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.

Dynamics of Tipping Cascades on Complex Networks

Jonathan Krönke, Nico Wunderling, Ricarda Winkelmann, Arie Staal, Benedikt Stumpf, Obbe A. Tuinenburg, and Jonathan F. Donges

This article examines network models to better predict tipping points, defined as “a critical threshold (tipping point) at which a tiny perturbation can qualitatively alter the state or development of…

How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for our Times

Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens

Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens confront the possibility of civilizational collapse within our lifetimes, examining scientific evidence of growing systemic crises. They connect abstract scientific findings to everyday experiences, linking…

Reducing Global Catastrophic Biological Risks

Gregory Lewis

This guide defines global catastrophic biological risks (GCBRs) as “risks that threaten great worldwide damage to human welfare, and place the long-term trajectory of humankind in jeopardy… [and are] broadly…

Integrating Collapse Theories to Understand Socio-Ecological Systems Resilience

Cathy Rubiños and John M. Anderies

This longitudinal case study applies collapse theory to the Piura Basin of Peru, a region subject to extreme El Niño weather events, that has previously seen societal collapse in the…

Anatomy and Resilience of the Global Production Ecosystem

M. Nyström, J.-B. Jouffray, A. V. Norström, B. Crona, P. Søgaard Jørgensen, S. R. Carpenter, Ö. Bodin, V. Galaz, and C. Folke

The authors argue that the worldwide production and distribution of food, fuel, and fibre has created a “global production ecosystem” subject to immense simplification, intensification, and control by humans attempting…

What are Cascading Disasters?

David Alexander and Gianluca Pescaroli

The authors argue that the world’s dependence on networks and critical infrastructure renders it increasingly vulnerable to “cascading disasters” in which “it is common for the secondary effects to be…

Introduction: The European Union beyond the Polycrisis? Integration and Politicization in an Age of Shifting Cleavages

Jonathan Zeitlin, Francesco Nicoli, and Brigid Laffan

This article introduces a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy on Europe’s polycrisis, setting out the mechanisms of its “politics trap” and the strategies that have been utilized to…

Taking Strategic Initiative to Prevent and Defuse Major Risks

Chen Yixin

Melanie Hart, Jordan Link, and Ngor Luong of the Center for American Progress translate and discuss Chinese Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission Secretary-General Chen Yixin’s effort to explain President…

The Age of Sustainability: Just Transitions in a Complex World

Mark Swilling

Mark Swilling proposes that “we need to understand the dynamics of the current global polycrisis as the emergent outcome of intersections between four dimensions of transition: socio-metabolic transition, techno-economic transition,…

Cascading Regime Shifts Within and Across Scales

Juan C. Rocha, Garry Peterson, Örjan Bodin, and Simon Levin

Where regime shifts (also known as critical transitions) are generally studied within a single ecosystem, the authors explore cascading regimes shifts across multiple ecosystems. Drawing on the Regime Shifts Database…

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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