Collapse – the Guardian | Republic Of Conscience

www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists

Series Guardian Environment Blogs

Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for ‘irreversible collapse’?

Natural and social scientists develop new model of how ‘perfect storm’ of crises could unravel global system

Nafeez Ahmed
Friday 14 March 2014 18.28 GMT

A new study partly-sponsored by Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.

Noting that warnings of ‘collapse’ are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that “the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history.” Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to “precipitous collapse – often lasting centuries – have been quite common.”

The independent research project is based on a new cross-disciplinary ‘Human And Nature DYnamical’ (HANDY) model, led by applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei of the US National Science Foundation-supported National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, in association with a team of natural and social scientists. The HANDY model was created using a minor Nasa grant, but the study based on it was conducted independently. The study based on the HANDY model has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal, Ecological Economics.

It finds that according to the historical record even advanced, complex civilisations are susceptible to collapse, raising questions about the sustainability of modern civilisation:

“The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent.”

By investigating the human-nature dynamics of these past cases of collapse, the project identifies the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilisational decline, and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely, Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy.

These factors can lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial social features: “the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity”; and “the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or “Commoners”) [poor]” These social phenomena have played “a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse,” in all such cases over “the last five thousand years.”

Currently, high levels of economic stratification are linked directly to overconsumption of resources, with “Elites” based largely in industrialised countries responsible for both:

“… accumulated surplus is not evenly distributed throughout society, but rather has been controlled by an elite. The mass of the population, while producing the wealth, is only allocated a small portion of it by elites, usually at or just above subsistence levels.”

The study challenges those who argue that technology will resolve these challenges by increasing efficiency:

“Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use.”

Productivity increases in agriculture and industry over the last two centuries has come from “increased (rather than decreased) resource throughput,” despite dramatic efficiency gains over the same period.

Modelling a range of different scenarios, Motesharrei and his colleagues conclude that under conditions “closely reflecting the reality of the world today… we find that collapse is difficult to avoid.” In the first of these scenarios, civilisation:

“…. appears to be on a sustainable path for quite a long time, but even using an optimal depletion rate and starting with a very small number of Elites, the Elites eventually consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society. It is important to note that this Type-L collapse is due to an inequality-induced famine that causes a loss of workers, rather than a collapse of Nature.”

Another scenario focuses on the role of continued resource exploitation, finding that “with a larger depletion rate, the decline of the Commoners occurs faster, while the Elites are still thriving, but eventually the Commoners collapse completely, followed by the Elites.”

In both scenarios, Elite wealth monopolies mean that they are buffered from the most “detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners”, allowing them to “continue ‘business as usual’ despite the impending catastrophe.” The same mechanism, they argue, could explain how “historical collapses were allowed to occur by elites who appear to be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory (most clearly apparent in the Roman and Mayan cases).”

Applying this lesson to our contemporary predicament, the study warns that:

“While some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory ‘so far’ in support of doing nothing.”

However, the scientists point out that the worst-case scenarios are by no means inevitable, and suggest that appropriate policy and structural changes could avoid collapse, if not pave the way toward a more stable civilisation.

The two key solutions are to reduce economic inequality so as to ensure fairer distribution of resources, and to dramatically reduce resource consumption by relying on less intensive renewable resources and reducing population growth:

“Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion.”

The NASA-funded HANDY model offers a highly credible wake-up call to governments, corporations and business – and consumers – to recognise that ‘business as usual’ cannot be sustained, and that policy and structural changes are required immediately.

Although the study based on HANDY is largely theoretical – a ‘thought-experiment’ – a number of other more empirically-focused studies – by KPMG and the UK Government Office of Science for instance – have warned that the convergence of food, water and energy crises could create a ‘perfect storm’ within about fifteen years. But these ‘business as usual’ forecasts could be very conservative.

Dr Nafeez Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development and author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation: And How to Save It among other books. Follow him on Twitter @nafeezahmed

This article was amended on 26 March 2014 to reflect the nature of the study and Nasa’s relationship to it more clearly.
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semyorka
14 Mar 2014 18:54

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“Convergent catastrophies.” First domino was the US housing market.

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Mikes005 semyorka

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It started well before that. Tax having and an under regulated international finance market saw wealth that would never be redistributed funneled into the hands of the already too wealthy.

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CitizenWolf Mikes005

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The current economic model of needing growth to sustain itself is utterly flawed. And yet do we ever hear anything from our ‘leaders’? Does Mr Cameron ever say on the 6 O’Clock new, ‘I think we need to look into more sustainable ways of living and alternative indices of wellbeing aside from GDP and stock market prices’. My arse he does.

Time (well past time actually) for policies to be formed by experts and not idiots who managed to garner ‘likes’ at an election. Sure, let’s have oversight of policies by democratically elected persons (of limited tenure) but these people should not get to make up idiot policies that are based on ideologies (of whatever ilk) instead of reality.

Fisheries policy, economic models, TB control and badger culling, global climate change, infrastructure planning, education, and more, are all examples that have been mucked about with with little more than gut response and ideology.

