Emergence-y is a powerful call to rethink how we confront crisis by reconnecting science, art, and heart. Clare Harris, an international leader in science, data, and disaster management, began her career at just 20 years old in the Darfur conflict. Since then, she has worked in the difficult space between science and frontline crisis operations, navigating disasters, uncertainty, and rapidly evolving global risks. Blending personal memoir, irreverent humour, and the science of planetary hazards, Harris explores how embracing uncertainty, deep communication, and human connection are essential in a world increasingly shaped by climate change, disaster, and inequality.
At its core, Emergence-y is about resilience, not only the resilience of systems under pressure, but the resilience of people shaped by relationships, culture, and lived experience. Drawing inspiration from generations of resilient women: formidable grandmothers, rebellious aunties who challenged colonial norms, a physics teacher who refused retreat, and even fictional Star Trek captain who embodied courage and unconventional thinking. These stories of women across science, art, and everyday heart are woven into a broader exploration of bias, uncertainty, systems influence, and the entrenched value structures that shape how societies understand risk and the world itself.
Rather than offering simplistic solutions or polished optimism, Harris argues transformation begins by repeatedly asking "why," and being willing to sit with uncomfortable answers, just as good science demands. Through first hand accounts of disaster, leadership under pressure, and the realities of failure, she explores how individuals and institutions can learn to "dance with uncertainty" instead of pretending certainty exists.
From failures in science communication to elitism and hidden inequities in global systems, Emergence-y explores how current structures fail those at risk and the most vulnerable, and how they might transform, not through fanfare, but by asking "why" and holding the discomfort of the answers, as any good scientist should. Through first-hand accounts of crisis, leading diverse teams, and embracing failure, the book shows how societies can "dance with uncertainty." It offers sharp critiques, personal and systemic, but, crucially, unrelenting hope. Ultimately, Emergence-y champions storytelling, diverse knowledge, bold collaboration, and radical rethinking of how we prepare for the unknown. As Clare puts it, "I reckon it's better to go out learning and laughing with a drink in hand and a fighting rebel heart, reaching for more positive future storylines in the world, even if it can never be guaranteed. That uncertainty is the very fabric of our reality."