The World’s Cascade of Disasters is Not a Coincidence

Niall Ferguson proposes that “Superficially… [it’s] no more than a very nasty coincidence that the latest wave of the pandemic should happen at the same time as so many extreme weather events and a wave of social and political unrest. On closer inspection, however, we can see that these are connections between these disasters – and that they are in fact parts of interlocking trends.” He then compares the cascading disasters of the present to those linked to the bubonic plague in 13th century Europe (and other disasters) to argue that our cascading crises are not unprecedented.