Resilience & Recovery
How resilient is human civilization to global catastrophes? And if civilization collapses, would survivors recover? These questions are deeply important to the study of global catastrophic risk and can guide policy to mitigate the consequences.
An Introduction to Resilience & Recovery
Risk is generally quantified as the probability of some harmful event occurring multiplied by the severity of the consequences if it occurs. The global catastrophic risks are defined by their extreme global severity, but work on these risks often concentrates on the probability. To an extent, this is understandable: ideally, society would prevent global catastrophes from occurring in the first place, or at least reduce the probability, and furthermore, the severity of global catastrophes is a dark topic that can be unpleasant to even think about.
Resilience and recovery are two components of the severity of global catastrophes. First, as a catastrophe plays out, a crucial question is the resilience of human civilization to global catastrophes. How severe does a catastrophe need to be before civilization collapses? Second, if civilization does collapse, another crucial question is how successfully the survivors would recover. Would they go on to rebuild civilization, or remain in a diminished state, or die out?
Both of these questions are among the most important across the entire study of global catastrophic risk. Together, they largely determine the ultimate severity of global catastrophes, which is essential for assessing how large the risks are and likewise how to prioritize efforts to address them. Alarmingly, however, neither question has been studied in any substantial depth. GCRI has contributed some research, as have some other groups, but overall this remains a very understudied set of topics.
The study of resilience and recovery is of further value by highlighting opportunities to reduce the severity. Potential measures to increase the resilience of global civilization could include hardening critical infrastructure to withstand extreme catastrophes, adding redundancy to global supply chain networks, and including global catastrophe within plans for continuity of government and operations. Importantly, these measures can have some overlap with measures to protect against less severe catastrophes, including those handled via catastrophe insurance and other for-profit sectors. Pursuing these synergies is a promising direction for global catastrophic risk reduction.
Measures to support post-catastrophe recovery of civilization can include stockpiling food and other resources to aid survivors, building refuges to ensure some people survive the initial event, and developing techniques and technologies that could be of particular use to survivors. Preparedness for the aftermath of global catastrophe is an especially grim domain. Discussions of nuclear war sometimes posit that “the survivors will envy the dead”. This may apply to all of the global catastrophe scenarios that leave some survivors. Furthermore, the preparedness cannot always dovetail on preparedness for less extreme catastrophe scenarios—some measures are specific to global catastrophe. However, this could be the difference between the long-term success or failure of human civilization, so it is an important domain to address.
In addition to being emotionally difficult, resilience and recovery are also difficult to study for intellectual reasons. Both involve extreme complexities related to the character of global civilization and the conduct of human survivors under post-catastrophe conditions. Both also face a fundamental lack of data: global civilization has never previously collapsed. Despite these challenges, resilience and recovery are very important topics to study and address.
Image credits: earthquake rubble: Voice of America; graph: Seth Baum; bunker: Dietmar Rabich
Featured GCRI Publications on Resilience & Recovery
Asteroid collision is probably the most well-understood global catastrophic risk. However, this paper, published in the journal Natural Hazards, shows that it’s not so well understood after all, due to uncertainty in the human consequences. If asteroid risk is poorly understood, then so are other global catastrophic risks.
What will be the fate of human civilization millions, billions, or trillions of years into the future? This paper, written by an international group of 14 scholars and published in the journal Foresight, studies several possible long-term trajectories of human civilization, including the radically good and catastrophically bad.
If humanity could survive major global food supply disruptions, it would be much less vulnerable to global catastrophe. This paper, published in the journal Environment Systems and Decisions, studies options to improve global food resilience, covering food stockpiles, agriculture, and alternative foods produced without sunlight.
Full List of GCRI Publications on Resilience & Recovery
Vilhelmsson, Andreas and Seth D. Baum, 2023. Public health and nuclear winter: Addressing a catastrophic threat. Journal of Public Health Policy, vol. 44, no. 3 (September), pages 360-369, DOI 10.1057/s41271-023-00416-7.
Baum, Seth D., 2023. Assessing natural global catastrophic risks. Natural Hazards, vol. 115, no. 3 (February), pages 2699-2719, DOI 10.1007/s11069-022-05660-w.
