Les Formats courts de l’Observatoire

Regional Resilience and Vulnerability to Global Catastrophic Risk

Exclusive: As wildfires rage, Frank Elderson says more work needed to assess risk from collapse of ecosystem services

Americans aged 18-25 are anxious, powerless, and afraid. According to a recent study of American youth, 62.9% agree: "humanity is doomed". The same survey found that almost all agreed that the climate was changing. Remarkably, the findings were fairly consistent across party lines.

Récemment, des chercheurs britanniques et étasuniens ont mené une étude majeure démontrant que des catastrophes biologiques d’ampleur se produisent lorsque le rythme des changements environnementaux dépasse la vitesse d’adaptation biologique des espèces. Dans le cadre de leurs travaux, les scientifiques ont analysé des grandes crises qui se sont déroulées lors des 450 derniers millions d’années.

Members of parliament have demanded full publication of an explosive report by the UK’s spy leaders that found the collapse of ecosystems overseas would have catastrophic consequences for the UK’s national security, warning that the UK has “no future” if the findings are not urgently acted on.

And why when we do see it, we fail to act.

A vast system of Atlantic currents that delivers warmth to northern Europe is at risk of collapse, according to a growing body of research. The latest study to warn of its demise finds there is at least a 10 percent chance that a collapse may already be “locked in.”

For most of the modern era, capitalism justified itself through growth. Industrial societies converted vast amounts of fossil energy into production, wealth, and rising living standards. Roads, bridges, power grids, schools, and public institutions expanded alongside the economy. Inequality and exploitation remained deeply embedded in the system, but they were partly obscured by a broader story of material progress.

Climate scientists warn of unprecedented Antarctic heatwave, with temperatures 20C above normal. Loss of sea ice threatens marine life and penguins.

The system of ocean current that moves heat in the Atlantic Ocean plays a key role in regulating climate. Today’s monitoring of it may be discontinued...

Brutal El Nino, drought, war threatens food supply

Je sais exactement où tu es assis(e) en ce moment. Tu regardes un graphique des températures de surface de l’Atlantique Nord, observant une ligne rouge s’envoler vers un territoire inconnu et terrifiant. Encore une donnée horrible qui confirme ce que tu sais déjà. Tu ressens cette chute familière et creuse dans ton estomac en prenant conscience de la réalité biophysique : les systèmes de la planète se désagrègent.

We must confront two stark realities about the end of our era. First, the collapse of our industrial civilization is already underway, manifesting as a slow, agonizing process of structural decay, economic exhaustion, and ecological overshoot. Second, this descent is terminal. We have permanently exhausted the physical prerequisites for any future technological reboot.

A Letter to the Newly Awake. I know exactly where you are sitting right now. You are staring at a chart of North Atlantic sea surface temperatures, watching a red line spike into uncharted, terrifying territory. Yet another horrible data point proving what you already know. You feel a familiar, hollow drop in your stomach as you register the biophysical reality: the planet’s systems are unraveling.

Beneath the surface of the Pacific, a massive pool of heat is preparing to reshape global weather patterns. Time is running out to prepare for a climate shock of unprecedented scale. As 2026 unfolds, the Pacific Ocean is priming a catastrophic El Niño that threatens to cripple global food systems, trigger widespread economic instability, and shatter planetary temperature records.

The critical Atlantic current system appears significantly more likely to collapse than previously thought after new research found that climate models predicting the biggest slowdown are the most realistic. Scientists called the new finding “very concerning” as a collapse would have catastrophic consequences for Europe, Africa and the Americas.

The world has become well versed in the importance of the strait of Hormuz to the world’s energy flows, but attention is increasingly turning to its vital role in another market – the fertiliser on which harvests depend. A third of the global trade in raw materials for fertiliser passes through the maritime choke point, which is also the route for 20% of shipments of natural gas, which is required to make it.

