Are we entering an era of concatenated global crises

By D. Biggs, Reinette Biggs, Vasilis Dakos, R. Scholes, Michael Schoon. 2011

154 citations recorded by the source corpus.

An increase in the frequency and intensity of environmental crises associated with accelerating human-induced global change is of substantial concern to policy makers. The potential impacts, especially on the poor, are exacerbated in an increasingly connected world that enables the emergence of crises that are coupled in time and space. We discuss two factors that can interact to contribute to such an increased concatenation of crises: (1) the increasing strength of global vs. local drivers of change, so that changes become increasingly synchronized; and (2) unprecedented potential for the propagation of crises, and an enhanced risk of management interventions in one region becoming drivers elsewhere, because of increased connectivity. We discuss the oil-food-financial crisis of 2007 to 2008 as an example of a concatenated crisis with origin and ultimate impacts in far removed parts of the globe. The potential for a future of concatenated shocks requires adaptations in science and governance including (a) an increased tolerance of uncertainty and surprise, (b) strengthening capacity for early detection and response to shocks, and (c) flexibility in response to enable adaptation and learning.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Management Science and Operations Research, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ef634d7e791c9147f16092eb21d8839a65e96469

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In Global and Planetary Change

In Management Science and Operations Research

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

Citations in the corpus

A holistic view of marine regime shifts (2015, background): “In this new era of the Anthropocene [32], where human actions shape the biosphere not only locally but also globally [33], global social and ecological interconnections can propagate and cascade across countries and regions [34–36], shaping marine ecosystems and their resilience worldwide.”
Social-ecological resilience and biosphere-based sustainability science (2016, background): “…spread, and connectivity of human actions in the Anthropocene generate new dynamics that connect previously unconnected domains (Walker et al. 2009, Biggs et al. 2011, Homer-Dixon et al. 2015, Bai et al. 2016) and can result in cascading effects across countries and regions (Holling 1995, Adger et…”
Synchronous failure: the emerging causal architecture of global crisis (2015, background): “Perhaps more importantly, past crises appear to have been generally less intersystemic in their causes and consequences (Biggs et al. 2011).”
Resilience of local food systems and links to food security – A review of some important concepts in the context of COVID-19 and other shocks (2020, background): “2020), we also know that too much connectivity is likely to expose people to “concatenated shocks” (Biggs et al. 2011).”
Resilience and why it matters for farm management (2014, background): “Indeed, connectivity means that there is a higher risk of management responses in one system inadvertently precipitating undesirable change in far removed systems (Biggs et al., 2011).”