Baum, Seth D. and Vanessa M. Adams, 2022. Pandemic refuges: Lessons from two years of COVID-19. Risk Analysis, vol. 43, no. 5 (May), pages 875-883, DOI 10.1111/risa.13953.
Galaz, Victor, Miguel A. Centeno, Peter W. Callahan, Amar Causevic, Thayer Patterson, Irina Brass, Seth Baum, Darryl Farber, Joern Fischer, David Garcia, Timon McPhearson, Daniel Jimenez, Brian King, Paul Larcey, and Karen Levy, 2021. Artificial intelligence, systemic risks, and sustainability. Technology in Society, vol. 67 (November), article 101741, DOI 10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101741.
Brown, Jared, 2020. The Defense Production Act and the failure to prepare for catastrophic incidents. War on the Rocks, 14 April.
Baum, Seth D., 2019. Why catastrophes can change the course of humanity. BBC Future, 8 April.
Baum, Seth D., 2018. Resilience to global catastrophe. In Benjamin D. Trump, Marie-Valentine Florin, and Igor Linkov (editors), IRGC Resource Guide on Resilience (Vol. 2): Domains of Resilience for Complex Interconnected Systems. Lausanne: EPFL International Risk Governance Center. Available at https://irgc.epfl.ch/risk-governance/projects-resilience.
Baum, Seth D., 2018. Uncertain human consequences in asteroid risk analysis and the global catastrophe threshold. Natural Hazards, vol. 94, no. 2 (November), pages 759-775, DOI 10.1007/s11069-018-3419-4.
Baum, Seth D., Stuart Armstrong, Timoteus Ekenstedt, Olle Häggström, Robin Hanson, Karin Kuhlemann, Matthijs M. Maas, James D. Miller, Markus Salmela, Anders Sandberg, Kaj Sotala, Phil Torres, Alexey Turchin, and Roman V. Yampolskiy, 2019. Long-term trajectories of human civilization. Foresight, vol. 21, no. 1, pages 53-83, DOI 10.1108/FS-04-2018-0037.
Baum, Seth D. and Anthony M. Barrett, 2018. A model for the impacts of nuclear war. Global Catastrophic Risk Institute Working Paper 18-2.
Baum, Seth D., David C. Denkenberger, and Joshua M. Pearce, 2016. Alternative foods as a solution to global food supply catastrophes. Solutions, vol. 7, no. 4, pages 31-35.
Baum, Seth D., David C. Denkenberger, and Jacob Haqq-Misra, 2015. Isolated refuges for surviving global catastrophes. Futures, vol. 72 (September), pages 45-56, DOI 10.1016/j.futures.2015.03.009.
Baum, Seth D., David C. Denkenberger, Joshua M. Pearce, Alan Robock, and Richelle Winkler, 2015. Resilience to global food supply catastrophes. Environment Systems and Decisions, vol. 35, no. 2 (June), pages 301-313, DOI 10.1007/s10669-015-9549-2.
Baum, Seth D., 2015. Risk and resilience for unknown, unquantifiable, systemic, and unlikely/catastrophic threats. Environment Systems and Decisions, vol. 35, no. 2 (June), pages 229-236, DOI 10.1007/s10669-015-9551-8.
Baum, Seth D., 2014. Film review: Snowpiercer. Journal of Sustainability Education, vol. 7, December issue (online).
Baum, Seth D. and Itsuki C. Handoh, 2014. Integrating the planetary boundaries and global catastrophic risk paradigms. Ecological Economics, vol. 107 (November), pages 13-21, DOI 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.07.024.
de Neufville, Robert, 2013. The sixth extinction – Book review: Scatter, Adapt, and Remember. Anthropocene blog, 27 May.
Maher, Timothy M. Jr. and Seth D. Baum, 2013. Adaptation to and recovery from global catastrophe. Sustainability, vol. 5, no. 4 (April), pages 1461-1479, DOI 10.3390/su5041461.
Baum, Seth D., Timothy M. Maher, Jr., and Jacob Haqq-Misra, 2013. Double catastrophe: Intermittent stratospheric geoengineering induced by societal collapse. Environment Systems and Decisions, vol. 33, no. 1 (March), pages 168-180, DOI 10.1007/s10669-012-9429-y.
Baum, Seth, 2012. Hurricane Sandy hints at the perils of global catastrophe. Scientific American Blogs, 6 November.
