One of the most important questions in the study of global catastrophic risk is how resilient global human civilization is to catastrophes. At stake here is what range of events could cause global catastrophe, and likewise how wide the scope of work on global catastrophic risk should be. A resilient civilization would only fall to a narrow range of catastrophes, and our focus could be correspondingly narrow. This short paper summarizes the state of knowledge on resilience to global catastrophe for the dual academic-policy audience of the International Risk Governance Center (IRGC). The paper was written by invitation from the IRGC for volume 2 of their Resource Guide on Resilience.
One focus of the paper is on the roles of the resilience and risk paradigms in understanding and addressing global catastrophic risk. Whereas the risk paradigm emphasizes the probabilities and severities of potential global catastrophes, the resilience paradigm emphasizes the capacity of civilization to endure global catastrophes and avoid collapse. Most work on global catastrophic risk has used the risk paradigm or similar paradigms, though the resilience paradigm has much to offer. For example, increasing the resilience of civilization may be an effective approach to reducing a range of global catastrophic risks. The paper illustrates this with a discussion of the resilience of civilization to shocks to the global food supply.
The IRGC is a convener of dialog between academic and policy communities about important international risks, with emphasis on emerging and systemic risks. It is based at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. I know the IRGC via my involvement in the professional risk analysis community, in particular the Society for Risk Analysis. Many distinguished people from the risk community are involved in IRGC. I am likewise honored for the opportunity to discuss global catastrophic risk in their Resource Guide on Resilience, which hopefully will improve the attention to global catastrophic risk among the IRGC’s important audiences.
This paper is part of an ongoing effort by the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute to apply resilience thinking to the study of global catastrophic risk. The paper discusses several of our prior papers, including Risk and resilience for unknown, unquantifiable, systemic, and unlikely/catastrophic threats, Integrating the planetary boundaries and global catastrophic risk paradigms, Adaptation to and recovery from global catastrophe, Resilience to global food supply catastrophes, and Long-term trajectories of human civilization.
Academic citation:
Seth D. Baum, 2018. Resilience to global catastrophe. In Benjamin D. Trump, Marie-Valentine Florin, and Igor Linkov (Eds.), IRGC Resource Guide on Resilience (Vol. 2): Domains of Resilience for Complex Interconnected Systems. Lausanne, CH: EPFL International Risk Governance Center.
Image credit: Hamed Jafarnejad, Tasnim News Agency