The fragility of the global food system fills me with dread – and the war with Iran has exposed just how close to collapse it is

Ten million people left without power in latest of outages that sparked violent protest last weekend

The US was an oligarchy well before Trump’s first term. Recognizing this reality is essential to building a true democracy

Olivier De Schutter says new economic agenda needed to tackle crises of rising inequality and ecological collapse

The Gulf Stream is part of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). The AMOC is a tipping element and may collapse under changing forcing. However, the role of the Gulf Stream in such a tipping event is unknown. Here, we investigate the link between the AMOC and Gulf Stream using a high-resolution (0. 1°) stand-alone ocean simulation, in which the AMOC collapses under a slowly-increasing freshwater forcing. AMOC weakening gradually shifts the Gulf Stream near Cape Hatteras northward, followed by an abrupt northward displacement of 219 km within 2 years. This rapid shift occurs a few decades before the simulated AMOC collapse. Satellite altimetry shows a significant (1993–2024, p < 0.05) northward Gulf Stream trend near Cape Hatteras, which is also confirmed in subsurface temperature observations (1965–2024, p < 0.01). These findings provide indirect evidence for present-day AMOC weakening and demonstrate that abrupt Gulf Stream shifts can serve as early warning indicator for AMOC tipping.

L’humanité fait face à une bifurcation sans précédent dans son histoire et celle de la Terre. Espèce née de processus extrêmement complexes et globalement autorégulés, elle devient une force géologique qui peut rendre la planète inhabitable ou au contraire devenir une force régulatrice. Partie 1

I know it’s almost impossible to turn your eyes away from the Trump show, but that’s the point. His antics, ever-grosser and more preposterous, are designed to keep him in our minds, to crowd out other issues. His insatiable craving for attention is a global-threat multiplier. You can’t help wondering whether there’s anything he wouldn’t do to dominate the headlines.

States and financial bodies using modelling that ignores shocks from extreme weather and climate tipping points

Ecosystem destruction will increase food shortages, disorder and mass migration, with effects already being felt

Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security - A national security assessment

Notre ami Luke Kemp, chercheur au Centre pour l'étude du risque existentiel à l'Université de Cambridge (UK), a publié le livre Goliath’s Curse, the History and Future of Societal Collapse (Penguin, July 2025, 580 pages), qui sera édité en français par Albin Michel au printemps 2026. Cette « malédiction de Goliath » est le meilleur livre sur l’effondrement systémique mondial depuis dix ans, tant par la vision multidisciplinaire qu’il présente que par sa complétude et par son érudition.

Mon essai précédent explorait pourquoi certaines personnes perçoivent l’effondrement plus tôt que d’autres. Celui-ci pose une autre question : si l’effondrement ne peut pas être évité, à quoi sert réellement une prise de conscience précoce ?

A new study indicates that anxiety about social and economic collapse due to climate change is pervasive in Australia. The nationwide survey (commissioned by the author and carried out by Roy Morgan Research) reveals that nearly a third of Australians are ‘very or extremely concerned’ about social and economic collapse occurring by 2050. Three in five Australians (60 per cent) are at least moderately concerned.

Perception, pattern-seeking, and the role of neurodivergence in a failing civilisation

Glacial earthquakes are a special type of earthquake generated in cold, icy regions. First discovered in the northern hemisphere more than 20 years ago, these quakes occur when huge chunks of ice fall from glaciers into the sea. Until now, only a very few have been found in the Antarctic. In a new study soon to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, I present evidence for hundreds of these quakes in Antarctica between 2010 and 2023, mostly at the ocean end of the Thwaites Glacier – the so-called Doomsday Glacier that could send sea levels rising rapidly if it were to collapse.

UN GEO report says ending this harm key to global transformation required ‘before collapse becomes inevitable’

The global collapse arrives piecemeal. Germany is going first.

Je dis toujours que les modèles ne sont pas des prédictions, mais des illustrations qualitatives de ce que pourrait être l’avenir. Cependant, à mesure que l’avenir se rapproche du présent, les modèles peuvent commencer à être considérés comme des outils prédictifs. Il s’agit de la dichotomie entre météo et climat, si habilement exploitée par les politiciens pour semer la confusion dans les débats sur le climat. À l’heure actuelle, nous nous rapprochons du point où nous pourrions prévoir un effondrement de la même manière que nous pouvons prévoir la trajectoire d’une tempête tropicale.

