No one knows nothing...help us?

December 20, 2024

It’s now five years since Covid began to change the world. What changed and what remained the same in global political economy of climate? That was the...

Pluralism, panels and... polycrisis

December 13, 2024

Welcome to the 26th edition of the Polycrisis Dispatch. It has been a busy couple of weeks in the world, and for us. Tim’s industrial odyssey is continuing...

Finance, tariffs, and cars

November 29, 2024

Hello and welcome to the 25th Dispatch. Tim is now in Mexico after visiting Brazil; but this is holiday time, so it’s mostly me (Kate) and a bit of input...

Dispatch from Brazil G20

November 22, 2024

Hello and welcome to the 24th edition of the Polycrisis Dispatch. Tim wrote most of this while in Rio during the G20 this week, and is now in Bahia. Our...

The climate finance COP

November 15, 2024

Hello and welcome to the 23rd edition of the Dispatch. Tim is heading off to Brazil for the G20 and a holiday, and the excellent Lara Merling is going to be...

Tensions and contradictions

November 7, 2024

Early thoughts on the election, mostly about cost-of-living.

Seeing like an Asset Manager with Brett Christophers

October 31, 2024

Last week, we listened to a brilliant conversation between Brett Christophers and Adam Tooze, moderated by Kate Aronoff at the New School in New york....

Magic Pony, Groundhog Day

October 26, 2024

Welcome to our 20th Dispatch. It’s quite a time. The IMF/World Bank annual meetings in DC (Tim was there, where he spoke on a ‘making the world order safe...

Electrify everywhere: Renewable energy trade edition

October 18, 2024

Greetings and welcome to our 19th edition. There was no Dispatch last week as we published a big Polycrisis essay-newsletter on the new, green “Marshall...

Power and Powerlessness

October 4, 2024

Welcome to our 18th edition, coming after a bit of a gap due to travel, illness, and the hecticness of Climate Week/UNGA events. Tim spoke at a few panels,...

Europe must rage against the dying of the light

September 12, 2024

Welcome to edition 17 of our Dispatch. This week we are looking at Draghi’s recommendations to keep the EU competitive and safe; plus the fall in oil prices...

Geometry of Fear: Jake Sullivan meets Xi

September 6, 2024

Hello and welcome to the 16th edition of our weekly-test-dark-mode email. This week: our takeaways on the China-US back channel talks, revealed to have been...

'Sinews of War & Trade' bookclub kicks off soon

August 28, 2024

In about an hour, in fact. Hello, this is not our 16th edition - we're skipping the Dispatch this week, as we work on a version of our piece on "Country...

How Deese got there

August 23, 2024

Welcome to another Polycrisis Dispatch. This is edition #15! This week the Brian Deese — former WH National Economic Council director of Bidenomics — essay...

Cyberpunk Summer

August 16, 2024

Cyberpunk — to riff on on a line by its original proponent William Gibson — is already here; it is just unevenly distributed. Climate change is already here,...

Gen Z and One weird trick

August 9, 2024

Welcome to edition #13 of the Polycrisis Dispatch, where we’re mostly looking at “country platforms”. Our next Book Club is about Sinews of War and Trade by...

Europe's Metal Era dilemma - Make or Buy?

August 2, 2024

The Paris Olympics means we are still awaiting who governs the second-biggest EU economy. While France is under caretaker government, we’re reviewing the...

#11 Brazil's G20 agenda; Tornadoes; Summer book club!

July 26, 2024

Book Club! Hello! This is only a brief brief dispatch for #11 this week before we get back to speed next week. We have a very quick look at the G20 wealth...

UK development strategy; Hurricane Beryl; Jamaica

July 12, 2024

Hello! It is the TENTH edition of our dark-mode weekly email. First, a reminder that our book club for this month is “Planetary Mine” by Martin Aberdola. You...

UK election, Carnegie panel, and a lot of things

July 4, 2024

hello readers! This is extremely short because tomorrow we have our Kenya newsletter on our Phenomenal World mailing list (if you’re not on it for some...

Kenya and disappointment. Book club update.

June 28, 2024

Hello and welcome to our NINTH weekly dark-mode/test Polycrisis Dispatch! There are also a bunch of folk on our Discord server (thanks Henry!) and we just...

We look at CBAM, competing global systems, and invent a new acronym

June 21, 2024

Welcome to the 8th edition of our experiment in weekly Polycrisis dispatching! Please send us any feedback @asahay@gmail.com and/or kate@katemackenzie.net...

Europe enters its Metal Era

June 14, 2024

Welcome to the 7th edition of our weekly test newsletter, the Polycrisis Dispatch! The longer monthly essay newsletter at Phenomenal World is still...

Elections everywhere & Summer Bookclub

June 7, 2024

Hello to our new readers, this is the 6th edition of our dark-mode weekly Dispatch. Excitingly, we’ve had over 100 requests to join our Summer Book club so...

Polycrisis Summer book club?

May 30, 2024

Welcome to the 5th edition of our dark-mode Polycrisis Dispatch. The unstoppable force of global capitalism meets the immovable object of global warming is...

Costing climate policies

May 24, 2024

Welcome to the 4th edition of our test-mode Polycrisis Dispatch. This one is going out on a Friday rather than the Thursday we were aiming for. (Last week...

Tariff chaos; cat-and-mouse supply chains; tech transfer

May 16, 2024

Welcome to the 3rd edition of our weekly newsletter-in-development. If you want to share feedback, please email us both or Tim and Kate individually. This...

The flood-tax connection; Modi's Billionaire Raj

May 10, 2024

Hello and welcome to the 2nd test edition of the Polycrisis Dispatch. We’re developing a weekly newsletter that has some of the features of our longer essay...

Europe's fiscal rules, global net transfers, Spring meetings

May 2, 2024

Welcome to the first [test] edition of The Polycrisis Dispatch. Our plan is for this to be a weekly email that gives you an insight into what Tim and Kate...