Baum, Seth, 2012. Global disaster recovery. FutureChallenges, 17 April.
An Introduction to Resilience & Recovery
Risk is generally quantified as the probability of some harmful event occurring multiplied by the severity of the consequences if it occurs. The global catastrophic risks are defined by their extreme global severity, but work on these risks often concentrates on the probability. To an extent, this is understandable: ideally, society would prevent global catastrophes from occurring in the first place, or at least reduce the probability, and furthermore, the severity of global catastrophes is a dark topic that can be unpleasant to even think about.
Resilience and recovery are two components of the severity of global catastrophes. First, as a catastrophe plays out, a crucial question is the resilience of human civilization to global catastrophes. How severe does a catastrophe need to be before civilization collapses? Second, if civilization does collapse, another crucial question is how successfully the survivors would recover. Would they go on to rebuild civilization, or remain in a diminished state, or die out?
Both of these questions are among the most important across the entire study of global catastrophic risk. Together, they largely determine the ultimate severity of global catastrophes, which is essential for assessing how large the risks are and likewise how to prioritize efforts to address them. Alarmingly, however, neither question has been studied in any substantial depth. GCRI has contributed some research, as have some other groups, but overall this remains a very understudied set of topics.
The study of resilience and recovery is of further value by highlighting opportunities to reduce the severity. Potential measures to increase the resilience of global civilization could include hardening critical infrastructure to withstand extreme catastrophes, adding redundancy to global supply chain networks, and including global catastrophe within plans for continuity of government and operations. Importantly, these measures can have some overlap with measures to protect against less severe catastrophes, including those handled via catastrophe insurance and other for-profit sectors. Pursuing these synergies is a promising direction for global catastrophic risk reduction.
Measures to support post-catastrophe recovery of civilization can include stockpiling food and other resources to aid survivors, building refuges to ensure some people survive the initial event, and developing techniques and technologies that could be of particular use to survivors. Preparedness for the aftermath of global catastrophe is an especially grim domain. Discussions of nuclear war sometimes posit that “the survivors will envy the dead”. This may apply to all of the global catastrophe scenarios that leave some survivors. Furthermore, the preparedness cannot always dovetail on preparedness for less extreme catastrophe scenarios—some measures are specific to global catastrophe. However, this could be the difference between the long-term success or failure of human civilization, so it is an important domain to address.
In addition to being emotionally difficult, resilience and recovery are also difficult to study for intellectual reasons. Both involve extreme complexities related to the character of global civilization and the conduct of human survivors under post-catastrophe conditions. Both also face a fundamental lack of data: global civilization has never previously collapsed. Despite these challenges, resilience and recovery are very important topics to study and address.
Featured GCRI Publications on Resilience & Recovery
Asteroid collision is probably the most well-understood global catastrophic risk. However, this paper, published in the journal Natural Hazards, shows that it’s not so well understood after all, due to uncertainty in the human consequences. If asteroid risk is poorly understood, then so are other global catastrophic risks.
What will be the fate of human civilization millions, billions, or trillions of years into the future? This paper, written by an international group of 14 scholars and published in the journal Foresight, studies several possible long-term trajectories of human civilization, including the radically good and catastrophically bad.
If humanity could survive major global food supply disruptions, it would be much less vulnerable to global catastrophe. This paper, published in the journal Environment Systems and Decisions, studies options to improve global food resilience, covering food stockpiles, agriculture, and alternative foods produced without sunlight.
Full List of GCRI Publications on Resilience & Recovery
Vilhelmsson, Andreas and Seth D. Baum, 2023. Public health and nuclear winter: Addressing a catastrophic threat. Journal of Public Health Policy, vol. 44, no. 3 (September), pages 360-369, DOI 10.1057/s41271-023-00416-7.
Baum, Seth D., 2023. Assessing natural global catastrophic risks. Natural Hazards, vol. 115, no. 3 (February), pages 2699-2719, DOI 10.1007/s11069-022-05660-w.
Baum, Seth D. and Vanessa M. Adams, 2022. Pandemic refuges: Lessons from two years of COVID-19. Risk Analysis, vol. 43, no. 5 (May), pages 875-883, DOI 10.1111/risa.13953.
