Reframing global warming for better risk management: climate change, food insecurity and societal collapse
type: CreativeWork
description: Natural climate change, through its influence on agriculture, has been central to the rise and fall of civilisations throughout history. Anthropogenic climate change poses an unprecedented challenge and existential risk but, unlike natural climate change, it is a threat that contemporary society can prevent if we so choose. Despite consensus amongst climate scientists, concern across society and knowledge of solutions, anthropogenic emissions continue to rise, threatening the welfare of current and future generations globally. The recent failure of COP26 to ‘flick the switch’ on urgent climate action demonstrates the need for a paradigm shift in the way that we think about the threat of climate change. Good risk management requires consideration and communication of tangible worst-case impacts. The mainstream framing of ‘global warming’, in terms of imperceptible temperature increases, does neither. For humanity, tangible worst-case impacts take the form of human suffering, societal collapse or extinction. However, consideration and communication of these concerning outcomes, with respect to climate change, is underdeveloped. This thesis is motivated by the idea that reframing the threat of climate change to embody more tangible risk of everyday relevance to society may support better risk management. And so, a three-part investigation is undertaken to improve our understanding of the complex risk landscape of climate change, food insecurity and societal collapse. The first contribution looks to the past to examine how systematically documenting historical evidence may improve our understanding of the complex risk landscape. An original empirical evidence base is established and structured using a novel format causal loop diagram. Thousands of feedback loops are unfurled, demonstrating fragile interdependencies that may see climate change undermine agricultural productivity and food supply chains. This may lead to cascading or synchronous sociocultural unrest, econo…
abstract: Natural climate change, through its influence on agriculture, has been central to the rise and fall of civilisations throughout history. Anthropogenic climate change poses an unprecedented challenge and existential risk but, unlike natural climate change, it is a threat that contemporary society can prevent if we so choose. Despite consensus amongst climate scientists, concern across society and knowledge of solutions, anthropogenic emissions continue to rise, threatening the welfare of current and future generations globally. The recent failure of COP26 to ‘flick the switch’ on urgent climate action demonstrates the need for a paradigm shift in the way that we think about the threat of climate change. Good risk management requires consideration and communication of tangible worst-case impacts. The mainstream framing of ‘global warming’, in terms of imperceptible temperature increases, does neither. For humanity, tangible worst-case impacts take the form of human suffering, societal collapse or extinction. However, consideration and communication of these concerning outcomes, with respect to climate change, is underdeveloped. This thesis is motivated by the idea that reframing the threat of climate change to embody more tangible risk of everyday relevance to society may support better risk management. And so, a three-part investigation is undertaken to improve our understanding of the complex risk landscape of climate change, food insecurity and societal collapse. The first contribution looks to the past to examine how systematically documenting historical evidence may improve our understanding of the complex risk landscape. An original empirical evidence base is established and structured using a novel format causal loop diagram. Thousands of feedback loops are unfurled, demonstrating fragile interdependencies that may see climate change undermine agricultural productivity and food supply chains. This may lead to cascading or synchronous sociocultural unrest, econo…
author: Richards, Catherine
language: eng
keywords: climate change, global warming, food security, agriculture, societal collapse, global catastrophic risk (GCR), sustainability, existential risk (X-risk), resilience, vulnerability
license: https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/
date published: 2022-12-01
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:24:06Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.85343