Navigating the Polycrisis

An innovative work of realism and utopianism that analyzes the possible futures of the world-system and helps us imagine how we might transition beyond capitalism.

The world-system of which we are all a part faces multiple calamities: climate change and mass extinction, the economic and existential threat of AI, the chilling rise of far-right populism, and the invasion of Ukraine, to name only a few. In Navigating the Polycrisis, Michael Albert seeks to illuminate how the “planetary polycrisis” will disrupt the global community in the coming decades and how we can best meet these challenges. Albert argues that we must devote more attention to the study of possible futures and adopt transdisciplinary approaches to do so. To provide a new form of critical futures analysis, he offers a theoretical framework—planetary systems thinking—that is informed by complexity theory, world-systems theory, and ecological Marxism.

Navigating the Polycrisis builds on existing work on climate futures and the futures of capitalism and makes three main contributions. First, the book brings together modeling projections with critical social theory in a more systematic way than has been done so far. Second, the book shows that in order to grasp the complexity of the planetary polycrisis, we must analyze the convergence of crises encompassing the climate emergency, the structural crisis of global capitalism, net energy decline, food system disruption, pandemic risk, far-right populism, and emerging technological risks (e.g. in the domains of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and nuclear weapons). And third, the book contributes to existing work on postcapitalist futures by analyzing the processes and mechanisms through which egalitarian transitions beyond capitalism might occur.

A much-needed work of global futures studies, Navigating the Polycrisis brings together the rigor of the natural and social sciences and speculative imagination informed by science fiction to forge pathways to our possible global future.Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS xi
INTRODUCTION 1
1 THE PLANETARY POLYCRISIS 17
2 VISIONING AND SHAPING THE FUTURE: MODELS, SCENARIOS, AND CRITICAL SOCIAL SCIENCE FUTURES 63
3 PLANETARY SYSTEMS THINKING 87
4 THE SOCIOECOLOGICAL PROBLEMATIC: CLIMATE, ENERGY, FOOD, AND THE FUTURES OF CAPITALISM 113
5 FUTURES OF GEOPOLITICS, SECURITY, AND THE PLANETARY PROBLEMATIC 177
CONCLUSION 225
NOTES 243
INDEX 291“Navigating the Polycrisis's discussions of our planetary system and its likely trajectories are as rich as most Masters degree curricula, but the action-oriented framework it uses to do so elevates it to an instant classic of the polycrisis canon.”
—Resilience“Combining rich theorization with action-oriented analysis, Albert’s book not only provides a guide to the bewildering complexity of our contemporary challenges of geopolitical competition, technological change, and the climate crisis, but offers a strategic intervention for producing livable futures.”
—Matthew Paterson, Professor of International Politics and Director, Sustainable Consumption Institute, University of Manchester


“Navigating the Polycrisis is a must-read for all those concerned with the multiple crises humanity faces. The book masterfully combines and synthesizes multiple disciplinary literatures to diagnose the challenges we face and offers thoughtful and persuasive analysis that will stir readers to practical action and debate.”
—Tim DiMuzio, Associate Professor of International Relations and Political Economy, University of Wollongong
 
 
“There is a widespread, dim sense of dread stalking our world today. But hardly any serious in-depth analysis of how our deepening multidimensional predicament is likely to play out in coming decades. It is as if even intelligent and well-intentioned people don’t want to think it, to face it. This dearth is largely true even where it obviously shouldn’t be: in ‘social science,’ and in philosophy. Into this near-vacuum, Michael Albert has taken a big and necessary step. This book is an impressive, serious, academically respectable analysis of what is indeed a polycrisis. If there is to be a butterfly future for humanity (emerging from our current caterpillar-like state), and/or if we are somehow to rise like a phoenix from the ashes of the beautiful world we are at present willfully burning, it will be partly because we have dared to look deeply into the trench opening up before us, and looked in detail, as Albert has done, at possible routes through it. If we are to have any chance of a ‘thrutopian’ future, then, it will be because of books like this one.  And as yet, there really aren’t any other books like this one. So, read it.”
—Rupert Read, Emeritus Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of East Anglia; Co-Director, Climate Majority Project; coauthor of This Civilisation is Finished

“Navigating the Polycrisis offers a rare treasure: a grounded, fact-based, systems-oriented exploration of the various pathways that might result from the turbulent forces swirling around us. Albert leaves us with the profound realization that no pathway is inevitable, and that our own transformative agency will ultimately play a meaningful role in steering humanity’s future. This is an important handbook for anyone trying to find their way through the daunting labyrinth of this critical period in the human story.”
—Jeremy Lent, author of The Patterning Instinct and The Web of Meaning

Michael J. Albert is Lecturer in Global Environmental Politics at the University of Edinburgh.