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Five challenges to humanity: Learning from pattern/repeat failures in past disasters?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Michael Quinlan
Michael Quinlan*
Affiliation:
The University of New South Wales, Australia
*
Michael Quinlan, Industrial Relations Research Centre, UNSW Business School, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. Email: m.quinlan@unsw.edu.au
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Abstract

Human civilisation faces a series of existential threats from the combination of five global and human-engineered challenges, namely climate change, resource depletion, environmental degradation, overpopulation and rising social inequality. These challenges are arguably being manifested in both an increased likelihood and magnified impact of catastrophes like forest fires, prolonged droughts, pandemics and social dislocation/upheaval. This article argues that in understanding and addressing these challenges, important lessons can be drawn from what has repeatedly caused organisational failures. It applies the ‘Ten Pathways to Disaster’ model to a series of disasters/catastrophic events and then argues this model is salient to understanding inadequate responses to the five threats to civilisation. The article argues that because these challenges interact in mutually reinforcing ways, it is critical to address them simultaneously not in isolation.

Keywords

H12I14I31J11Q01Climate changecrisisdisaster managementenvironmental degradationinequalitylatent system failurepandemicspopulationresource depletionsocial dislocation

Information

Type
Contested terrains
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 31 , Issue 3: The Future of Work , September 2020 , pp. 444 - 466
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020

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