This 18th edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report is based on a risk perceptions survey of 1200 experts on the likelihood, severity, and interconnections between 37 global risks. It finds that the biggest risk in the next two years is the cost of living crisis, and the biggest risk in the next […]
Global Risks Report 2023 Read More »
Ian Bremmer and Cliff Kupchan present their top ten geopolitical risks for 2023: an increasingly rogue and reckless Russia; an increasingly powerful and unconstrained Xi Jinping; the weaponization of artificial intelligence; shockwaves of global inflation; Iran backed into a corner; higher energy prices; reversals of development; political divisions in the United States; the disruptive digital
The report highlights the distinctive harms for children and future generations of eight global trends that are part of the polycrisis: continued impacts of the pandemic, inflation, food insecurity, energy shortages, underinvestment in children, threats to democratic rights, international factionalism, and internet inequality.
Prospects for Children in the Polycrisis: A 2023 Global Outlook Read More »
This report analyzes actionable “tipping points” within global energy systems (fertilizer, shipping, power, etc.) that could produce a cascade of emissions reductions. The technology adoption needed to reach these positive tipping points is dependent on cost-effectiveness, attractiveness, and accessibility, but if these barriers are overcome, it could result in massive, self-reinforcing environmental improvements. The authors
Against those who anticipate a smooth, timely transition to renewable energy and net-zero carbon emissions, Vaclav Smil argues that we are much more dependent on fossil fuels than we recognize so that an energy transition will be difficult and tumultuous. “The real wrench in the works: we are a fossil-fueled civilization whose technical and scientific
How the World Really Works Read More »
The authors argue that the world’s dependence on networks and critical infrastructure renders it increasingly vulnerable to “cascading disasters” in which “it is common for the secondary effects to be new sources of impact, which may be more devastating than the original trigger.” To help analyze the vulnerability pathways through which disaster cascades propagate, they
What are Cascading Disasters? Read More »
Mark Swilling proposes that “we need to understand the dynamics of the current global polycrisis as the emergent outcome of intersections between four dimensions of transition: socio-metabolic transition, techno-economic transition, socio-technical transition and long-term global development cycles. When understood as multiple cycles that intersect concurrently and asynchronistically across these four dimensions, the emergent outcome can
The Age of Sustainability: Just Transitions in a Complex World 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 authors argue we are increasingly witnessing a new form global crises they characterize as “synchronous failure.” This form of crisis “is more biophysical in origin, more inter-systemic in manifestation, more global in scope, and more rapid in development” (5). The deep cause of synchronous failure are increases in energy throughput, heightened global connectivity, and
Synchronous Failure: The Emerging Causal Architecture of Global Crisis Read More »
The authors argue that the world faces an increasing concatenation of crisis in time and space due to “the increased strength of global vs. local drivers of change, so that changes become increasingly synchronized”, and dense global connectivity, which enables crises to propagate and sometimes sees risk management efforts in one region to become crisis
Are we Entering an Era of Concatenated Global Crises? Read More »