I always say that models are not predictions; they are qualitative illustrations of what the future could be. But as the future gets closer to the present, models can start being seen as predictive tools. It is the weather/climate dichotomy, so aptly exploited to confuse matters by politically minded people in the discussion about climate. Right now, we are getting close to the point that we could forecast a collapse in the same way as we can forecast the trajectory of a tropical storm. So, you remember how “The Limits to Growth” generated a long term forecast in 1972. Here it is

The reality of coming to terms with the end of industrial civilisation

 Luke is a research associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, and has spent the past five years studying the collapse of civilisations throughout history. He joins me to explain his research, detailing the difference between complex, collective civilisations and what he calls “Goliaths”, massive centralising forces by which a small group of individuals extract wealth from the rest through domination and the threat of violence. Today, he says, we live in a global Goliath. In this astounding conversation, Luke takes us from the Ancient times to the modern day, revealing the root causes of collapse and paralleling them what we’re living through today. He explains the egalitarian nature of our species, and shines new light on what a future could look like free from today’s global Goliath. He reminds us all that we tend to view collapse through the eyes of the 1%, those who have the most to lose, and gives startling accounts of how populations bounced back after thei

Collapse has historically benefited the 99%. […] That’s the amazing conclusion of Luke Kemp, author of Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse.  Luke is a research associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, and has spent the past five years studying the collapse of civilisations throughout history. He joins me to explain his research, detailing the difference between complex, collective civilisations and what he calls “Goliaths”, massive centralising forces by which a small group of individuals extract wealth from the rest through domination and the threat of violence. Today, he says, we live in a global Goliath.

Scientists say ‘shocking’ discovery shows rapid cuts in carbon emissions are needed to avoid catastrophic fallout

Several, more recent global warming projections in the coupled model intercomparison project 6 contain extensions beyond year 2100–2300/2500. The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) in these projections shows transitions to extremely weak overturning below the surface mixed layer (<6 Sv; 1 Sv = 106 m3 s−1) in all models forced by a high-emission (SSP585) scenario and sometimes also forced by an intermediate- (SSP245) and low-emission (SSP126) scenario. These extremely weak overturning states are characterised by a shallow maximum overturning at depths less than 200 m and a shutdown of the circulation associated with North Atlantic deep water formation. Northward Atlantic heat transport at 26°N decreases to 20%–40% of the current observed value. Heat release to the atmosphere north of 45°N weakens to less than 20% of its present-day value and in some models completely vanishes, leading to strong cooling in the subpolar North Atlantic and Northwest Europe. In all cases, these transitions to a

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is an important tipping element in the climate system. There is a large uncertainty whether the AMOC will start to collapse during the century under future climate change, as this requires long climate model simulations which are not always available. Here, we analyze targeted climate model simulations done with the Community Earth System Model (CESM) with the aim to develop a physics-based indicator for the onset of an AMOC tipping event. This indicator is diagnosed from the surface buoyancy fluxes over the North Atlantic Ocean and is performing successfully under quasi-equilibrium freshwater forcing, freshwater pulse forcing, climate change scenarios, and for different climate models. An analysis consisting of 25 different climate models shows that the AMOC could begin to collapse by 2063 (from 2026 to 2095, to percentiles) under an intermediate emission scenario (SSP2-4.5), or by 2055 (from 2023 to 2076, to percentiles) under a high-end emission scenar

This is not a call to despair, but an invitation to understand the forces driving the process of collapse, and to explore how we might navigate the descent with integrity, purpose, and care for the living world.

Que se passe-t-il lorsque les masses prennent conscience de l’effondrement ? L’illusion collective et le réconfort du déni La société s’accroche à des illusions réconfortantes face au destin funeste. L’histoire offre des exemples qui donnent à réfléchir. Les psychologues décrivent le « biais de normalité », c’est-à-dire notre tendance à sous-estimer les menaces et à continuer comme si de rien n’était.

A team of researchers in California drew notoriety last year with an aborted experiment on a retired aircraft carrier that sought to test a machine for creating clouds.   But behind the scenes, they were planning a much larger and potentially riskier study of salt-water-spraying equipment that could eventually be used to dim the sun’s rays — a multimillion-dollar project aimed at producing clouds over a stretch of ocean larger than Puerto Rico.

Societal downfalls loom large in history and popular culture but, for the 99 per cent, collapse often had its upsides

New research is warning that the most likely outcome is that human civilization is poised for collapse. As The Guardian reports, a sweeping new historical survey that analyzes 5,000 years and the collapse of more than 400 societies makes the case that we're in for a rude awakening.

The unspoken truth about humanity's frightening future.

An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished

New research reveals Earth's natural carbon sink nearly collapsed in 2024, absorbing almost zero human CO₂ emissions.