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.
Classifying Global Catastrophic Risks Read More »
Seth D. Baum and Anthony M. Barrett argue that there are underappreciated systemic interactions between catastrophic risks. Actions taken to mitigate one catastrophic risk may increase or reduce another catastrophic risk. To address these interactions, leaders must use an “integrated assessment” of the whole collection of global catastrophic risks to ensure efforts to remediate one
Towards and Integrated Assessment of Global Catastrophic Risk Read More »
Peter Turchin and his colleagues explain their design of a computational method to predict social collapse: multipath forecasting. By incorporating quantitative data (i.e. demography) as well as qualitative data (i.e. cultural value), a system trained on historical data predicts “a history of possible futures, in which the near- and medium-term paths of societies are probabilistically
The authors clarify the systemic risk concept using the Global Financial Crisis as an example. They explain how global systems involve micro and macro-dynamics interacting with each other and their environment, leading to stable periods and multiple possible future scenarios. Some of these scenarios may pose catastrophic risks, so that agents must confront systemic risk.
Things are Different Today: The Challenge of Global Systemic Risks Read More »
Global catastrophic biological risks (GCBRs) are hazards caused by biological agents that result in massive disruptions to society. The authors analyze historical GCBRs, such as H1N1 and the Black Death, and their interactions with other complex aspects of society. The rapid depopulation caused by the Black Death, for example, generated “broad, lasting, and complex effects
Global Catastrophic Biological Risks: Toward a Working Definition Read More »
After reviewing different definitions of collapse across several fields, Graeme Cumming and Garry Peterson outline specific criteria with which to assess collapse and apply them to historical and ecological examples. They emphasize the need for standard, testable, definitions and a baseline measurement, or “identity,” of a system to better understand if it has collapsed. “It
Unifying Research on Socio-Ecological Resilience and Collapse Read More »
In this essay, Joseph Masco argues that the word “crisis” has become a counterrevolutionary term in American media and politics, used to stabilize existing conditions rather than address problems of militarism, economy, and the environment. By assessing nuclear and climate dangers, he suggests alternative approaches for creating positive futures without relying on the current discourse
The Crisis in Crisis Read More »
The article analyzes the concept of mega-crisis in comparison with crisis. It defines the mega-crisis as a “set of interacting crises that is severe in impact, complex in nature and global in fallout, with no distinct start and end points.” The authors conclude that stakeholder engagement, design-oriented planning, symbolic communications, and case study research are
Further Explication of the Mega-Crisis Concept and Feasible Responses Read More »
Ortwin Renn proposes that societies are good at conventional risk management, which focusses on discrete events like a fire or car accident, but increasingly challenged by systemic risks where a failure in one part of a system quickly spreads to disable the whole system and has ripple effects on others. “It is the totality of
Systemic Risks: The New Kid on the Block Read More »
The authors argue that the world constitutes a tightly coupled, global complex system that endogenously generates systemic risks and vulnerabilities as it grows more complex. After discussing complexity, risk, and networks as key elements of their framework, they provide case studies of global systemic risk in trade, finance, infrastructure, climate change, and public health. The
The Emergence of Global Systemic Risk Read More »
