Category Archives: Polycrisis

Google AI: A polycrisis is a single situation where multiple, distinct global crises occur simultaneously and interact in ways that amplify each other, making the overall damage significantly worse than the sum of its individual parts. Instead of dealing with isolated, sequential emergencies, a polycrisis features intersecting networks of stress across economic, geopolitical, ecological, and technological systems.
Core Characteristics
Causal Entanglement: A crisis in one system (e.g., a geopolitical conflict) directly triggers or worsens a crisis in another system (e.g., energy prices and global food supply chains).
Feedback Loops: The compounding effects bounce back and forth between systems, creating highly volatile and unpredictable domino effects.
Systemic Overwhelm: Because the crises are deeply linked, they cannot be successfully resolved one at a time, frequently paralyzing traditional governance and risk-management strategies

Dust Bowls

Posted on November 16, 2021 by

Preface. As if there weren’t enough to worry about, more Great Dust Bowls may be on the way.  The irony is that some of it will likely be due to planting corn and soybeans to produce biofuels, yet another reason … Continue reading →

Posted in Biofuels, Drought & Collapse | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Dust Bowls

Reducing pesticides with crop diversity

Posted on October 29, 2021 by

Preface. Pesticides are the main cause of the insect apocalypse, which reverberates up the food chain, leading to loss of biodiversity and extinction. And pesticides are made out of oil, which probably peaked globally in 2018, and pesticides only last … Continue reading →

Posted in Biodiversity, Farming & Ranching, Pesticides | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Reducing pesticides with crop diversity

Coming Food Crises from Drought

Posted on October 26, 2021 by

Preface. As climate change heats the planet, and groundwater depletes from aquifers that won’t be recharged until after the next ice age, it’s clear that food crises from drought (and many other problems) will be upon us soon. As long … Continue reading →

Posted in Drought | Tagged , | Comments Off on Coming Food Crises from Drought

Water Theft

Posted on September 23, 2021 by

Preface. As fresh water supplies are depleted worldwide and water crises increase, water theft is becoming more common.  And damage to marine environments as well. It is estimated that between 30% and 50% of the global water supply is stolen … Continue reading →

Posted in Food production, Groundwater, Peak Water, Water Pollution | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Water Theft

Rex Weyler: Why is the political process so slow to respond to our ecological crisis?

Posted on September 21, 2021 by

Preface.  Rex Weyler is one of the co-founders of Greenpeace in Canada, a brilliant ecologist and journalist, and more. His blog is here: https://www.rexweyler.ca/greenpeace *** Rex Wyler. September 2021. Ecological crisis: Might as well speak the truth Why is the … Continue reading →

Posted in Experts, Overshoot | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Aquifer decline in California

Posted on September 17, 2021 by

Preface. On top of aquifer depletion, water shortages in California are also expected in the future as rainfall and snowfall decline and snow melts earlier. Over half of Americans rely on underground aquifers for drinking water (Glennon 2002). Seventy percent … Continue reading →

Posted in Groundwater, Peak Water | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Aquifer decline in California

Not enough fossil fuels left to trigger another mass extinction

Posted on September 11, 2021 by

Preface. Since both conventional and unconventional oil peaked in 2018, we clearly won’t be burning fossils at exponentially increasing rates until 2400 as the IPCC expected. Quite the opposite, currently the decline rate of oil is 8% a year, which … Continue reading →

Posted in But not from climate change: Peak Fossil Fuels, CO2 and Methane, Global Warming, Mass Extinction, Planetary Boundaries, Runaway Greenhouse | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Increased flooding

Posted on September 8, 2021 by

Preface. It’s not just sea level rise, but increased precipitation, sinking land, hurricanes, and dam failures that will cause more floods in the future. Dams will fail more often in extreme rain as at least half are older than their … Continue reading →

Posted in Extreme Weather, Floods | Tagged , | Comments Off on Increased flooding

Global Ice melting

Posted on September 5, 2021 by

Preface. As the Arctic ice melt accelerates due to climate change it could release more than 1 trillion pieces of plastic into the ocean over the next decade, possibly posing a major threat to marine life (Lewis 2014). The rate … Continue reading →

Posted in Biodiversity, Oceans, Sea Level Rise | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Global Ice melting

Soil salinity and erosion

Posted on September 2, 2021 by

Preface.  Civilizations fail when their soils are ruined or eroded.  One way conquerors made sure that those they enslaved during wars was to salt their land and burn their homes so they had nowhere to escape to. Erosion is an … Continue reading →

Posted in Peak Topsoil, Scientists Warnings to Humanity, Soil | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments