Essays & Reviews

The Security and Sustainability Guide

This section consists of written contributions by members of the SSG team. We have covered a range of topics; highlighting issues that desire more attention, and drawing inspiration from the work and publications of the organizations that are listed in the SSG.

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Unprecedentedness

SSG Newslitter – February 2024

February 21, 2024
The third Newslitter, slated for 2023's summer, was to focus on AI's global uproar. However, due to many large language models, a new theme was required. A New York Times article inspired a focus on "...

Polycrisis

Report on Recent Reports #6, Winter 2023-2024

January 20, 2024
The COP28 agreement pushed for a transition from fossil fuels to achieve net zero by 2050, but compromises left many provisions ambiguous. This review analyzes those shortcomings including 14 foresigh...

Report on Recent Reports #5, Spring 2023

June 12, 2023
World of Woes—and Proposed Global Remedies         The Alliance of World Scientists warns of “code red” on the planet and an unequivocal climate emergency (5:1)....

SSG Newslitter – February 2023

February 28, 2023
Welcome to SSG February NewsLitter, written by a news-wonk who is ever less certain about what he knows…let alone all he can not. December intentions for this second offering were to look at nuclear f...

Report on Recent Reports #4, Winter 2022-2023

February 13, 2023
Polycrisis: Probable; Remedies: Possible                A wide variety of organizations and individuals have recently warned of mu...

SSG Newslitter – December 2022

January 11, 2023
Welcome to the FIRST monthly SSG newslitter from the Security Principal. Yes ‘newslitter’. So much is happening, and at such pace, that the news each day is akin to wind-blown litter. And so much is s...

Working together, Interoperability, Cooperation

Interoperability Creates Hope

January 10, 2023
The past is beating the dickens out of future Dr. Michael E. Mann made a fundamental contribution to the "Observed Climate Variability and Change" chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Cha...

Report on Recent Reports #3, Fall 2022

October 25, 2022
INTRODUCTION: Multiple Crises, Multiple Solutions.  The UNDP’s latest Human Development Report (3.1) provides thorough discussion of multiple crises and “the new uncertainty complex,” as well as fresh...

Report on Recent Reports – #2, Summer 2022

August 24, 2022
Reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals Advancing the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals requires evidence-based information and advocacy that is widely disseminated and cited.  Transdiscipl...

Putin’s Folly and Rethinking the SDGs

July 27, 2022
Download as PDF 1. Prologue: A Lose-Lose War At the time of this writing, the vicious and unwarranted Russian invasion of Ukraine is still underway, with no end in sight. The assault is more accuratel...

Report on Recent Reports – Spring 2022

July 4, 2022
Reporting on a Fragile World     Widely appreciated, high-quality, evidence-based information and advocacy is needed to advance the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals--especially in light of the du...

Evolving Meanings of the War for Ukraine  – Winning, Losing, Fearing, Needing #2  

June 12, 2022
Download as PDF Introduction The war for Ukraine continues making the transition to the next global ‘normal’ more complicated, more chronologically unpredictable, and more costly. Indeed, in only the...

Evolving Meanings of the War for Ukraine: Winning, Losing, Fearing, Needing

May 5, 2022
 Introduction   The war for Ukraine has made the transition to the next global ‘normal’ overwhelmingly intense, chronologically unpredictable, and massively costly. Never before has a significant coun...

Our Common Agenda: Review of Five UN75 Reports

October 20, 2021
Reviewed Reports: Our Common Agenda: Report of the Secretary General (UN, Sept 2021, 84p)Our Future Agenda: A Vision and Plan for Next and Future Generations (UN, Sept 2021, 54p)Shaping Our Futur...

Report on Global Reports, 2020-2021: The Whale and the Minnows

June 3, 2021
Global Sustainability Reports As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes in some countries, while spreading in others, vaccines are becoming available, although distribution is still problematic in many locatio...

Essay: COVID-19: A Pandemic of Assassinated Assumptions: A Perfect Storm for Leaders

December 27, 2020
First published Dec. 14th 2020. Provocation The global pandemic was declared by the WHO on 11 March, signalling that COVID-19 had or was about to reach all shores. Since then, the initial virus and in...

COVID-19 – What Experts Expect & Propose

October 10, 2020
Published 1 Aug, 2020. 1st update 11 Sept, 2020. 2nd Update 10 Oct,2020. Download as PDF here The COVID-19 pandemic has already changed our world and is still underway with no end in sight.  The crisi...

What COVID-19 can teach us about Change, Acceptance and Dissent

May 30, 2020
COVID-19 is the current focal point, not only of media and politics, but of our societies as a whole. Looking at how it reshaped so many parts of our daily life in such a short time, this crisis can p...

Scientists Reporting: Top 25 Recent Online Reports on the Global Environmental Emergency

September 6, 2019
  The information revolution in recent decades has produced floods of knowledge, opinion, disinformation, and entertainments in many new formats.  Who should we consider for evidence-based thinking ab...

Book Review: Come On! A Report to the Club of Rome: New Frontiers

May 1, 2018
The full Review has been published in Cadmus Journal Vol. 3, Issue 4 and is available here: Book Review of Come On! (May 2018) Introduction Come On! Capitalism, Short-termism, Population and the Destr...

Foresight’s FOUR Frames

October 1, 2017
The full Essay has been published in Cadmus Journal Vol. 3, Issue 3  (p. 113-121) and is available here: Foresight’s FOUR Frames (October 2017) Abstract Strategic Foresight is usually understood to be...

Book Review – Global Systems Change: Six Linked Perspectives

September 1, 2017
The full Review has been published in Cadmus Journal Vol. 3, Issue 3  (p. 164-174) and is available here: Global Systems Change: Six Linked Perspectives! (October 2017) Introduction Change is everywhe...

Greening Capitalism, Quietly: Seven Types of Organizations Driving the “Necessary Revolution”

May 1, 2017
The full report is available here: Greening Capitalism Final, May 2017, 46 p.Greening Capitalism, Quietly: Seven Types of Organizations Driving the “Necessary Revolution” First published in CADMUS, 3:...

Book Review: The Art of Leading Collectively

August 1, 2016
Conflicts, misunderstandings, failures, and hidden agendas are part of the journey, she warns, and sustainability is not one single issue, but a complex of issues. But “collective leadership for susta...

ecological economics

Book Review: An Introduction to Ecological Economics

January 1, 2015
As we rush headlong into the Anthropocene age, when humans dominate and disrupt the earth and its natural systems, governance of evolution becomes increasingly imperative. “Sustainable development” of...