This week was a shocker. Other’s may not have felt the tension as much as I did, but Donald Trump’s 48-hour deadline before blowing up Iran’s energy facilities, followed by Iran threatening massive retaliation across the Gulf States, was an ominous moment for humanity.
The deadline was set to finish at 8am Tuesday morning here in Singapore, and my sense of dread (and anxiety) was very strong. I don’t get anxious a lot. It’s just not how I’m built, but understanding the full implications of what could happen – not just in the Middle East, but the wider world – definitely made it a terrible, awful week.
While there was some relief when the deadline was called off, it’s not much reassurance for any of us. I’ve spent the week listening to military experts, Iranian experts, people behind the scenes in the US, former spies, geopolitical experts, politicians and on it goes, and no one has any idea where this could go.
Trying to understand what happens next is challenging, so if you’re struggling with that, don’t worry, the experts don’t know either. The only agreement is there are no possible positive outcomes, regardless of escalation or peace. Equally, the long-term implications are equally staggering no matter which path we take, and the poorest people in the world will suffer the most. They already are.
As a very simple example, just check out this piece from the FT – food prices to increase 60-100%!
I always seek to understand the whole story and all the impacts, so one of my models divides the polycrisis into eight categories, with an overarching resilience/fragility framework, so I mapped the war to these categories to provide a sense of scale. I’ve got a more detailed version, but here’s the short one to demonstrate the cascading impacts.
| Polycrisis category | War-linked impacts | Resilience / fragility failures exposed | Human consequences / lived reality |
| Complex systems, including energy & pollution | Cascading failures across sectors – shipping, insurance, energy, fertilizer, food, pharmaceuticals, desalination, logistics | Tight coupling, chokepoints, efficiency over resilience | Many crises hit at once; ordinary life becomes unstable; multiple shortages reinforce each other |
| Technological developments & threats, esp. AI | AI fakes, propaganda, information warfare | Weak information integrity, low media resilience | Confusion, panic, misdirection, deeper polarization |
| Economics & overshoot | Fuel, fertilizer, freight, insurance, inflation | Just-in-time systems, no buffers, debt stress | Essentials become harder to afford, planting season impacted = long-term risk |
| Governance & populism, extremism | Overreach, weak accountability, backlash | Low trust, poor coordination, weak institutions | Distrust, anger, deeper political fragmentation |
| Ecological collapse, extinction, food & water security | Pollution, fertilizer shock, crop stress, food insecurity | No nutrient reserves, chokepoint dependence | Higher food prices, scarcity, contamination |
| Public health & pandemics | Pollution, medicine disruption, weaker care systems | Fragile health logistics, energy dependence | More illness, mental health crisis, worse care, more preventable harm |
| Societal impacts & collapse | Blackouts, shortages, cost-of-living shock, extreme heat impacts | Weak local backups, low household resilience | Kids can’t study, less safety, increasing violence, disrupted rituals |
| Geopolitics & war – forever wars | Escalation, alliance strain, shipping insecurity | Weak diplomacy, poor de-escalation capacity | Fear, instability, wider conflict risk |
| Systemic fragility versus resilience | Infrastructure • Information Integrity • Trust • Supply Chains • Strategic Reserves | When these pillars fail, shocks cascade from drivers to impacts + back again | Systems failure becomes lived reality |
To dig in further, here’s a few examples that show what this looks like.
Beyond oil: The crucial exports blocked by Hormuz closure are fertilisers (Urea, Potash, Ammonia, Phosphates), helium, petrochemical Derivatives (Methanol, Ethylene) and Sulphur. Read the article to understand why it’s important.
Out here in Asia, everyday life is being upended by Iran war fuel crisis, a quick summary:
- Philippines – declared a national emergency; jeepney drivers’ daily wages collapsed from 1,000 pesos to as low as 200. Fishermen, farmers, and food supply all hit
- Thailand – Government ordered WFH, AC limits (26–27°C), and even TV anchors removed jackets on air to promote energy saving. Thailand is going through an extreme heat event, so this is dangerous
- Sri Lanka – fuel rationing and Wednesday public holidays introduced; long pump queues are costing workers their jobs
- Myanmar – alternate-day driving policy for private vehicles; fears of a black market for fuel emerging
- India – 90% of LPG imports pass through Hormuz; Gujarat’s ceramics industry (400k workers) shut down for a month, and up to 1-in-5 Mumbai restaurants closed or cut menus due to cooking gas shortages
- China – Despite three months of reserves, capped fuel price hikes to ease a 20% price jump hitting citizens
And what does war bring? Well, this might make you cry (I made me cry), but please stand witness to the stories of the parents who lost their precious children when the US bombed a school in Iran – ‘It didn’t matter whose child I rescued’: parents of Iran school bombing victims describe their worst day | Children | The Guardian.
