Check here if no resource theme is available
Paul Gilding argues that the world has reached “a multi-system tipping point” that will bring “the Great Disruption”: “a destabilisation of the global climate system at a scale that is so chaotic, unpredictable and costly, it will trigger cascading disruptive change in the global economy, national politics, investment markets and geopolitical security.” Gilding predicts that […]
The Great Disruption has Begun Read More »
Ville Lähde explores various considerations involved in the coining of new terms and concepts, such as polycrisis. He highlights in particular the difference between those who speak of the polycrisis as a totalizing description of the present era and its existential problems, and those who speak of a polycrisis “as a technical concept with which
Kanishka Jayasuriya argues that polycrisis is a helpful descriptive term for the novel, intersecting crises of the 21st century, but it should be understood as a political crisis arising from the contradiction between capital accumulation and the social reproduction (the conditions of life) on which capitalism depends. Established political frameworks are unable to manage the
Polycrisis or Crises of Capitalist Social Reproduction Read More »
The article reports on a presentation by Dr. Alan Dupont, chief executive of Cognoscenti, at the Australasia Investor Relations Association’s 2023 annual convention. Dupont argued that, in an era of polycrisis, geopolitical risk should become a third pillar of environmental and social governance (ESG).
What a ‘Polycrisis’ is and What it Means for Business Read More »
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 a theoretical framework to explain the causal mechanisms currently entangling many of the world’s crises. In this framework, a global crisis arises when one or
Global Polycrisis: The Causal Mechanisms of Crisis Entanglement Read More »
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 millions are driven from their homes by climate disasters, the extreme right exploits their misery to extend its reach. As the extreme right gains power,
The Hard Right and Climate Change are Intimately Linked Read More »
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.
We’re on the Brink of a ‘Polycrisis’-How Worried Should We Be? Read More »
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” to open societies via disinformation, and it provides closed societies new instruments of surveillance and control; climate change threatens to make large areas uninhabitable; but
Can Democracy Survive the Polycrisis? Read More »
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 humanity is entering “the Great Unravelling” in which compounding crises threaten the vital systems of human civilization. Unravelling environmental threads include global warming, biodiversity and
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 and intersectionality, which adds much needed texture to the polycrisis theory” (p. 4). The authors consider the nature of crisis as an abrupt disruption versus
Polycrisis: Prompts for an Emerging Worldview Read More »
