Technological progress and the advance of globalization have created an interdependent network of actors. This network is so complex that any change in one of its nodes will quickly affect, for better or worse, the rest of the members of the ecosystem.
In the book The Great Convergence, Kishore Mahbubani presented an interesting metaphor by arguing that “The 7 billion people who inhabit this planet no longer live in separate countries or boats. Instead, they now all live in 193 cabins on the same ship.” Kishore then updated his saying in 2020 by warning that “If the 7.5 billion people are now trapped on a ship with an infectious virus loose around, it would make little sense to clean only our cabins and ignore the rest, along with their corridors and the surrounding air, since the virus travels through it.” In his own words, if we are all on the same ship, humanity as a whole must attend to the situation of the ship as a whole[209].
Considering the problems we face as completely isolated labels and categories, like when we say economy, environment, or society, gives us the false impression that each of these can be contained and dealt with separately, when in fact the interconnection between each of them is much deeper than we sometimes can believe or even understand. Just as a severe drought in a certain country can affect the future supply of sesame seeds for McDonald’s or Burger King buns, which typically have between 150 and 200 on each of their burgers, a cow, a pig, or a domesticated animal that contracts a new virus can affect the entire global economy and supply chain. A better example might be provided by Professor Schwab in his latest book, The Great Narrative, where he points out that an extreme weather event can push up food costs, causing involuntary migrations that can lead to a state’s collapse. In fact, since 2008, severe weather events have displaced, on average, more than 21 million people per year, equivalent to 41 people per minute, according to the Climate Refugees Report 2021[210], which is higher than the number of refugees and forcibly displaced persons, which in 2018 reached 10.3 million people[211]. In this case, we can see the interconnection between an environmental risk, an economic one, a social one, and a geopolitical one, demonstrating the contagion of these events due to the interconnectedness to which the system is exposed. It may seem paradoxical, but while we often view the world with Newtonian eyes, seeking the predictable and linear, that world no longer exists, and today, as Professor Schwab explains, we live in a world so interconnected that it seems to have acquired properties of quantum physics, where an event at any latitude and longitude of the map can trigger another series of events due to the interconnectedness and complexity surrounding both, thus creating a sort of quantum entanglement.
Let’s take a moment to observe the following graphic borrowed from Klaus Schwab’s new book. The graphic shows in detail how the risk of infectious diseases has a direct impact on “the failure of global governance,” “social instability,” “unemployment,” “fiscal crises,” “involuntary migration,” “loss of biodiversity,” and even the generation of “extreme weather changes.” At first glance, these interconnections may not seem so obvious, and there lies the crux of the matter. Complex systems are often characterized precisely by the absence of easily visible and logical connectors between each of the network elements. This is problematic as it means that the consequences of various acts cannot be correctly anticipated in advance.
Global Risks Interconnections Map 2020[212]
These dynamic and complex relationships often exceed the actions of decision-makers, and for this reason, evidence-based decision-making is of special importance today, even if some factors were omitted from the initial equation due to the unknown impact they will have on a certain group of people or an industry apparently far from the center of the decisions in question. The interconnection has reached such an extent that just as a problem in one place affects the rest, solving a problem anywhere also solves problems elsewhere. The speed of recent changes has been such that if we tried to explain to an economist from three decades ago the state that the global economy has acquired today, there is no chance they would believe us. The current economy would seem simply unthinkable to them.
[209] Mahbubani, K. (2020). Can humanity make U-turns? The Straits Times. Viewed on June 16, 2021, at https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/can-humanity-make-u-turns.
[210] No shelter from the storm: The urgent need to recognise and protect climate refugees. Environmental Justice Foundation. (2021). Viewed on May 23, 2022, at https://ejfoundation.org/reports/no-shelter-from-the-storm-the-urgent-need-to-recognise-and-protect-climate-refugees.
[211] Global Trends – Forced Displacement in 2018 – UNHCR. UNHCR Global Trends 2018. Viewed on May 23, 2022, at https://www.unhcr.org/globaltrends2018.
[212] World Economic Forum. (2020). The Global Risks Report 2020 Insight Report 15th Edition. Viewed on June 24, 2022, at https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risk_Report_2020.pdf.