Christ, we’re all doomed, doomed I say.

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DerpyDerper semyorka

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This idea of “income inequality” needs a bit of refining.

The problem is people losing too much of the product of their labour and it being instead hoarded by the elite. I understand not all of it can be retained to make capitalism work.

Equal pay for equal work, but people should not expect an income equal to those who work harder. A harder worker deserves income unequal to that of a more lax
One.

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semyorka Mikes005

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That was the set up.

First domino to topple…..

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SteveRP DerpyDerper

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Does the CEO really work 1000 times harder than his employees?

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OurPlanet CitizenWolf

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Because most people are still either emotionally like children or at best adolescents. We all think things will go on the same forever, until the Big Reaper brings us back to reality in the end.

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blairsnemesis DerpyDerper

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Yes, but the problem in terms of income distribution is, as SteveRP implies, that the relationship between work effort and pay is grossly non-linear. There is no way one can justify factors of 100+ ratios of top/bottom income in a country on the basis of work. And nor does responsibility or competition explain current ratios. We need to demand maximum ratios of, say, 10:1 to end the excesses.

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LionelKent CitizenWolf

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The current economic model of needing growth to sustain itself is utterly flawed.

Yes, it is, yet politicians of rank (with very, very few exceptions) will continue to endorse the promotion of economic growth. And further they will continue to promise that in consequence of such growth there will be more jobs.

Do they really believe such nonsense? God knows. I’m inclined to think they have enough intellectual equipment to believe simple facts, e.g. seven eights make fifty-six, nothing more. I don’t see any evidence of real, thoroughgoing conviction.

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brendon1 semyorka

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What has financial markets go to do with anything? It seems to me this is more fundamental. About whether or not we have the resources to sustain ourselves. A drop in house prices pales somewhat in comparison.

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maxfisher CitizenWolf

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Marx clearly identified the inherent contradictions within capitalism that would inevitably result in such tensions. But we need only revisit the 1960s and 70s when Schumacher, Dahrenedorf and the Club of Rome were issuing warnings about the limits of growth. It’s pretty obvious stuff, but our leaders would rather cover their ears. Like Nero, they’ll be fiddling as Rome burns.

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Patrick Cuninghame CitizenWolf

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The one thing we don’t need is to perpetuate the present dictatorship of unaccountable technocrats and “experts” who have led us into this mess in the first place and who are very much part of the elites described in the article who are primarily to blame for this scenario of collapse due to their irrepressible greed and barbarism (witness their love of war). I think Marx said all this a long time ago, that the capitalists were desperately digging their own graves in their lust for money, property and profit. The problem is that those graves are now so huge, thanks to the growth-obsessed production-consumption induced ecological crisis, that the whole of humanity will be buried in them, not just the capitalist elites, IF we don’t change route and fast. These kinds of decisions have to made as democratically as possible, the move towards decentralized, direct, participatory democracy, devolving decision-making power to every individual has to be a major part of the solution to this neoliberal disaster. So no thanks to unaccountable “experts” who advise the elites, protected from any blame by state secrecy laws.

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wendyb1 CitizenWolf

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I wonder sometimes if these economic collapses serve to show us how simply we can live if we have to. The major concern that I have is that the modern generation does not know how to live and enjoy life ‘simply’. Take away their technology and their myriad of toys and they wouldn’t be able to survive.

Not that I am against technology; it is going to help us discover what has happened to the missing Malaysian airline. However, so many of today’s youth have the idea that socializing means each individual socializing on their Ipad or smartphone. The art of conversation is being lost, in families and groups.

I fear that something has to give. I hope this article is not prophetic, but I think we need to change more than our environment if we want to survive.

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CitizenWolf Patrick Cuninghame

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I disagree that experts have led us to where we are today. Those in power have traditionally used the system to maintain power. As part of that system experts have been used to inappropriately shore up whatever ideology is favored by the elite. It’s the system, not the experts that are at fault.

I do have sympathy towards your other point of participatory democracy. But again I think all major decisions should be backed by the best estimate of the facts. And where else should we look to for those estimates? Mystic Meg? Your Aunt Nora? No, we ask those who know their subjects best.

And the experts don’t have to be unaccountable either. They don’t have to be hidden behind secrecy laws. That’s the system at fault once more, not the experts.

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Johnlummers CitizenWolf

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We are ultimately doomed anyway. I suppose we could go out in an easier way ; I mean die in our sleep rather than get the big C. The problem is, is that we messed about a bit too much so it seems like it’s going to be a painful death. Then again, I’ve had a few and may be going on a bit.

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bokajunior blairsnemesis

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Come the next enlightenment.

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bokajunior blairsnemesis

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Come the next enlightenment.

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ilaister CitizenWolf

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Points above all requiring no argument. Too self-evident. But there is a little too much ghoulish anticipation of the article’s collapse here, no?

Reflection on the ‘commoners” inabilty to induce change throughout the recent millennia may be more productive.

