptive Governance Scholarship: Synthesis and Future Directions

Brian C. Chaffin, Hannah Gosnell, and Barbara A. Cosens

The authors survey the development of the adaptive governance concept, which they define as “A range of interactions between actors, networks, organizations, and institutions emerging in pursuit of a desired…

Globally Networked Risks and How to Respond

Dirk Helbing

Dirk Helbing demonstrates that “Systemic failures and extreme events are consequences of the highly interconnected systems and networked risks humans have created. When networks are interdependent this makes them even…

Economic Crisis, Long Waves and the Sustainability Transition: An African Perspective

Mark Swilling

Mark Swilling analyzes economic crises from both a global and a more regional (global south/South African) perspective, examining sociological and technological changes from the post-WWII era into the future green…

The Butterfly Defect

The Butterfly Defect: How Globalization Creates Systemic Risks, and What to Do about it

Ian Goldin and Mike Mariathasan

Ian Goldin and Mike Mariathasan argue that systemic risk is endemic to globalization that cannot be removed. “It is a process to be managed rather than a problem to be…

Anticipating Critical Transitions

Marten Scheffer, Stephen R. Carpenter, Timothy M. Lenton, Jordi Bascompte, Visilis Dakos, Johan van de Koppel, Ingrid A. van de Leemput, Simon A. Levin, Egbert H. van Nes, Mercedes Pascual, and John Vandermeer

The authors define a “tipping point” in terms of “a catastrophic bifurcation, where a minor trigger can invoke a self-propagating shift to a contrasting state.” Such “critical transitions” appear in…

Ready for Anything: Designing Resilience for a Transforming World

Anthony Hodgson

Anthony Hodgson introduces the World System Model as a new and holistic way to understand of the key issues facing humanity and their interconnections. The book explains how the model…

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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