The Chaos Compendium - what we can do as the Polycrisis Engine hits overdrive

At the start of this year, I published Divided on Purpose, a report looking at the risks and fractures likely to shape 2026. Four months in, the early warnings in that report have not faded into the background. They have accelerated and the Polycrisis Engine is running hot.

For some time now, my work has focused on what it means to communicate in chaos. At the beginning of 2025, I was exploring the role of the chaos communicator and the responsibilities we might have as practitioners when disruption stops behaving like a temporary interruption and becomes the operating environment.

That's the reality we have to face. If we are waiting for things to “go back to normal”, we are planning for a world that no longer exists. The disruption is not a temporary blip. It is not a pause before everything settles back into a familiar shape. The systems around us are revealing their current condition and we have to work accordingly.

The Chaos Compendium has been written as a practical guide for people, practitioners, organisations and communities trying to understand what is happening, what it means and what can still be done.

It draws on real-time monitoring of unfolding events, alongside analysis from international institutions, governments, monitoring bodies, researchers and credible news sources. It looks across energy, food, climate, democracy, conflict, migration, the economy and artificial intelligence, because none of those systems is moving alone. They are connected. Pressure in one place pushes into another.

Energy disruption affects fertiliser. Fertiliser affects food production. Food production affects price and hunger. Hunger affects displacement. Displacement affects political stability. Political instability feeds polarisation. Polarisation weakens democratic capacity. Weaker institutions are then less able to respond to the next shock. That is the Polycrisis Engine at work.

The report sets out five probable world-states for late 2026, not as fixed predictions but as directional scenarios. Probability is used as a compass, not a map. The purpose is not to declare exactly what will happen. It is to help us recognise the shape of what is already moving towards us and prepare while there is still room to act.

For many people, of course, there is no comfortable preparation window. They are already living inside the crisis: under bombardment, curfew, displacement, energy restriction, food shortage, communications disruption or government instructions to stay home, conserve fuel and reduce movement. For them, preparedness language can be insulting if it assumes spare money, spare time, spare space or spare energy. And we have to acknowledge that and help those 'already there' find their way through.

The report begins from the position that people living inside active crisis deserve dignity, support and practical care. It also recognises that those not yet in acute crisis have responsibilities too - to prepare wisely, to reduce harm where possible and to use whatever voice, influence and resources they have to support others.

For households and communities, that may mean thinking about food, water, medicine, energy, transport, information, cash, documents and local connections. It may mean knowing who lives nearby, who may need help first, who has useful skills and where support can be found. It may mean growing what we can, wasting less, supporting local food systems, checking information before sharing it and refusing to join in with dehumanising rhetoric.

For organisations, the responsibilities are different but no less urgent. Boards and leadership teams need to stop treating global instability as background noise. It is now part of the operating environment. Fuel price spikes, supply chain disruption, staff family pressure, customer distress, public anger, information disorder and declining institutional trust are not abstract global risks. They become absenteeism, cost pressure, service disruption, reputational risk, safety concerns, harder stakeholder conversations and loss of licence to operate.

Public relations and communication teams have a particular responsibility here.

We need to help leaders move away from reassurance theatre and towards useful communication. People do not need bland statements that everything is under control when they can see that it is not. They need honest uncertainty, practical guidance, visible care and timely information. They need to know what is being monitored, what decisions are being made, what support exists and when they will hear more.

Wise counsel now means slowing the room down without slowing the response.

Are we minimising what people are already experiencing? Are we communicating from institutional comfort or lived reality? Have we considered those with the least margin? Are we giving people something useful to do? Are we protecting trust or simply protecting position?

The report also asks us to look beyond immediate response. We need stronger local relationships, better community infrastructure, more practical skills, better information habits and more resilient democratic participation. Those are not soft extras. They are the things that help people and communities hold together when larger systems become brittle.

None of this stops the Polycrisis Engine on its own. People carrying the consequences of decisions made elsewhere cannot brake the engine but we can reduce the damage it does as it gathers speed. We can make households less exposed, communities less isolated and organisations less brittle.

When everything is moving at speed, the answer is not to move faster in panic. It is to be steadier, better informed and better connected.

The Chaos Compendium is a guide to making good choices in hard times.

And yes, it includes tomatoes.

If you'd like a copy of the report, email me at learn-at-prknowledgehub-dot.com and I'll send it over or download below.