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scrotgrot DerpyDerper

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Quite – you know who works the hardest in every organisation, I hope. The workers.

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ID1569355 CitizenWolf

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CitizenWolf,@12:09 a.m. if you keep talking sense you will invite ridicule and scorn. Indeed you ARE doomed, for you will be droned as an example.

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climbertrev1 CitizenWolf

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Does Mr Cameron ever say on the 6 O’Clock new, ‘I think we need to look into more sustainable ways of living and alternative indices of wellbeing aside from GDP and stock market prices’.

He may think to himself that we need a more sustainable way of living but cannot voice it for several reasons.
The problem is if we end up with 0% economic growth a number of consequences may become apparent.
Our debt will threaten to drag down everything.
Unemployment will soar
the system may implode

A political manifesto promising any of the above is going to lead to electoral annihilation.

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purplesoup CitizenWolf

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Read the Green Party policies and you will find it is the only party seriously addressing these issues. If you want to do something about these problems get involved and help campaign for the may elections.

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swanandprasad brendon1

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I took him/her to mean that it was a first in terms of collapse not the most fundamental.
Surely it is obvious that if the effects of the housing market could be so profound then when larger financial disasters hit it could easily have much more serious financial effects. I don’t see total collapse as that improbable.
The first thing that comes to mind even before we run out of cheap fossil fuel and other resources is the combined effect of climate catastrophes.
I know this is all a hunch.

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Henforthe CitizenWolf

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The current economic model of needing growth to sustain itself is utterly flawed.

I strongly agree. I am of the opinion that economic growth patterns follow the demographic transition model, where the highest levels of growth occur in stages 2 and 3 where life expectancy grows, population booms and the masses become wealthy enough to purchase the mod-cons of a comfortable lifestyle (fridge, car, TV, etc etc). Once Stage 4 is reached, most people will already possess all these items, so there is no longer any requirement for breakneck levels of economic growth.
The developed world is at Stage 4. And yet, the economy has developed such that vast sectors are dependent on levels of consumption growth that belong in the earlier stages. So, to chase further growth, companies in the developed world seek to get in on the action in still-developing countries (’emerging markets’) e.g. China, where growth is still occurring at breakneck speeds.

What will happen when there are no more emerging markets left? How will our economy, dependent as it is on archaic levels of growth, function in this world?

The stabilisation of global population levels that is gradually happening throughout the world is almost certainly a good thing in terms of environmental issues. Yet those keen to prop up our prevailing economic model will probably incentivise a renewed population boom in a desperate attempt to keep the growth coming. I doubt this would bode well for our resource issues, especially our food supply once climate change is factored in.

So unfortunately I am of the opinion that, barring a total reworking of the economy, things could easily get worse as this century progresses.

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Isanybodyouthere semyorka

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Globalization: because everyone has been told the only way they can survive is to consume more of the stuff made by 30 companies controlled by 30 people. Ergo, the plunder of resources and lining of their pockets is internalized as good policy by obsequious governments.

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GenghisMcCann semyorka

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Cheer up. Might never happen.

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semyorka Isanybodyouthere

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Globalization: because everyone has been told the only way they can survive is to consume more of the stuff made by 30 companies

Dont talk nonsense
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snick semyorka

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I’d put it to the industrial revolution if not much earlier than that even.

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umopapisdn wendyb1

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“Take away their technology and their myriad of toys and they wouldn’t be able to survive.”

No, sorry, take away technology and the only people who can cope by themselves will be the survivalists. For the rest of us, if you’re not ‘on a list’, your life expectancy will be pretty short.

That’s not to say that some, random nobodies will survive. But the vast majority will starve, freeze (in the near-polar regions), be killed or die from disease before normal service can resume.

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LionelKent Patrick Cuninghame

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…the move towards decentralized, direct, participatory democracy…

Not going to happen, Patrick. Too many people are numbed by consumerism, as incumbent politicians of rank are fully aware.

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LionelKent SteveRP

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Does the CEO really work 1000 times harder than his employees?

No, he doesn’t, but he has something like 1000 times as much power as e.g. the man on the assembly line, and men like Osborne don’t tax him the way he would be taxed under a rational system. Nor do they tax themselves in that fashion.

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electriccrater umopapisdn

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Take away the power that pumps water into our homes and anyone without access to spring or river water will die from thirst within a few days.

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Tailspin CitizenWolf

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Actually Mr Cameron said exactly that just a couple of years ago.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11833241

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foolisholdman SteveRP

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Does the CEO really work 1000 times harder than his employees?

Or three times as hard as he did a few years ago ?

Does the banker work harder than the fisherman or the agricultural labourer ? Does he have more responsibility than the triage nurse in A&E ?

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foolisholdman maxfisher

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Marx clearly identified the inherent contradictions within capitalism that would inevitably result in such tensions. But we need only revisit the 1960s and 70s when Schumacher, Dahrenedorf and the Club of Rome were issuing warnings about the limits of growth. It’s pretty obvious stuff, but our leaders would rather cover their ears. Like Nero, they’ll be fiddling as Rome burns.

