Interventions for Rapid Global Change
The Cascade Institute is a Canadian research center addressing the full range of humanity’s converging environmental, economic, political, technological, and health crises. Using advanced methods for mapping and modeling complex global systems, Institute researchers identify, and where possible help implement, high-leverage interventions that could rapidly shift humanity’s course towards fair and sustainable prosperity.
Review of Commanding Hope: The Power We Have to Renew a World in Peril, a new book by Thomas Homer-Dixon, Director of the Cascade Institute
BOOK REVIEW | There May Yet Be Hope: The future is not set in stone by Arno Kopecky for the Literary Review of Canada
However the pandemic unfolds, it’s time for oil use to peak—and society to prepare for the fallout
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists article by Yonatan Strauch, Angela Carter, and Thomas Homer-Dixon
ISC Project Briefs
Behind the mask: Anti-mask and pro-mask attitudes in North America
Scott Janzwood & Michelle Lee
September 15, 2020 • This Brief reviews the emerging scientific evidence on the effectiveness of masks for preventing the spread of COVID-19 and offers strategies for addressing persistent anti-scientific beliefs around masks, COVID-19 and other issues.
Shocking global inequality
Michael Lawrence
August 25, 2020 • This Brief examines how the COVID-19 pandemic is interacting with entrenched structural inequalities between the wealthiest and the most marginalized segments of humanity.
Active transportation with micro electric vehicles: Emergency COVID-19 responses and the disrupted future of oil
Yonatan Strauch
June 30, 2020 • This Brief reports on the dramatic changes to urban transportation systems in the United States and Canada during the pandemic.Technical Papers
Max – a thought experiment: Could AI run the economy better than markets?
Edward A. (Ted) Parson
October 29, 2020 • This paper explores how recent advances in AI have re-opened questions around the feasibility and desirability of central economic planning. It presents a thought experiment about how an AI-directed economy might work, based on a powerful AI agent (whimsically named “Max”).
