We’re on the Brink of a ‘Polycrisis’-How Worried Should We Be?
Simon Torkington
This press release for the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Global Risks Report summarizes its key findings and highlights its use of the term polycrisis.
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.
Can Democracy Survive the Polycrisis?
George Soros
George Soros argues that there are three main sources of the polycrisis (in order of importance): artificial intelligence, climate change, and Russia’s war on Ukraine. AI poses a “mortal threat”…
Welcome to the Great Unraveling: Navigating the Polycrisis of Environmental and Social Breakdown
Richard Heinberg and Asher Miller
Asher Miller and Richard Heinberg define polycrisis as “the tangles of global environmental and social dilemmas that are accumulating, mutually interacting, and worsening” and argue that the present polycrisis indicates…
How to Deal with a World of Polycrisis?
Steffan Heuer
Steffan Heuer discusses the definition of polycrisis, some of the crises facing the world today, and the shortcomings of current approaches that target more immediate issues. “While the term is…
Global Polycrisis as a Pathway to Economic Transition
Zack Walsh
In this report for the Strategic Innovation Unit of the United Nations Development Programme, Zack Walsh argues that the underlying driver of the polycrisis is our unsustainable and unjust economic…
Polycrisis: Prompts for an Emerging Worldview
David Henig and Daniel M. Knight
David Henig and Daniel M. Knight argue that anthropology has much to offer in the conceptualization and study of polycrisis, drawing on a disciplinary “toolkit that includes historicity, temporality, scalarity…
Navigating Polycrisis: Long-Run Socio-Cultural Factors Shape Response to Changing Climate
Daniel Hoyer, James S. Bennett, Jenny Reddish, Samantha Holder, Robert Howard, Majid Benam, Jill Levine, Francis Ludlow, Gary Feinman, and Peter Turchin
Societies throughout history have faced polycrises, but the outcomes range widely from collapse to positive adaptation. The authors have developed a Crisis Database of 150 past societal crises and find…
Why Integrated Assessment Models Alone are Insufficient to Navigate us through the Polycrisis
Konstantinos Koasidis, Alexandros Nikas and Haris Doukas
The authors discuss how Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) have limited capacity to navigate complex, interconnected global crises. They advocate for the integration of transdisciplinary approaches, including socio-technical transitions and diverse…
Understanding and governing global systemic crises in the 21st century: A complexity perspective
Didier Wernli, Lucas Böttcher, Flore Vanackere, Yuliya Kaspiarovich, Maria Masood and Nicolas Levrat
This article examines the nature, causes, mechanisms, and impact of global systemic crises and their implications for global policymaking and governance.
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.
The Hard Right and Climate Change are Intimately Linked
George Monbiot
George Monbiot argues that a vicious cycle is emerging between the rise of the political right, roll-backs of environmental policy and protections, increased migration, and worsening discrimination against refugees. “As…