Only this time they will be fiddling the books.

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bobble4293 OurPlanet

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Yes! A confusion I too have drawn! Many adults are employed within businesses whose interests are best served by “children” (adults who think in a childish manner). Just look at the phone hacking and rate rigging scandals, which seem to have been perpetrated by people who viewed their behaviour as just jolly japes.

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umopapisdn electriccrater

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Yeah, I forgot to mention water. (Flashbacks of the opening of ‘The Road’.)

Anything and everything that is ‘supplied’ – food, water, power – let alone the ‘intangibles’ like personal security, rights of ownership.

And I’m fairly sure we’re going to see it ‘soon’ – the next time we get hit with a powerful coronal mass ejection. And the guys in the know reckon we’re overdue, statistically speaking.

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Mark31415926 Henforthe

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There seems to be a parallel with Toynbee’s theory of the fall of the Roman Empire: that it was based on plundering the conquered territories, rather than producing anything new, and thus was doomed once it could no longer expand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_Roman_Empire#Arnold_J._Toynbee_and_James_Burke

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ragtag CitizenWolf
CONTRIBUTOR

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The current economic model of needing growth to sustain itself is utterly flawed.

This pretty much sums up our problems. This and a stock market that doesn’t fund innovation as much as it supports itself while producing nothing of value and sucking the brains of the planet away from worthwhile endeavours.

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CASSE3 CitizenWolf

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Signing CASSE’s position statement is an easy and powerful action people can take to show that they acknowledge that economic growth is having adverse effects in today’s full world. Sign at: http://steadystate.org/act/sign-the-position/

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bjf123 SteveRP

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No, but his work may be worth 1000 times (or hundreds of times, anyway) that of some of them. Which is why he’s paid that. (How hard you work is not the point. If I work really hard at something entirely worthless, should I expect to be paid for it?)

I think it’s perfectly plausible that the work of a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates is worth vastly more than their average employee.

Leaving aside here the genuine issue that some CEOs are undoubtedly overpaid (e.g. as a result of backscratching among the remuneration committee).

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markpkessinger DerpyDerper

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“income inequality” is an awkward term for it, no doubt, especially when taken literally. But NO ONE who is seriously discussing the issue employs the term in its literal sense. NO ONE is saying everybody should be paid the same wage or salary. Instead, the term is used to the state of affairs that results when an economy grows in the aggregate, but those economic gains are increasingly allocated to an ever smaller, ever wealthier elite (who in turn use that vast wealth to exert undue influence on elected leaders, pressuring them to enact policies that are still MORE favorable to this same elite), while all other groups see their income remaining flat or even declining in real dollars, then the system we have for allocating those gains is broken. In a remotely fair or economically just system, if an economy grows in the aggregate, that growth should be distributed across the spectrum of income groups at least somewhat equitably. But I’m guessing you haven”t really bothered ot familiarize with the actual arguments being made int he income inequality discussion. If you had, you would have known all of this already.

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JohnSteinsvold CitizenWolf

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An Alternative to Capitalism (since we cannot legislate morality)

Several decades ago, Margaret Thatcher claimed: “There is no alternative”. She was referring to capitalism. Today, this negative attitude still persists.

I would like to offer an alternative to capitalism for the American people to consider. Please click on the following link. It will take you to my essay titled: “Home of the Brave?” which was published by the Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm

John Steinsvold

Perhaps in time the so-called dark ages will be thought of as including our own.
–Georg C. Lichtenberg

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softwater Henforthe

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What will happen when there are no more emerging markets left? How will our economy, dependent as it is on archaic levels of growth, function in this world?

You haven’t been paying attention to your history, recent and and ancient past. There never will be ‘no more emerging markets’. What happens is once that threat is perceived, a war of major proportions is started to wreck a country (or even an entire continent)’s economy, cripple its infrastructure and impoverish its people.

The survivors then become the next exploitable workforce, who raise children who go on to become the next exploitable consumers until, once again, they are either brought down to ruin or do the same to someone else.

Nation-state economics. Misery ad infinitum.

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drongobackfires JohnSteinsvold

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Read your paper, nope cant see it. C for effort but fails to address the real problems.

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EvelynWar CitizenWolf

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So you agree then that population must be reduced or at the least stabilised if there is to be no growth.

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EvelynWar softwater

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International socialism was so much better.

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TheSwordOfTruth Patrick Cuninghame

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Well said. 🙂

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Tommo68 wendyb1

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yes, but if we didn’t HAVE technology in the first place there wouldn’t be an airliner that disappeared and we wouldn’t BE searching for that MISSING airliner…

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AussieOne1 LionelKent

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The Venezuela model could be good, if the CIA would stop trying to break it.

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wendyb1 Tommo68

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And that is why I said that I am not against technology.

However, I think it is having a negative effect on society, in that there are people who do not communicate in any other way anymore except through Facebook. All information now is ‘group’ information.

