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.

How useful is the concept of polycrisis? Lessons from the development of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit during the COVID-19 pandemic

Shannon Dinan, Daniel Béland, and Michael Howlett

The authors examine domestic policymaking processes amidst polycrisis by tracing the Canadian government’s development of its Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) during the Covid-19 pandemic. They argue that the process…

Polycrisis in the Anthropocene: An Invitation to Contributions and Debates

Michael Lawrence

This commentary introduces “Polycrisis in the Anthropocene,” a special issue of Global Sustainability journal. It elaborates upon three major contributions of the issue’s lead article, “Global Polycrisis: The Causal Mechanisms…

Global Polycrisis: The Causal Mechanisms of Crisis Entanglement

Michael Lawrence, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Scott Janzwood, Johan Rockström, Ortwin Renn, and Jonathan F. Donges

The authors translate polycrisis from a loose concept into a research agenda by providing the concept with a substantive definition, highlighting its value-added in comparison to related concepts, and developing…

Global Risks Report 2024

World Economic Forum

This 19th edition of the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Risk Report is based on a risk perception survey conducted with nearly 1500 experts from academia, government, business, and civil…

A Year in Crises

Tim Sahay

Tim Sahay surveys the many crises covered in The Polycrisis newsletter over the last year and identifies four key shifts: northern countries are increasingly concerned with their own economic resilience…

The Terrible Twenties? The Assholocene? What to Call Our Chaotic Era

Kyle Chayka

Kyle Chayka considers different possible labels for “our chaotic historical moment, a term that we can use when we want to evoke the panicky incoherence of our lives of late.”…

You Say You Want a Revolution: Dreaming of New Futures in the Polycrisis

James Gustave Speth

James Gustave Speth argues that the polycrisis has undermined earlier hopes for steady, gradual, progressive change, but is also stimulating new and unconventional visions for transformative change that should not…

Evolution of the Polycrisis: Anthropocene Traps that Challenge Global Sustainability

Peter Søgaard Jørgensen, Raf E. V. Jansen, Daniel I. Avila Ortega, Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Jonathan F. Donges, Henrik Österblom, Per Olsson, Magnus Nyström, Steven J. Lade, Thomas Hahn, Carl Folke, Garry D. Peterson and Anne-Sophie Crépin

In this article, the authors, inspired by the polycrisis, identify and explore potential 14 traps affecting humanity in the global human context, brought about by the trajectory of our increasing…

Evolution of the polycrisis: Anthropocene traps that challenge global sustainability

Peter Søgaard Jørgensen, Raf E. V. Jansen, Daniel I. Avila Ortega, Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Jonathan F. Donges, Henrik Österblom, Per Olsson, Magnus Nyström, Steven J. Lade, Thomas Hahn, Carl Folke, Garry D. Peterson and Anne-Sophie Crépin

Using expert solicitation, the authors identify 14 “evolutionary traps” (global, technological, and structural) that risk locking humanity into unfavorable (maladaptive) trajectories that seriously restrict its ability to adapt to the…

Navigating the polycrisis—governing for transformation: The 2024 agenda for the systems community

Louis Klein, Pamela Buckle, Nam Nguyen, Rika Preiser, Ray Ison

In this article, the authors argue that the polycrisis is the manifestation of challenges outlined by the earlier scholarship of the “global problematique,” a set of systemically related factors including…

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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