The Cascade Institute has launched a new website, Polycrisis.org, to serve as a hub for a more inclusive polycrisis community to converge around a rough consensus on priorities for research and action.
Royal Roads President Philip Steenkamp speaks with the Cascade Institute’s Research Director, Scott Janzwood, who says we need to overcome our fixation on wildfire triggers, like lightning or irresponsible campers. Instead, he stresses the importance of looking at the underlying reasons for the increased frequency and intensity we’re seeing across the country.
A trigger event can’t start a crisis by itself; some underlying stress or stresses must also be operating. Our leaders should pay far more attention to these stresses, because they’re ultimately far more important.
Times Colonist article by Thomas Homer-Dixon — We need to ensure that our hope is “honest” — that it’s grounded, not in avoidance and denial, but in the best scientific understanding of the polycrisis.
Globe and Mail article by Thomas Homer-Dixon, Michael Lawrence, and Scott Janzwood — The backlash against the “polycrisis” neologism is well under way. But the polycrisis idea can motivate urgent scientific investigation into the architecture of global crisis interaction.
The Conversation article by Michael Lawrence — The debate around polycrisis is largely a question of whether we really understand the mess we’re in.
VIDEO — President of Royal Roads University Dr. Philip Steenkamp speaks with Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon about the global polycrisis and what we can do to turn a cascade of crises into a “virtuous cascade” of success.
VIDEO by Thomas Homer-Dixon — In his closing keynote at The Globe and Mail’s Future of Canada Series, Thomas Homer-Dixon calls for a National Dialogue on Canada’s Futures to help Canada face the emerging global polycrisis.
New York Times article by Thomas Homer-Dixon and Johan Rockström — Today’s mess is best understood as a global polycrisis—a term which implies that humanity is dealing with a complex knot of seemingly distinct but actually deeply entangled crises.
Distrust of new technology runs deep in the climate movement. But we don’t have the critical green technologies we need to get us to net-zero by 2050 — and assuming we do is wishful thinking.