Doesn’t make granny or grandpa feel very special does it?

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mountainrover wendyb1

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Maybe your grandchildren would come see you more often if you weren’t so anti-gay (homophobes almost extinct, hun) and if you stopped preaching about a fictitious SkyDaddy 24/7? (Kids hate that).

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jungle_economist CitizenWolf

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I like the fact you had 1200 recommends for that. But you seriously think elected politicians write and administer the meat of policies? I think you’ll find they are voices for policies thought up by the very experts you refer to. Also beware a mandarin state of unelected bureaucrats.

Your other point that we should target other goals than GDP, I’m sorry but no one has a working study anywhere of how that might work at state level without sinking into a managed economy and being eaten alive by international competition.

I think you are confusing what the individual can choose to do – downsize, drop out, volunteer – with what the state should do.

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Valhalla101 blairsnemesis

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I’m not an economist and I agree with you but I wonder what would happen then:
1. Would prices come down to cheap levels thus providing more spending income thus raising consumption?
2. Would this just increase the company’s profits which would be reinvested on further investment and expansion or feed the owners and shareholders profits increasing consumption again?
3. Does this mean that the employees at the power end will all get big pay rises initially?
4. How would this reach the poor?
5. How would this impact the housing market? I guess less people will default but it would also increase demand on limited stock unless we build more thus sacrificing the land on which our limited ecological systems rely on which is already under severe pressure.

I guess this depends on what sums we’re talking about and highlights the point that a possible solution can not operate on its own. It needs a host on interconnected, well planned and thought out policies that would be under regular review and assessment to be tweeked when necessary to attempt to keep overall goals in check & in line across all departments.

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MrFabJp DerpyDerper

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Define harder?

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yoron_ Henforthe

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demographic transition model ??

🙂

Ever heard about chaos mathematics? And populations? Or do you really believe we humans are outside that? We need a clear consensus on one kid per person, world wide, to get a model outside of this.

Economy is based on self interests, and propaganda. As the inequality becomes blatant is also when you will see revolutions. Doesn’t matter what type of government that sits, ‘democratic’ or not. And the inequality today is worse than ever before. There are no earlier time in history when so few have had control over so many real assets, as land energy etc. Less and less owning more and more, using propaganda to tell us that global warming is a sham, only centralized solutions for energy can work, etc etc, into absurdum. The most surprising thing, to me, is that so many today, having a Internet, still are unable to recognize it for what it is.

Then again, from a short time perspective, and ones own self interest, isn’t that where we all want to be? Rich and famous 🙂 Deciding for those others, that don’t ‘understand’ what’s really important.

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CitizenWolf jungle_economist

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Jungle_economist
**But you seriously think elected politicians write and administer the meat of policies?**

No, of course not. However the power still lies with the unexpert politicians who decide what policies to enact. Quite often they choose ‘experts’ that appeal to their ideologies and ignore real evidence. Witness what happened when Prof Nutt highlighted the idiocy of the current drugs policy in the UK. The politicians decided the facts didn’t fit their beliefs and Prof Nutt was ejected quicker than a sneeze from a triceratops with hay fever.

And yes, of course we shouldn’t have a mandarin state. That’s a separate problem that needs to be tackled. Don’t confuse the two issues.

Regarding GDP, I think perhaps you missed the point I was trying to make. The emphasis on GDP figures as an indicator of the condition of a society is based on the current economic model which WILL fail. It will come up against the cliff of reality and fall off. Unlimited growth is quite simply an impossibility.

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32123 bjf123

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well then, you completely miss the point, which is, how we decide what someone’s work is worth. not much use saying steve jobs’ work is worth 1000 times the average factory worker because, well, it’s worth that much, is it? why is it worth that much? what is it about his position that is given so much value and why? it’s a question about what we as a society value. and i’m afraid i think it is absolutely ridiculous that anyone is paid 10 times the salary of anyone else. what reason could there be for such inequality? the lawyer is, in fact, very lucky to be able to practise law and not have to sweep the streets! how much is that priviledge worth i wonder? the banker should thank his/her lucky stars s/he is not out in all weather at all hours on the side of a mountain shepharding! what’s that worth? i worked for a year and a half as an executive banker in the city and took home a very good salary for my age and experience, but it was by no means a demanding job for the extremely generous rewards, especially for those higher up. it’s hard enough to maintain one’s quality of work over an 8 hour day, so how, say, do the bankers keep going for 12/14 hours, 6 days a week? they don’t! try working a 60 hour week for a month or two and maintaining the standard of your work at a high level. it’s very likely impossible for all but the most highly self motivated, but it’s the lie that pays the bankers and others salaries and benefits that are 1000s of times more than the average worker. it’s rubbish.

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StHelena
14 Mar 2014 19:02

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industrial civilisation headed for ‘irreversible collapse’?

No.
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OPatrick StHelena

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I’m not clear that you understand the article you have linked to. It doesn’t appear to justify your ‘no’, unless you equate ‘capitalism’ with ‘civilisation’.

