Two meetings

I had the pleasure of encountering Nathan Sears on two separate occasions—in the first week of his PhD and on the final day of his life. The first time we met, Nathan's ideas about why Great Powers fail to effectively address existential risks were just starting to take shape. The second time we met, Nathan, now a newly minted PhD, presented his fully formed theory of macrosecuritisation failure at the International Studies Association conference in Montréal. I met Nathan in the fall of 2016 at a political science department potluck to kick off the semester at the University of Toronto where he and my partner were both doing their PhDs. Entering a room full of international relations PhD students, I was dreading yet another debate about neorealism and constructivism over a plate of vegan hors d'oeuvres. Thankfully, Nathan had been tipped off that I, like him, shared an interest in global catastrophic and existential risk (and the unique governance challenges they present for humanity) and so we hit it off right away. I remember being enthralled by Nathan's energy and enthusiasm—and intimidated by the clarity of his research program just 1 week into the semester. Nathan was perplexed by our inability to make meaningful progress on mitigating threats like climate change, pandemics and technological risks. While I was fixated on the challenge of decision making under deep uncertainty—and the interactions between scientists and policymakers, Nathan was focused on the role of the State, especially the Great Powers. Even though it had become quite trendy in 2017 for IR scholars to focus their attention on sub-state and non-state actors, Nathan was sure there could be no effective existential risk governance without Great Power leadership—and no Great Power leadership without Great Power rivalry. Flash forward 6 years, and Dr. Nathan Sears—now with a PhD defence and a few top-tier journal publications under his belt—is presenting his fully formed theory of macrosecuritisation failure to a mostly full room of his peers (not bad for the 8:15 am timeslot!). Compared to the first time I'd met him, several things had not changed one bit. Despite declaring this was the first presentation he'd ever done without having a cup of coffee beforehand, Nathan was as energetic and enthusiastic about existential risk governance and the role of the Great Powers as the first day I'd met him. However, while the version of Nathan that I first met had more ideas than he knew what to do with, Dr. Sears was calm, cool and systematic in his thinking. He knew his ideas were important—and was intent on communicating them clearly and effectively. It's hard not to imagine the scholar—and the person—that Nathan was still in the process of becoming. It's hard to look at his too-brief 35 years of life and his too-few years of scholarship and not dwell on the feeling that he had so much more to do and give—so many more important and impactful ideas to unearth and share. But Nathan was also a scientist. And while science is slow and stubbornly iterative in a time of urgent and converging global challenges, the ripples of Nathan's ideas will continue to influence other scholars in the fields of international relations, global governance and risk analysis for years to come. To me, Nathan's most powerful idea is that, to date, fear of the Other has outweighed the fear of an existential threat. I share his opinion that this dynamic—whether taking place between Great Power rivals or at the individual, psychological level—may be the defining challenge of our age. Nathan dedicated himself to trying to understand and address one of the core challenges facing our species—and I cannot think of a more noble and worthwhile way for a brilliant scientist to spend their precious time on this planet. None. Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study. Dr. Scott Janzwood is the Research Director at the Cascade Institute. His research focuses on how scientists and policymakers communicate uncertainty and collaborate to address global catastrophic risks such as climate change, pandemics and other emerging threats. Scott holds a PhD in Global Governance from the University of Waterloo.

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