Theory Building

FuturePod Interview with Drs. Megan Shipman and Michael Lawrence

In this episode of FuturePod, host Dr. Peter Hayward speaks with Drs. Megan Shipman and Michael Lawrence of the Cascade Institute about the current global polycrisis, and their recently published Positive Pathways report and accompanying workshop. Shipman, Lawrence, and Hayward discuss the four key factors proposed by Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon that define today’s polycrisis, provide […]

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Positive Pathways report

This Cascade Institute report explores how to translate an understanding of polycrises into actionable strategies to alleviate them. It suggests ways in which polycrisis analysis can build on existing approaches to systemic change to help chart positive pathways to better futures, by examining multiple factors — the sorts of systems changes required to avoid, mitigate

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Causal Loop Diagrams handbook

In this handbook, Cascade Institute Polycrisis Fellow Michael Lawrence explains how to read and draw a causal loop diagrams (CLD)–a systems mapping technique that helps us to think through our mental model of a system, increase our understanding of a system, and communicate our knowledge to others. It clarifies some common sources of confusion, provides

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Understanding Polycrisis: Definitions, Applications, and Responses

This paper compares conceptualizations of the term “polycrisis,” raising questions about the key aspects of different definitions while stressing a convergence in critical features. It conceives a polycrisis as a state in which multiple, macroregional, ecologically embedded, and inexorably interconnected systems face high – and advancing – risk across socioeconomic, political, and other dimensions. After

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Let’s Avoid ‘Trigger Fixation’

The authors argue that a trigger event can’t start a crisis by itself; some underlying stress or stresses must also be operating. They contend that leaders should pay far more attention to these stresses, because they’re ultimately far more important. The original title of the article was “Let’s Avoid ‘Trigger Fixation.” The Globe and Mail

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Why Integrated Assessment Models Alone are Insufficient to Navigate us through the Polycrisis

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 stakeholder perspectives, to chart sustainable pathways through the polycrisis.

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On the ‘Polycrisis’ Part II: Philosophies of History & Crises in Political Thought

Building on an earlier post, Bo Harvey begins with the question “what might the popularity of [the term] polycrisis say about the weaknesses of current critical analyses of capitalism?” and proposes that the “conceptual breadth of both terms represents a broader crisis of reference in the concept ‘crisis’.” He then considers the role of crisis

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Why the World Feels so Unstable Right Now

Tim Palmer discusses the challenges of predicting events in nonlinear systems that, by nature, experience intermittent instabilities, as in the famous “butterfly effect”. Today, continued emissions are increasing the instabilities and uncertainties of climate change, while the economy and global health exhibit similar non-linearities. To deal with such uncertainties, he advocates ensemble prediction systems that

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On the ‘Polycrisis’ Part I: Issues in Abstract Conceptual Circumference

Bo Harvey examines origins and recent popularity of the polycrisis concept, then rebuts critiques of the concept by Noah Smith and Guney Isikara. In response to the latter, Harvey problematizes the reduction of all the world’s problems to “capitalism” by noting the wide breadth of that term. “In other words, I want to argue that

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