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BECKG32 StHelena

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not a safe attitude

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Matthew Carr OPatrick

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Shh Shh Shh…

The magical market will fix everything!

Magic…

Dropping the parody for a second, it should be obvious to anyone even semi-literate in economics that these types externalities (as we call them in that profession) will not be automatically subject to correction forces by the market as they are just that, externalities. Rather, it is the classic case of kicking the can down the road until the road goes no further and we are forced to confront, with catastrophic consequences, our selfish actions and criminal use of the earth’s precious resources. It is not always the case that we can rely on technology. As amazing as it is, it is no panacea.

We are encountering a Malthusian world where resources are scarce and there is not enough to go around to satiate the growing demand for goods. Just as we are depleting these scarce resourcejs and increasing demand through population growth, we are encountering supply schedules that are relatively inelastic, meaning prices must increase. And as our work force ages (the ‘greying’ of Earth’s population), there will be more economically unproductive peoples supported by younger, productive peoples, ensuring tremendous strain on our current security nets.

In my opinion, the only longterm, guaranteed solution is one imposed through harsh Government regulations on both society and business. But these regulations, historically, have always failed or aroused so much negative sentiment amongst the people (especially the poorer and middling classes), that there is not much will the follow through on these solutions, despite their good intentions.

So it’s a bit of a pickle.

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SleepieHead StHelena

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More like no.

As the authors state:

worst-case scenarios are by no means inevitable, and suggest that appropriate policy and structural changes could avoid collapse, if not pave the way toward a more stable civilisation.

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Patchface StHelena

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I wish the world had ended on December 21 2012 and it hurts because mine did

-Jus Allah

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Matthew Carr SleepieHead

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I certainly hope so, although, as I mentioned before, I have my doubts that such policy will be effective in any large scale manner.
In my country, at least, there is embarrassingly little headway being made on any of these points. In fact, most of the talk is over whether issues like manmade climate change and disparate wealth distribution are real (or, in the latter’s case, being a ‘natural’ result of poorer people being ‘lazy’).

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greenveggie OPatrick

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Yeh, but hey that doesn’t matter. Just the mere posting of a link gives the illusion there is support the for statement and St Helena knows that many won’t bother reading it, they will just assume that it supports StH assertions.

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LeftWingAussie StHelena

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I agree. As a history teacher, I am astonished by the analysis provided by these scientists, none of whom appear to be a historian. It is the kind of analysis that a mathematician would indeed produce – attempting to reduce complex historical outcomes to a simple formula.

One of the problems with explaining the collapse of the (Western) Roman Empire, is that any explanation must also account for the continuance of the Eastern Roman Empire for centuries after its counterpart had descended into chaos.

The Eastern Roman Empire shared the same social structure, the same culture, the same form of governance, and much the same economic system as its counterpart. It is for this reason that theories about the real reasons the WRE collapsed are as numerous as historians, although Gibbon’s venerable theory of four-fold factors is still largely considered to be the best.

Gibbon’s theory is not comforting to the modern mind. Gibbon does not mention the maldistribution of economic resources as a possible factor, but rather the dilution of Roman society by barbaric peoples. In short, a large factor was the ancient equivalent of multiculturalism and inter-racial social policy. Gibbon also believes the rise of Christianity was a factor.

“Collapsing” empires does not, of course, mean the same thing as a collapse in civilisation. The Chinese have the longest, continuous civilsation in history. While the Han Dynasty and Empire may have collapsed, it was succeeded by another and the civilisation continued, with its culture and learning intact.

The research mentioned above is interesting, but it seems to involve the search for a common formula across complex phenomena. Very few historians would accept the findings as even an approximation of what is needed to capture the real causes of these events.

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wildworms LeftWingAussie

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There has been a lot of excellent archaeological work in recent years. Some of the work – never quite definitive, unfortunately, that’s the nature of a lot of fields of research – points to resource crises as an important factor in the decline of empires and civilisations.

I wonder whether there is enough communication between historians and archaeologists. Traditionally, scholars in the humanities/social sciences and the natural sciences are supposed to look down on each other. I’ve always viewed it as an artificial divide.

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amberjack StHelena

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industrial civilisation headed for ‘irreversible collapse’?

Of course it is. It’s nothing more than basic ecology; any species expands until the resources that fuel the expansion – whether it’s a glut of aphids or the discovery of oil – are exhausted. Then the species either goes into a steep decline or goes extinct. Anyone who thinks humans are exempt from this has simply not thought it through.
And to those who think we can transcend this situation through innovative social solutions, I say, good luck with that. Human nature dictates that the people who rise to positions of power over such things are those who promise unlimited wealth, not those who preach circumspection.

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LeftWingAussie wildworms

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There has been a lot of excellent archaeological work in recent years. Some of the work – never quite definitive, unfortunately, that’s the nature of a lot of fields of research – points to resource crises as an important factor in the decline of empires and civilisations.

