Alistair Benn argues that the polycrisis, with its overwhelming notion of multiple inter-related crises, is an illusory product of social media technologies that overload users with “shock after shock” and create a false impression of connections between the world’s problems. The solution to the polycrisis is thus to reduce exposure to social media and better […]
Polycrisis? What Polycrisis? Read More »
This edited volume argues that humanity has entered a fundamentally novel era of existential risk. These risks range from global-scale natural disasters (like volcanic super-eruptions) to anthropogenic environmental destabilization (like climate change and loss of biosphere integrity), and from calamities that spread rapidly around our highly networked planet (like viruses and cyber threats) to the
The Era of Global Risk: An Introduction to Existential Risk Studies Read More »
George Soros argues that there are three main sources of the polycrisis (in order of importance): artificial intelligence, climate change, and Russia’s war on Ukraine. AI poses a “mortal threat” to open societies via disinformation, and it provides closed societies new instruments of surveillance and control; climate change threatens to make large areas uninhabitable; but
Can Democracy Survive the Polycrisis? Read More »
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
The author defines megathreats as “severe problems that could cause vast damage and misery and cannot be solved quickly or easily” (p. 4). “We are facing megathreats unlike anything we have faced before… [and] they overlap and reinforce one another” (p. 5). Roubini explores ten megathreats: debt accumulation and debt traps; easy money and financial crises;
Megathreats: Ten Dangerous Trends that Imperil Our Future and How to Survive Them Read More »
Ian Bremmer argues that the world faces three major crises—pandemics, climate change, and disruptive technologies (AI, lethal autonomous weapons, cyberwarfare, and biotechnology)—but our ability to respond effectively is hampered by broken American politics and the worsening rivalry between the United States and China. The three crises, however, present an opportunity and the necessary impetus for
The Power of Crisis: How Three Threats – And Our Response – Will Change the World Read More »
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 »
