When a great number of factors congeal and the future of a complex system is dependent on a multiplicity of actors, there is never only one possible future. We need to take account of a plethora of changes that intermesh – from demographics to the possibility of sustained major migratory movements (associated with security, war, and conflict and destined in future to be increasingly caused by the fall-out effects of climate change) and globalization (which exacerbates still further the rapid spatial shifting through digitization and automation). Other factors in the global context are security /data security as a possible disruptor…
There are socioeconomic and socioecological systems that are changing quickly. Human-caused environmental changes can materialize very rapidly, or abruptly, typically at rates much faster than sustained natural changes of the past. In the Anthropocene biosphere, systems of people and nature are not just linked but intertwined and intertwined across temporal and spatial scales. Local events can escalate into global challenges, and local places are shaped by global dynamics. The tightly coupled human interactions of globalization that allow for the continued flow of information, capital, goods, services, and people, also create global systemic risk. However, this interplay is not only global…
The Club of Rome concluded in Limits to Growth (1972) that if humanity kept pursuing economic growth without regard for environmental and social costs, global society would experience a sharp decline (i.e., collapse) in economic, social, and environmental conditions within the twenty-first century. The message was clear: continuous growth in industrial output cannot be sustained indefinitely. Effectively, humanity can either choose its own limit or at some point reach an imposed limit, at which time a decline in human welfare will have become unavoidable. An often missed, but key point is the plural of limits. In an interconnected system like…
Caught in the grip of ecological, social, political, and economic risks and conflicts, the world hovers between optimism and pessimism. The Renaissance, coming a thousand years after the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, reestablished science on a stronger basis than before, and technological advancement has continued on an accelerating path since then. The hallmark of the Renaissance was its holistic quality, as all fields of art, engineering, science, and culture shared the same exciting spirit and many of the same intellectual principles. However, as the centuries passed, the holism of the Renaissance gave way to specialization and intellectual…