I agree that resource issues cannot be dismissed as a factor, although I am not sure it is enough to bring civilisation to an end. Similar conditions prevailed before the outbreak of the Black Death, including a sudden shift in climate – a cooling, rather than warming as we are experiencing now – which was rectified by disease. Malthus’ “dismal science” of demographics tends to suggest that is nature’s corrective.

You’re quite right, of course. Knowledge has become so specialised, even in the humanities where one would think there is an inescapable degree of cohesion, that cross-discipline communication is sometimes highly selective and even self-serving.

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StHelena amberjack

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It’s nothing more than basic ecology; any species expands until the resources that fuel the expansion – whether it’s a glut of aphids or the discovery of oil – are exhausted.

The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stone. The bronze age didn’t end because we ran out of bronze.
In each case we found something better and will do so again.

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rah90 StHelena

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The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stone. The bronze age didn’t end because we ran out of bronze.

????? And the meaning of this is……?

In each case we found something better and will do so again.

And in the meantime, billions will suffer and die, as the elite continue to exploit and abuse, entrenching the human capacity for selfishness and f***ing each other over like only humans do.

Not exactly a successful or worthwhile species on planet earth, unless we’re judged by ferraris and/or dollar value.

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aquacalc StHelena

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“industrial civilisation headed for ‘irreversible collapse’?”
“No.”
———————————
Thank you ever so much for your deep and thoughtful insight into this problem.

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sensato LeftWingAussie

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Does not the current global aspect make this a new type of case?

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imocomment StHelena

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Industrial seems to be a large scale word.

imitethav2disagreew/u

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Multutuli LeftWingAussie

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It wasn’t Malthus who used the phrase in 1798, it was Carlyle in 1849, not about demographics, but about economics, in the context of the labour market in the West Indies (Carlyle wanted to restore slavery to better regulate that market).

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justdumbluck sensato

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Indeed, and one that has not been considered by anyone I’ve heard or seen. There is one major difference. There is no place to go, when the ‘commoners’ realize the system they’ve participated in has no intention of keeping the bargain they thought existed. The choice now is either cooperation, or not. But they know this, hence the surveillance state.

Btw, LWA, do you really think the ‘little ice age” ended because of population decline? Well, the AGW should have no trouble being assigned to population growth, then should it?

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amberjack StHelena

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The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stone. The bronze age didn’t end because we ran out of bronze.

In each case we found something better and will do so again.

OK; like what? And how will we deal with the problem of acquisitive capitalism, whereby those who control the resources are heavily dependent for their welath on the status quo and will do all they can to preserve it and quash any new miracle technology (as some conspiracy theorists maintain they already have)?
There may well be miraculous new resources undiscovered that will enable us to transcend fossil fuels, but my projection is that – due to the aforementioned political and economic factors, certainly not a lack of technological options – civilisation will either collapse or spectacularly decline before they come on line.

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foolisholdman amberjack

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And to those who think we can transcend this situation through innovative social solutions, I say, good luck with that. Human nature dictates that the people who rise to positions of power over such things are those who promise unlimited wealth, not those who preach circumspection.

Clearly then those “who think we can transcend this situation through innovative social solutions,” will have to solve the problem of better selection of leaders. (Among many other problems.)

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StHelena amberjack

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OK; like what?

e.g. Thorium LSRs, 4th Gen Uranium, Hydrogen fuel cells, Ammonium, etc. Which are all pretty much inexaustible for the next few thousand years. Plus of course there’s plenty of fossil fuels about from new sources; fracking, tar sands etc to last for several hundred years.
By then of course “the daddy” may have come on line: fusion

acquisitive capitalism, whereby those who control the resources are heavily dependent for their welath on the status quo

I agree that people are generally stupid. Businesses become profitable, and they try to stop new entrants getting a piece of it. For example Microsoft sell a buggy, unmodifiable, slow operating system for hundreds of pounds. And people buy it, even though there’s perfectly good operating systems (like Linux, or BSD) available for free.

It’s not Microsofts’ fault. It’s the fault of the stupid people who won’t make the change. Until people realise they are being shafted and stupid, these companies will take advantage.

I have hope though. Things like Bitcoin are a must. Open-source everything is a must. That way we can ensure that any “collapse ” is of corporate profits and not civilisation.

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Kevin Lee StHelena

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A lot of people seem to think that stories like this mean that we’re all going to be living like Mad Max in 5 or 10 years, which of course, isn’t going to happen, so it’s all BS. The truth is far more complicated and time consuming.

Great civilizations have fallen with the people living on the fringes barely even noticing. By that time, the concentration of wealth has gotten so bad that most people are barely scraping out an existence anyway, so it’s really only the people at the center of power and wealth who are impacted. The people in the country may have still nominally considered themselves Romans or whatever, but nothing really changed in their lives when the capital cities were abandoned and falling into ruin (other than maybe some access to free building materials.)

