Polycrisis

So...

Polycrisis.

And my intent in naming these things is not to say that we need to just sit here in this space and soak in crisis, right? Because that is not a viable or sustainable practice.

But it is important to be honest, perhaps brutally so, about where we stand and what we are reckoning with if we ever hope to create a more just and sustainable future.

Yeah.

Polycrisis, I'm familiar with their work and also more broadly within the field of systemic risk, which is taking a systems perspective at looking at risk.

And this is not just unique to the global catastrophic risks.

It's a perspective that can be used for pretty much any type of risk where It has these sorts of systemic interactions between different components or even systems, multiple systems that interact with each other in various ways.

So a lot of focus on what can you do at a micro scale in communities to to deal with these issues and not just externalise all the costs to the community that the companies and individuals involved have to actually take responsibility for the environmental degradation and the long-term impacts of some of these developments.

Polycrisis sounds like a bit of a gloomy term to be sort of confronting over breakfast.

What gave you any kind of optimism about solutions?

Well, you know, sort of what I came away with, you know, we're journalists, guys, and we're paid to look at the big picture and try and make sense of the macro issues.

and then another adjustment is required.

So Coughlin calls this the stacking problem, and he clarifies why the stacking problem is different from what's called polycrisis.

Polycrisis is the idea that multiple crises interact across economic, political, environmental, and social systems in ways that reinforce each other and create systemic instability.

The stacking problem begins somewhere different.

Polycrisis is a theory of systems that explains how crises interact across societies.

But the stacking problem is a theory of that, what we said before, lived experience, explaining the cumulative demand those crises place on people navigating longer lives.

Financial planning has traditionally focused on financial longevity risk.

The term was coined in 1992, I think it is, with Terre Patrie that I translated as Homeland Earth in 1999.

And on the one hand, I mean, the Pali side was there from the beginning.

So the multiplicity, he was always...

So the poly is a kind of first pass at complexity.

There's a, you know, a psycho-spiritual crisis.

There's multiple crises, and they are all interfering, reinforcing, and amplifying each other, and they're related to each other in very complex ways.

So, and he says that, you know, in order to deal most effectively with this Pali crisis, We need a meta point of view.

We need a meta point of view on the poly crisis.

I'll give you a sense of what I mean when I say polycrisis.

So the concept of polycrisis, it's language used by the World Economic Forum and the United Nations.

Polycrisis is this idea that there are multiple existential threats emerging at the same time.

And so we've got all of these various actions that are looking to to overthrow the existing order or that's going to stress the existing order so here's here's just the here's the uh i'll read the write-up for the one that you and i attended george communities nation states and transnational institutions face rising demands to respond to a wide array of crisis and disasters whether floods drought earthquakes or disruptions linked to violent conflicts The demands include prevention, preparation, response and recovery, and in virtually every instance religious communities and institutions are involved, often as those who respond first and remain long after international attention moves to the next crisis.

Yet their roles are rarely recognized as primary actors at the table where decisions are made on policy planning and resource allocation.

This is the polycrisis.world service for October 19th, 2026.

A quick note.

This briefing is AI-generated, drawing on real sources monitored by polycrisis.world.

The events are real.

Here is the world.

This is the Polycrisis.world service for October 15th, 2026.

A quick note: this briefing is AI-generated, drawing on real sources monitored by Polycrisis.world.

The events are real.

Here is the world.

Netanyahu's framing of Iranian regime change as an Israeli security prerequisite is a material shift in public posture, one that complicates any path toward the diplomatic settlement that Washington and European capitals continue to discuss.

The watch point, whether the US publicly distances itself from that framing or allows it to stand as a de facto statement of shared allied objectives.

Full analysis and interactive maps at Polycrisis.world.

This has been the Polycrisis.world service, the crises that matter, the context you need.

This is the polycrisis.world service for October 14th, 2026.

A quick note: this briefing is AI-generated, drawing on real sources monitored by polycrisis.world.

The events are real.

Here is the world.

The incident highlights that the institutions now central to Western defense planning and diplomatic intelligence face not only external espionage pressure but internal security failures.

Watch whether the UK parliamentary hearing produces binding legislative proposals and whether the FBI arrest accelerates calls for security clearance frameworks at frontier AI laboratories.

Full analysis and interactive maps at polycrisis.world.

This has been the polycrisis.world service, the crises that matter, the context you need.