Homer-Dixon on the interconnections of crises and value of hope

The director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University, Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon, was interviewed by the Victoria Times Colonist on his latest book and appearance as the opening speaker for the Changemakers Speakers Series.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Homer-Dixon, who in September released the book Commanding Hope: The Power We Have to Renew a World in Peril, said the simultaneous arrival of the global pandemic, the ongoing climate crisis and a reckoning over systemic racism and inequality is no coincidence.

“They’re happening simultaneously because they’re related to each other,” said Homer-Dixon, director of Royal Roads’ Cascade Institute, which studies the intersections between the world’s biggest problems, including climate change, wealth inequality, pandemics and political instability. Homer-Dixon will speak Wednesday as part of Royal Roads University’s changemaker series, which will take place online.

“We’re getting these very vivid signals that things are going off the rails, and people have been warning about it for a long time, but now it’s visible in a way that it’s really hard for members of the general public to ignore.”

Before the pandemic hit, it was the election of U.S. President Donald Trump in November 2016 that convinced Homer-Dixon that even in an increasingly divisive world, the message of hope had to be central to his book.

“If we lose hope, especially if our children lose hope, then all really is lost,” said Homer-Dixon, who is also the research chair in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Calgary.

This article appeared in the Victoria Times Colonist.