Dr. Justine Walter

WELCOME TO THE VUCCA WORLD!:

WHY THE FUTURE IS NOT JUST VUCA BUT VUCCA

By Dr. Justine Walter

FACED with the challenges of climatic change, the accelerating, hyperconnected, digitalised, and highly fragile vuca world acquires another dimension: it becomes vucca: volatile, uncertain, complex, catastrophic, and ambiguous. Tackling this situation requires a novel understanding of what catastrophes are, how they emerge, and what potential lies in them. Once this understanding is established, Futures Studies and Foresight can facilitate the creation of innovative ways to lead, plan, educate and design.

In the first half of the 20th century, two prominent philosophers of the Frankfurt school, Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, established the term permanent catastrophe. Benjamin and Adorno used the term for any rupture and conceptual revolution in history that was regarded as (civil, technological, or economic) progress by anyone benefitting from it, while those that had been overthrown perceived it as an ever-present defeat.

In the Anthropocene, an era in which human-induced climate change triggers an increase in weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe (IPCC, 2021), this largely forgotten concept of permanent catastrophe may regain traction. It can perhaps even be used to describe the inherent state of the world – even though in a different form than the thinkers of the Frankfurt School imagined it.

This article explores how the term catastrophe is used today before outlining why catastrophes will become more relevant to all aspects of human life and an increasingly important subject in futures studies.

The vuca world as we know it

Before the backdrop of the 4th Industrial Revolution, economic, political, and social spheres are changing. Emerging intelligent technologies have begun to “drive radical shifts in

the way we live […], the way we produce and transport goods and services, the way we communicate, the way we collaborate, and the way we experience the world around us” (Schwab, 2018, pp. 40-41). Buzzwords like disruptive innovation, digital transformation and the vuca (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world have evolved into commonplaces in academic literature, management training, and the daily press. These changes are not only radical but occur at an accelerated pace: what we experience today may be the climax of the “Great Acceleration”, i.e. the exponentially increasing human activity since 1945 (McNeill & Engelke, 2013).

This accelerating change in the human sphere that is characterised by a surge in growth rates of economies, populations and the use of technologies leaves a substantial imprint on the Earth System. The Environmental Sciences have tracked the effects of the Great Acceleration in several previously stable indicators and thus proclamation a new geological epoch in which human activity, predominantly the global economic system, is the prime driver of change in the Earth System: the Anthropocene (https://www.anthropocene. info/great-acceleration.php).

Some effects of this human-induced climate change are already visible in today’s environment. In 2021 only, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the deadly summer heat waves in North America and Southern Europe, and heavy floods in Central Europe have demonstrated the impact of regional hazards on the globalized political and social system. The 2022 heat wave in India has even surpassed these in severity. Longer-term effects include desertification (Burrell, Evans & De Kauwe, 2020), soil degradation (Borrelli et al., 2020), and droughts (Büntgen et al., 2021). Social consequences of altered environmental conditions are also beginning to manifest, as demonstrated by social unrest over food prices and the imminent fear of global famines, mass migrations like the one from Central to North America (Barretti, 2019; Lustgarten, 2020), and armed conflict over water and other resources (ICRC, 2021).

State-of-the-art scientific models predict that hazards linked to climatic change are likely to exacerbate in intensity, frequency, and global impact in the near and mid-term future (IPCC, 2021). How this will impact specific regions and the global community remains yet unknown. What is, in contrast, certain is that faced with the challenges of climatic change, the everaccelerating, hyperconnected, digitalised, and highly fragile vuca world acquires another dimension: it becomes vucca – volatile, uncertain, complex, catastrophic, and ambiguous.

Before this dimension is explored in more detail, the most relevant terms will be defined.

On terminology

In everyday parlance and media coverage, extreme natural events from droughts to floods and earthquakes are commonly referred to as natural disasters or catastrophes. This terminology implies that the events originate outside of human society. Sociological research into disasters and their origins, however, has demonstrated that disasters do not emerge in an extra-societal realm. They must rather be considered long-term processes within the human sphere that are created or prevented by society and largely shaped by culture (Kelman, 2020).