Galaz, Victor, Miguel A. Centeno, Peter W. Callahan, Amar Causevic, Thayer Patterson, Irina Brass, Seth Baum, Darryl Farber, Joern Fischer, David Garcia, Timon McPhearson, Daniel Jimenez, Brian King, Paul Larcey, and Karen Levy, 2021. Artificial intelligence, systemic risks, and sustainability. Technology in Society, vol. 67 (November), article 101741, DOI 10.1016/j.techsoc.2021.101741.
Brown, Jared, 2020. The Defense Production Act and the failure to prepare for catastrophic incidents. War on the Rocks, 14 April.
Baum, Seth D., 2019. Why catastrophes can change the course of humanity. BBC Future, 8 April.
Baum, Seth D., 2018. Resilience to global catastrophe. In Benjamin D. Trump, Marie-Valentine Florin, and Igor Linkov (editors), IRGC Resource Guide on Resilience (Vol. 2): Domains of Resilience for Complex Interconnected Systems. Lausanne: EPFL International Risk Governance Center. Available at https://irgc.epfl.ch/risk-governance/projects-resilience.
Baum, Seth D., 2018. Uncertain human consequences in asteroid risk analysis and the global catastrophe threshold. Natural Hazards, vol. 94, no. 2 (November), pages 759-775, DOI 10.1007/s11069-018-3419-4.
Baum, Seth D., Stuart Armstrong, Timoteus Ekenstedt, Olle Häggström, Robin Hanson, Karin Kuhlemann, Matthijs M. Maas, James D. Miller, Markus Salmela, Anders Sandberg, Kaj Sotala, Phil Torres, Alexey Turchin, and Roman V. Yampolskiy, 2019. Long-term trajectories of human civilization. Foresight, vol. 21, no. 1, pages 53-83, DOI 10.1108/FS-04-2018-0037.
Baum, Seth D. and Anthony M. Barrett, 2018. A model for the impacts of nuclear war. Global Catastrophic Risk Institute Working Paper 18-2.
Baum, Seth D., David C. Denkenberger, and Joshua M. Pearce, 2016. Alternative foods as a solution to global food supply catastrophes. Solutions, vol. 7, no. 4, pages 31-35.
Baum, Seth D., David C. Denkenberger, and Jacob Haqq-Misra, 2015. Isolated refuges for surviving global catastrophes. Futures, vol. 72 (September), pages 45-56, DOI 10.1016/j.futures.2015.03.009.
Baum, Seth D., David C. Denkenberger, Joshua M. Pearce, Alan Robock, and Richelle Winkler, 2015. Resilience to global food supply catastrophes. Environment Systems and Decisions, vol. 35, no. 2 (June), pages 301-313, DOI 10.1007/s10669-015-9549-2.
Baum, Seth D., 2015. Risk and resilience for unknown, unquantifiable, systemic, and unlikely/catastrophic threats. Environment Systems and Decisions, vol. 35, no. 2 (June), pages 229-236, DOI 10.1007/s10669-015-9551-8.
Baum, Seth D., 2014. Film review: Snowpiercer. Journal of Sustainability Education, vol. 7, December issue (online).
Baum, Seth D. and Itsuki C. Handoh, 2014. Integrating the planetary boundaries and global catastrophic risk paradigms. Ecological Economics, vol. 107 (November), pages 13-21, DOI 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.07.024.
de Neufville, Robert, 2013. The sixth extinction – Book review: Scatter, Adapt, and Remember. Anthropocene blog, 27 May.
Maher, Timothy M. Jr. and Seth D. Baum, 2013. Adaptation to and recovery from global catastrophe. Sustainability, vol. 5, no. 4 (April), pages 1461-1479, DOI 10.3390/su5041461.
Baum, Seth D., Timothy M. Maher, Jr., and Jacob Haqq-Misra, 2013. Double catastrophe: Intermittent stratospheric geoengineering induced by societal collapse. Environment Systems and Decisions, vol. 33, no. 1 (March), pages 168-180, DOI 10.1007/s10669-012-9429-y.
Baum, Seth, 2012. Hurricane Sandy hints at the perils of global catastrophe. Scientific American Blogs, 6 November.
Baum, Seth, 2012. Global disaster recovery. FutureChallenges, 17 April.