The bottom line is, it’s hard to say how long we have, but we’re going to have to cut our energy consumption by about 90% and increase our renewable energy capacity by about 1000%. If we have enough time to do it gracefully, we might be able to continue living relatively comfortable, healthy, fulfilling lives. Or we can just live in denial until it’s absolutely too late, and we can reduce our energy use by about 100% and replace it with nothing, which won’t be pretty.

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LionelKent Matthew Carr

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In my opinion, the only longterm, guaranteed solution is one imposed through harsh Government regulations on both society and business. But these regulations, historically, have always failed or aroused so much negative sentiment amongst the people (especially the poorer…

There remain two obstinate facts, as JK Galbraith was aware. First, politicians (and in many cases economists) are unwilling or unmoved to find fault with consumerism. You refer to demand that will increase with population, but make no reference to the intensity and power of modern, government-approved advertising. Second, in recent decades the same two classes have decided never to concede that things would work better in every respect if taxation were outright progressive – there is no reason whatever to believe that the poor would object to such a state of affairs.

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amberjack StHelena

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Yep, I agree that most of those solutions seem fairly plausible – though extracting some of them is going to trash the environment, and not just around the extraction sites. I’m also a big fan of open-sourcing everything, CC licensing, all academic research being in the public domain and so on. I’m just a lot more pessimistic about the likelihood – without a violent revolution – of achieving the necessary turnaround in the attitudes of those in power.

And even with a violent revolution, we’d just get a different bunch of people who’d act in the interests of themselves and their ilk. Nobody’s going to go to war with The Man to fight for positive solutions – revolutions tend to smash the status quo, but not deliver anything better in the long term.

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TamLin rah90

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The stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stone. The bronze age didn’t end because we ran out of bronze.

????? And the meaning of this is……?

The binge age won’t run out because we run out of cash?

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Lewis Sullivan SleepieHead

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Not really a fundamental law of social science is it? Plus it says in that article he broke his own law!

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Iapetus StHelena

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I’m not sure that’s really relevant.

The transition from the stone to bronze and bronze to iron ages weren’t (usually) collapses of civilizations, nor were they (usually) triggered by running out of resources.

Indeed, the stone, bronze and iron ages weren’t civilizations as such. They are crude lables we give to broad periods of time, because the people were illiterate and didn’t name leave any records of what we called themselves or their societies, so we have to nickname them after what materials they used. (Or for finer detail, how they burried their dead, or what decoration they used on their pots).

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ChrisUnderhill Kevin Lee

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Quite true, and implied in the article:

” Elite wealth monopolies mean that they are buffered from the most “detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners”, allowing them to “continue ‘business as usual’ despite the impending catastrophe…”

This is the error St.Helena is making, believing the technical fix will re-calibrate society to a new standard. In fact, as also stated in the article

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Mariavumer Matthew Carr

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Agreed! Ultra neo-liberalism needs to stop, especially in the USA and the UK.

The British government has not shown to be a friend of corporate regulation!

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Dominicjj Kevin Lee

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I think people living ” on the fringes” and in the countryside in civilizations like the Roman Empire, would have experienced a great change after war and invasion. Trading, farming, building, transport, law and order and the general structure of society would have had to have changed after foreign invasion. They probably would have had their land taken off them, and their whole way of life would have been torn apart by such destruction.

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Rothlind Matthew Carr

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…the only longterm…solution is one imposed through harsh Government regulations… But these regulations, historically, have always failed or aroused…much negative sentiment…

The Chinese are in a better position than the US or Great Britain in this regard. Representative regimes, compared to autocratic and centralized regimes, are at a disadvantage in instituting radical preventative policies. Which raises the prospect that the self-poisoning of the planet may be exacerbated by governments answerable to the people. How much longer will the world be able to afford democracy?

The prospect of a post-democratic world is not part of NASA’s dystopian vision as far as I can tell. Perhaps it ought to be.

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annetan42 LeftWingAussie

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Your position appears to be that humanity is somehow separate from the natural world. In fact Homo sapiens sapiens L is as proper a subject for scientific study as any other natural phenomenon.

Historians do not own history, the forces that have created human history are as appropriate for scientific study as any other forces of nature.

When you pour salt onto a plate it builds up for a time and then collapses. This is the same phenomenon that causes avalanches.

During evolution similar gradual change occurs all the time as a result of organisms responding to changes in the environment. The record of the rocks shows that from time to time sudden changes or saltations occur.

It is not, in my view, unreasonable to interpret human history in a similar way. We give the sudden changes a different name – Revolution.

Oh and by the way Gibbon’s view that the fall of the Roman empire was it was overwhelmed by ‘inferior races’ is, apart from being racist, arrant nonsense. In evolutionary terms the Roman Empire at its end was bloated and no longer capable of rule. It was overwhelmed by a society that was more capable. That’s what ‘survival of the fittest’ means. It is arguable that Capitalism is now in an analogous position, it certainly shows similar characteristics over consumption of the rich, obsession with food clothes and sex and a complete inability as a system to support the poorest in society.

The ‘Barbarian hordes’ that overwhelmed Rome were in fact cultured people as the incredible pieces of art they produced proves.