Disasters

№ 2026-81 · November 2026 · 25 min

Polycrisis Resilience This Century, 2000–2100

The world's disaster death rate fell 97% from the 1920s to the 1990s and has been flat since, while years with 100,000 or more deaths still come about one in five; on 2000–24 death rates and UN population paths the century's deaths run from about 3 million (capacity improving 3% a year) to 9 million (hazards growing 1% a year with no capacity gain), a factor of three that dwarfs the quarter-wide luck within any one path.

№ 2026-80 · November 2026 · 26 min

The Economics of Polycrisis Prevention: Quantifying the Human and Economic Returns of Resilience

Recorded disaster loss is so lumpy that the worst 1% of country-years hold 58% of damage and 76% of deaths, so an early-warning investment worth four dollars per dollar on average recovers its cost in only 69% of decades; it would return $51 per dollar in rich countries but $0.5 in the poorest on assets alone, and aiming it at the riskiest tenth by past deaths halves the cost per life but still misses two thirds of later deaths.