While hazards play a role in the emergence, disasters are purely social processes (Perry, 2005; Kelman, 2020) that remain invisible until a hazard discloses them. If this visible process of disaster is severe enough to cause a failure of the prevailing cultural system, i.e. radical cultural change initiated by the upsetting of routines, altering of norms, and violation of previously existing order and hierarchies, disaster evolves into catastrophe.

The term catastrophe has its roots in Ancient Greek and is a composite of the preposition kata (kata ‘downwards’) and the verb strefein (στρέφειν; to turn over). A catastrophe thus describes a movement of reversing, turning upside down or upending. Applied to social processes, in Greek Antiquity it indicated that someone or something would subdue, be upset, end, or die. Nevertheless, while the ancient Greeks viewed catastrophes as processes of radical change, this transformation and its results were not necessarily negative (Walter, 2019).

This is in stark contrast with the modern usage of the term. While in everyday parlance it is common to use catastrophe as a synonym for disaster, current disaster research makes a gradual distinction between the two terms: catastrophes are defined as particularly severe cases of disasters that n heavily impact most or all built structures n suspend usual local services like medical care or policing (often due to a high number of fatalities among officials) n sharply and simultaneously interrupt most or all everyday community functions n equally affect nearby communities so that mutual aid is not possible (Quarantelli, 2000).

Unlike disasters that impact certain groups or functions within the affected community, catastrophes severely affect every member and aspect of it. In accordance with this definition, the legislature in many countries specifies the number of casualties or damages above which an event is considered a catastrophe and countermeasures are initiated.

While this distinction may be of practical use, the increasing number and frequency of severe hazards in the Anthropocene that disrupt social systems, cause substantial damage and cost human lives while simultaneously initiating widespread discussions, mindset change and, ultimately, cultural transformation call for a new understanding of what a catastrophe is and what distinguishes it from disaster.

Towards a new understanding of catastrophes

Departing from the original meaning of the word, a catastrophe is a process of dramatic transformation that results in an altered situation that is not necessarily worse than the initial situation. While today the term is synonymous with exceptionally severe and lethal disasters, it seems more expedient to use it to describe what comes after a dangerous situation, i.e., to describe the effects of a sequence of hazards and disasters that sustainably transform a society.

In the case of the Fukushima earthquake in 2011, the most notable of these effects has been the re-evaluation of nuclear energy in many countries across the world, with countries like Germany and Switzerland phasing out of it. The Boxing Day tsunami in late 2004 led to substantial population movement and drastic changes in the composition of regional economies and agriculture (Thomas & Frankenberg, 2014). Hurricane Katrina

devastated New Orleans in 2006 resulting in an improvement in the local job market (Fleisher, 2018). For Covid-19, the catastrophic long-term effects are only beginning to show but are likely to include a new attitude towards public health, working from home, consuming regional products, and trading wild-life species.These effects have transformed societies, economies, and values. They are thus catastrophic in the original sense of the term.

Nevertheless, these catastrophic cultural effects are hardly, if ever, considered in political discussions, insurance contracts, legislation, or even academic discourse. Reasons for this may be the substantial differences in n TIME: some catastrophic processes become visible immediately after the events as in the case of Fukushima, others unfold more slowly and can only be recognized years after the hazard n SCALE: while catastrophe has been defined above as ‘radical cultural change’, the culture that changes may range from that of a group within society, an organization, a nation or even the global community n VISIBILITY: the transformation can be easily visible or more subtle n SCOPE: changes may occur in a specific realm of society or transcend every area of it

In some cases, it is difficult to distinguish catastrophe from continuous processes of adaptation. It is thus useful to define catastrophe as a process that directs the development of a society towards a new, previously unthought-of or unlikely direction. This means that the normalcy that was disrupted by disaster is not merely not restored, but indefinitely lost, as catastrophe creates a new reality. For those affected, what used to be normal dies with disaster.

In the Anthropocene, the new reality created by disaster is unlikely to persist for long as the frequency and intensity of hazards increases while the accelerating vuca world elevates global societies’ vulnerability to disasters. Instead, catastrophe may become the ‘new normal’.

