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 political, social, and ecological challenges such as pollution, resource depletion, and population growth. The polycrisis is recognized as the outcome of profound governance crises that […]
The authors argue that the concept of the “global problematique” introduced by the Club of Rome over 50 years ago anticipated what we now call polycrisis by presenting a cybersystemic perspective on the linkages between multiple challenges. They warn that the polycrisis concept could suffer the same fate as global problematique by changing discourse but
The authors present an updated analysis of the planetary boundaries framework, revealing that human activities have pushed Earth beyond six of the nine critical environmental thresholds that define a safe operating space for humanity. These transgressed boundaries include climate change, biosphere integrity, land-system change, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows, and novel entities. The study emphasizes that
Earth Beyond Six of Nine Planetary Boundaries 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
Using an evolutionary ecology perspective, William E. Rees argues that modern techno-industrial society is in a state of advanced ecological overshoot. Fossil fuels have enabled a massive expansion of humanity that constitutes the most globally significant ecological phenomena in 250 000 years of human evolutionary history. He concludes that humanity is exhibiting the dynamic of
The Human Ecology of Overshoot: Why a Major ‘Population Correction’ is Inevitable Read More »
The authors explore how to approach stress testing and stress scenario design in a world of polycrises and compound risks. The authors advocate for adopting “polyscenario” approaches that use multiple, interdisciplinary scenarios to capture the complexity and unpredictability of global risks.
Stress Testing in a World of Compound Risks and Polycrises Read More »
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 authors explore how AI, while offering promising benefits in healthcare, also poses significant risks to human health and society. They examine three major threats from misused narrow AI: increased control and manipulation of individuals through surveillance and targeted information campaigns, the development and deployment of lethal autonomous weapons, and the displacement of human labor.
Threats by Artificial Intelligence to Human Health and Human Existence Read More »
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 »
Societies throughout history have faced polycrises, but the outcomes range widely from collapse to positive adaptation. The authors have developed a Crisis Database of 150 past societal crises and find that three pressures make societies especially vulnerable to environmental stresses (and consequent polycrises) by impeding collective action: popular immiseration, elite overproduction and conflict, and state