Oh and then there’s this – war in the Middle East is draining the global carbon budget faster than 84 countries combined – 5m tonnes of CO2 emitted in just 14 days of US war on Iran, analysis finds | US-Israel war on Iran | The Guardian.
Meanwhile
I don’t know if you saw this news, but Cyclone Narelle has been wrapping around the top end of Australia for a couple of weeks now. It started in Queensland, then went across to the Northern Territory, and this week down the coast towards Perth. I honestly don’t know if this is normal, but I can’t ever remember an event like this. Can you think of something similar?
What a Waste 3.0 was released, which is a global snapshot of solid waste management toward circularity until 2050. The “highlight”? Waste surged ahead of schedule to 2.56 billion tonnes generated in 2022, a level not expected until 2030. An added bonus – it’s expected to grow by 50% by 2050, so that’s 3.86 billion tonnes.
Breathing clean air? Probably not – Only 13 countries in the world breathe safe air. Three of them are in Europe.
The State of the Global Climate 2025 was released too. Grim.
And meteorologist are now predicting the forthcoming El Niño isn’t a standard variety one, heck, it’s not even a super El Niño, no, no, no we’ve got a Godzilla El Niño on the way – awesome.
More reporting from the week
- Extreme global climate outcomes are possible even at 2°C warming, study warns
- Earth being ‘pushed beyond its limits’ as energy imbalance reaches record high | Oceans | The Guardian
- Hawaii assesses damage left by worst flooding in more than 20 years | Hawaii | The Guardian
- We’re letting big corporations gamble with our lives. Act now, or the food could run out | George Monbiot | The Guardian
- Britain’s food supply ‘at risk of catastrophic failure by 2030’
- Singapore climate report 2025: Wettest March; hottest June and November ever on record
- Super El Niño threat looms: Thailand and Asean brace for climate shock
- Big Oil has moved on from ‘greenwashing.’ Here’s the new playbook. | Grist
I know, it’s tough stuff. The fact we’ve been pushing the biophysical coping capacity of the whole Earth System for decades now has always guaranteed challenging times were coming. However, instead of nature unleashing it’s power (which it’s still doing) a bunch of old, stupid white men have decided to take the reins, and here we are.
But we do have an opportunity right now.
We need to use this time to wake up to the reality of where we are, redesign our lives to live within the constraints of what nature can provide, and get ourselves and our communities ready for a world not in overshoot. We won’t be going back (this war has fundamentally changed the world, regardless), but we can step forward into a new future – one in alignment with that which sustains us, nature.
Will we learn? Or will we continue fighting to hold onto what we’ve already lost? That decision is very much in our hands now. The pandemic was an opportunity to recognize this chance and we didn’t take it. We’ve been given a second chance. Let’s wake up and take it!
Friends content and my own
It was awesome having Nick Jonsson on The Sh*t Show this week to discuss how we can manage our minds during these very challenging times. Have a listen if you’re struggling.
A short from last week, when Joe Augustin improvised The Twat in the Hat! We gotta laugh or we’ll cry.
Dig into the news
As I said, the world news page is updated daily, so check in whenever it suits you. It covers news and thought leadership across all issues relevant to the polycrisis, as well as some light stuff, because we can’t be serious all the time. To get to the news, click through on the image below, and a reminder, this goes back weeks, so have a scan and read/watch/listen to whatever jumps out at you.
Let me know what caught your attention? Or share with me what has your attention now? There’s a lot going on, which means none of us can cover everything. Besides, it’s always great to get feedback so I know I’m delivering something of value.
Cheers
Andrea
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The Sh*t Show is a Livestream happening every Friday, where Andrea T Edwards, Dr. David Ko, Richard Busellato and Joe Augustin, as well as special guests, discuss the world’s most pressing issues across all angles of the polycrisis, working to make sense of the extremely challenging and complex times we are all going through, plus what we can do about it. Help us move the needle so we can change the name of the show to something more genteel when (or if) it is no longer a sh*t show.
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