Why catastrophe is likely to become a permanent state

According to the latest IPCC report (IPCC, 2021), the frequency and intensity of weather and climate hazards is and will continue to, increase in the decades to come. They will affect every society and region on the planet. Consequently, the World Economic Forum’s latest Risk Report lists extreme weather as one of the top critical threats to the world that is already clear and present (World Economic Forum, 2021, p.11). In addition to extreme weather events, climate change will likely trigger a global increase in infectious diseases (Thomas, 2020) and possibly even earthquakes (Buys, 2019).

Along with these rapid-onset hazards, rising sea levels, the progressive reduction of yields or extended dry periods will

affect an increasing portion of the world’s population. Unlike extreme events that take only hours or days, cause instantly visible disruption, and may result in catastrophe, many slow-onset hazards happen simultaneously to a certain kind of catastrophe: What is considered ‘normal’ among the affected changes while the condition continues. This ‘amnesia’ is known as shifting baselines syndrome and has been observed and studied for different generations (Jones et al., 2020). The acceleration of environmental, technological, and social change that is already visible and expected to exacerbate, however, is likely to cause baselines to shift – maybe even several times – within one generation. This constant state of flux makes effective measures tackling the causes or consequences even less likely.

Apart from extreme weather phenomena and climaterelated slow-onset hazards, geophysical hazards like earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that are not directly related to climatic change but cannot be predicted accurately will have an increasing impact on the growing megacities in volcanic and earthquake-prone areas. Regions like Central America and South-East Asia are frequently shaken by seismic activity and, as the example of Haiti demonstrates, may enter a state of deep catastrophe afterwards. The ongoing increase in global trade and international mobility, the increasing connectivity of diverse actors, rapidly aging populations and growing wealth inequality likewise exacerbate risk from hazards. In the context of accelerated transformation novel hazards are likely to emerge.

Although not every hazard causes disaster or catastrophe, it is unlikely that communities that are frequently and intensely hit by hazards can cope with their effects without entering a phase of radical cultural change. In contrast, it can be assumed that the frequency and intensity of occurring hazards are proportional to the continuity and profoundness of transformative processes within the affected societies.

In short: many societies in the world are likely to enter a state of a permanent catastrophe or a vucca world.

Conclusion: Catastrophes as a major challenge for Futures Studies

Global climate change is likely to cause a substantial increase in various kinds of hazards in the decades to come. In combination with tightly interconnected societies and economies that evolve at an accelerated pace, complex technological systems that permeate global infrastructure, and a steady population increase in the world’s most hazardprone areas, these hazards are more than ever likely to cause disaster and, ultimately, catastrophe.

As the catastrophic processes are protracted while the intervals of hazards will become shorter, “new” catastrophic developments will be kicked off before the previous ones have been completed, and old and new catastrophes will overlap. The world of the Anthropocene will thus indeed be in a state of permanent catastrophe as the thinkers of the Frankfurt School predicted.

Living and coping with this ‘new normal’ will not only require new ways to predict, prepare for, and cope with known and yet unknown hazards. It will also be crucial to establish novel types of political and social leadership, innovative ways of planning for the future, creative approaches to communication and education, ideas on how to tackle social inequality and other factors directly contributing to vulnerability as well as continuing research into the resilient design of infrastructure and organisations.

Futures Studies and Foresight have the potential to facilitate this process by co-creating convincing scenarios of possible futures that reduce anxiety and help identify new options, by engaging diverse perspectives in the building of strategies that provide guidance within a rapidly and radically changing environment, and by enabling people to take the first steps towards creating a desirable future despite all environmental challenges.

To do so, they need to acknowledge catastrophe as an inherent feature of the future and accept the responsibility to shape the vucca world. By establishing a novel understanding of catastrophes as processes of radical cultural change with negative or positive outcomes – thus going back to the roots of the ancient Greek term – Futures Studies and Foresight can lay the foundation for the permanent catastrophe’s evolving into an opportunity for continuous improvement.