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.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
Susan Cutter traces the etymology of the multiple, overlapping terms used to describe “types of situations where there is a single triggering hazardous event resulting in large-scale impacts to lives…
The paper proposes that reinforcing feedbacks could push the earth system toward a planetary threshold past which lies an irreversible “Hothouse Earth” scenario that catastrophically disrupts ecosystems, societies, and economies….
The authors introduce a classification framework for severe global catastrophic risk scenarios focusing on three dimensions: the critical systems affected, global spread mechanisms, and prevention and mitigation failures.
The Polycrisis Resource Library includes resources that:
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.
