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

Exponential growth examples

Posted on May 30, 2014 by

Monbiot, George. 27 May 2014. It’s simple. If we can’t change our economic system, our number’s up It’s the great taboo of our age – and the inability to discuss the pursuit of perpetual growth will prove humanity’s undoing. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Exponential Growth, Limits To Growth | 2 Comments

The end of insurance: Ports and Hurricanes, Storm Surges, & Rising Sea Levels

Posted on May 17, 2014 by

  The world is about to be shaken by many storms besides cyclones and hurricanes — declining energy & natural resources and the social unrest generated by ever larger numbers of the 7+ billion people getting poorer and hungrier. Since … Continue reading →

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External costs of coal: probably over $500 billion per year in USA

Posted on May 4, 2014 by

Paul R. Epstein, et al. 2011. Full cost accounting for the life cycle of coal in “Ecological Economics Reviews.” Robert Costanza, Karin Limburg & Ida Kubiszewski, Eds. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1219: 73–98. This paper tabulates a wide range of … Continue reading →

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How to survive the coming century

Posted on April 13, 2014 by

Excerpts from 25 Feb 2009  How to survive the coming century http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126971.700-how-to-survive-the-coming-century.html?full=true All of the world’s major deserts are predicted to expand, with the Sahara reaching right into central Europe. Glacial retreat will dry Europe’s rivers from the Danube to … Continue reading →

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Biomass Electricity More Polluting Than Coal and Waste Incinerators

Posted on April 5, 2014 by

Trees, Trash, and Toxics: How Biomass Energy Has Become the New Coal Mary S. Booth, PhD Partnership for Policy Integrity April 2 , 2014 Executive Summary Highlights Because of a perfect storm of lax regulation and regulatory rollbacks , biomass … Continue reading →

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Science editor-in-chief Marcia McNutt : Climate Change + other ecosystem damage = extinction

Posted on March 25, 2014 by

Climate Change Impacts Marcia McNutt is Editor-in-Chief of Science. 2 August 2013. Science: Vol. 341 no. 6145 p. 435 We are not just experiencing increases in greenhouse gas emissions but also eutrophication, pollution of the air and water, massive land … Continue reading →

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James Hansen : Sea level could rise in decades, not centuries or millenia

Posted on March 23, 2014 by

James Hansen explains how sea level could rise in decades, not centuries or millenia At the bottom is a more recent article that backs Hansen up. Below are excerpts from:  Climate change and trace gases. James Hansen, Makiko Sato, et … Continue reading →

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If Greenland Ice Sheets melt, sea level will rise 23 feet

Posted on March 23, 2014 by

Greenland Ice Sheet Destabilizing, Threatening Greater Sea-Level Rise March 2014   (James Hansen makes the case that sea level could rise over decades) [My comment: 90% of global trade (much of it food and oil) is carried by container ships and … Continue reading →

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Lessons From the Little Ice Age

Posted on March 23, 2014 by

Lessons From the Little Ice Age Geoffrey Parker, March 22, 2014, New York Times Climatologists call it the Little Ice Age; historians, the General Crisis. During the 17th century, longer winters and cooler summers disrupted growing seasons and destroyed harvests … Continue reading →

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Without a Trace ‘The Sixth Extinction,’ by Elizabeth Kolbert

Posted on March 21, 2014 by

Review by Al Gore Feb 10, 2014. New York Times. Over the past decade, Elizabeth Kolbert has established herself as one of our very best science writers. She has developed a distinctive and eloquent voice of conscience on issues arising … Continue reading →

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