Climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, social upheaval, and political chaos are all manifestations of a singular crisis—a global polycrisis. The evidence is all around us. We are inundated by blaring alarms signaling multiple problems, yet we have not responded...
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An ever-expanding web of feedback loops is converging to generate system-wide risks—collectively known as the polycrisis. The cascading effects of interconnected crises represent the collision of four deeply intertwined systems: ecology, economics, politics, and social dynamics. Actions in one domain...
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Listen as a podcast Earth’s life-support systems are failing. Humanity is surpassing critical environmental thresholds and increasing the risk of triggering irreversible climate tipping points. It is hard to overstate the perilousness of our trajectory. While we have seen incremental...
Read moreDetailsThe recent Conference of the Parties is being hailed as both a historic success and an epic failure. So who really won the fossil fuel war at COP 28? The global agreement to phase down fossil fuels was heralded by...
The fossil fuel industry has a long history of malfeasance but their misapplication of carbon capture may be their most audacious disinformation ploy to date. As explained in an Energy Transitions Commission report, carbon technology is being ‘co-opted’ by fossil-fuel...
Artificial intelligence (AI) may be able to achieve all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Although there are some potential downsides, the overall impact of AI on SDGs is overwhelmingly positive with significant benefits for the development of low-carbon sources of...
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Richard Matthews is a researcher, writer, journalist, consultant, and change activist. He has published thousands of articles and contributed to reports for policymakers including a United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) publication. His critical, interdisciplinary analyses have been cited by a wide array of, academic publications. His research interests include carbon removal, nuclear power, and disinformation. He is currently spearheading Change Oracle’s Polycrisis Project (COPP).
An ever-expanding web of feedback loops is converging to generate system-wide risks—collectively known as the polycrisis. The cascading effects of interconnected crises represent the collision of four deeply intertwined systems: ecology, economics, politics, and social dynamics. Actions in one domain reverberate across the others, attenuating or accelerating crises while weakening...
Listen as a podcast Earth’s life-support systems are failing. Humanity is surpassing critical environmental thresholds and increasing the risk of triggering irreversible climate tipping points. It is hard to overstate the perilousness of our trajectory. While we have seen incremental local gains on a wide range of climate, biodiversity, and...
Listen as a Podcast 2025 delivered a series of meaningful environmental and climate achievements, spanning wildlife recoveries, declining deforestation in key regions, rapid renewable energy expansion, and transformative advances in sustainability-focused technologies. At the same time, local climate initiatives and Indigenous leadership strengthened community-driven conservation and stewardship efforts. Despite intense...
I’m excited to announce that Change Oracle is now on Substack! This new space will feature exclusive added content — deeper analysis, behind-the-scenes insights, and commentary on the polycrisis that you won’t find on the main site. Each week, we’ll unpack environmental collapse, geopolitical instability, economic disruption, social inequity, and...
Listen to this as a podcast The 2025 UN climate conference failed to produce a meaningful outcome. Ten years after the historic Paris Climate Agreement at COP21, 194 countries assembled for COP30 in Belém, Brazil. The final agreement (called the Global Mutirão decision, or the Belém Package) included 2 new...
Listen to this as a Podcast Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” may promise prosperity, but independent analyses show that it hurts average Americans. The 1,100-page mega-bill signed into law on July 4th, 2025, adversely impacts 80 percent of the population. This includes the 28 percent of people in low-income...
An ever-expanding web of feedback loops is converging to generate system-wide risks—collectively known as the polycrisis. The cascading effects of...
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