DOOM!!! :o
www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists
Quote
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
A new study 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 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 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, Motesharri 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 is largely theoretical, 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
The collapse of civilization will at least get us out in the open air.
But I find some of their claims somewhat bizarre from a historical basis. The Roman Elites were oblivious to the coming collapse? They had been completely pre-occupied with it for centuries, the elites in the west pretty much gave up on the whole thing and retreated to their estates decades before the actual fall came.
They oversell a bit how different "civilization" was before and after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, don't they?
Quote from: Ideologue on March 21, 2014, 09:15:49 AM
They oversell a bit how different "civilization" was before and after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, don't they?
Population, Literacy and International Trade cratered, so no they're not.
So, "Irreversible" collapses are cyclic? WTF?
Revolution!
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2014, 09:36:59 AM
So, "Irreversible" collapses are cyclic? WTF?
Irreversible WITHIN the cycle. Obviously once it's done, a new cycle start.
Quote from: PJL on March 21, 2014, 09:39:17 AM
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2014, 09:36:59 AM
So, "Irreversible" collapses are cyclic? WTF?
Irreversible WITHIN the cycle. Obviously once it's done, a new cycle start.
So, not irreversible.
This "study" seems to me to be pretty much a restatement of the obvious combined with an disregard for the many, many factors that make modern western society quite unlike the Maya, Romans, or Gupta. The existence of a majority middle class, for instance, and the power of public opinion, and the fact that the elites don't monopolize the political system.
It is certain that what we call "industrial civilization" will eventually end. I could have told NASA that for a tenth what these people charged.
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2014, 10:05:36 AM
The existence of a majority middle class, for instance, and the power of public opinion, and the fact that the elites don't monopolize the political system.
Grumbler does satire. :o
We've already witnessed an industrial society collapse in our lifetime. The Soviet Union.
Cause they were so much better off under Stalin? :wacko:
Hard to say. The only way modern Russia can deter, let alone defeat, a pan-European invasion is due to its nukes. Who built the nukes? SAY HIS NAME.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2014, 11:01:40 AM
Cause they were so much better off under Stalin? :wacko:
:huh: There no reason such a society needs to be nice. It's simply an industrial society that collapsed.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2014, 11:01:40 AM
Cause they were so much better off under Stalin? :wacko:
Were they any worse off?
Quote from: Neil on March 21, 2014, 11:19:15 AM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2014, 11:01:40 AM
Cause they were so much better off under Stalin? :wacko:
Were they any worse off?
No Twitter. :o
Anyway, by that standard African society has "collapsed" as well.
Quote from: Neil on March 21, 2014, 11:19:15 AM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2014, 11:01:40 AM
Cause they were so much better off under Stalin? :wacko:
Were they any worse off?
How many millions starved to death under Stalin? That many million people would say "yes."
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2014, 11:23:14 AM
How many millions starved to death under Stalin? That many million people would say "yes."
No. Because they are dead :rolleyes:
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2014, 11:23:14 AM
Quote from: Neil on March 21, 2014, 11:19:15 AM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2014, 11:01:40 AM
Cause they were so much better off under Stalin? :wacko:
Were they any worse off?
How many millions starved to death under Stalin? That many million people would say "yes."
Not Russians.
Well Stalin's Soviet Union didn't collapse, Gorbachev's did. The economic and political structure of the country fell apart. Were they better off? That would depend on who and when you ask. If you ask a Russian in 1993, that answer would probably be "no". You ask a Latvian today, the answer is probably "yes".
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2014, 11:22:07 AM
Quote from: Neil on March 21, 2014, 11:19:15 AM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2014, 11:01:40 AM
Cause they were so much better off under Stalin? :wacko:
Were they any worse off?
No Twitter. :o
Anyway, by that standard African society has "collapsed" as well.
When was African civilization not collapsed?
Quote from: Neil on March 21, 2014, 11:31:52 AM
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2014, 11:23:14 AM
Quote from: Neil on March 21, 2014, 11:19:15 AM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2014, 11:01:40 AM
Cause they were so much better off under Stalin? :wacko:
Were they any worse off?
How many millions starved to death under Stalin? That many million people would say "yes."
Not Russians.
Today your average Russian eats and lives better then he did 30 years ago. He probably enjoys more freedom as well, (though that last bit is in flux at the moment).
Quote from: Neil on March 21, 2014, 11:32:36 AM
When was African civilization not collapsed?
See, collapse is a verb and requires that at some point there was something better in place to have collapsed. :P
@Raz- the government of the Soviet Union fell. Russian society didn't, it's still plodding along.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2014, 11:47:28 AM
Quote from: Neil on March 21, 2014, 11:32:36 AM
When was African civilization not collapsed?
See, collapse is a verb and requires that at some point there was something better in place to have collapsed. :P
@Raz- the government of the Soviet Union fell. Russian society didn't, it's still plodding along.
Then what would you describe as a collapse?
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2014, 10:05:36 AM
Quote from: PJL on March 21, 2014, 09:39:17 AM
Quote from: grumbler on March 21, 2014, 09:36:59 AM
So, "Irreversible" collapses are cyclic? WTF?
Irreversible WITHIN the cycle. Obviously once it's done, a new cycle start.
So, not irreversible.
The collapse is irreversible, obviously other civilization eventually rise. But the one that collapsed is done for good.
Permanent decline in standard of living, government services, technological know-how... like what happened in western Europe in the 5th century.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2014, 12:00:43 PM
Permanent decline in standard of living, government services, technological know-how... like what happened in western Europe in the 5th century.
That wasn't a permanent decline, and wasn't even a decline in certain areas.
The decline was permanent, it just was offset by natural progress over the following centuries. This differs from a period of war where there is a temporary decline but things pick up where they left off afterward.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2014, 12:47:03 PM
a period of war where there is a temporary decline but things pick up where they left off afterward.
You can never cross the same stream twice. :mellow:
You can if it's really cold.
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on March 21, 2014, 12:50:43 PM
You can never cross the same stream twice. :mellow:
But you can cross different streams and kill powerful demons. :homestar:
Social science is a disease.
If we were to collapse now there'd be no getting up again. We've nearly exhausted our easily-accessible supplies of fossil fuels, so we'd never be able to reestablish industrial civilization. We'd be stuck in medieval stasis until the end.
Hydroelectricity could form the core of a new civilization that dominates the outlander savages.
And where is America's beating hydroelectric heart? :smoke:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic2.wikia.nocookie.net%2F__cb20110204052003%2Ffallout%2Fimages%2F1%2F16%2FHoover_Dam_Tower_2.jpg&hash=ab52dd4ff8b87334556f05de487e2c2fbecaecf2)
Wouldn't metals be the bigger concern? We've exhausted all surface deposits of iron and copper.
Quote from: Queequeg on March 21, 2014, 01:38:31 PM
Wouldn't metals be the bigger concern? We've exhausted all surface deposits of iron and copper.
Well there would be heaps of salvage though.
Quote from: Queequeg on March 21, 2014, 01:38:31 PM
Wouldn't metals be the bigger concern? We've exhausted all surface deposits of iron and copper.
Elements typically don't disappear.
Quote from: Grinning_Colossus on March 21, 2014, 01:21:59 PM
If we were to collapse now there'd be no getting up again. We've nearly exhausted our easily-accessible supplies of fossil fuels, so we'd never be able to reestablish industrial civilization. We'd be stuck in medieval stasis until the end.
GC does satire. :o
Quote from: The Brain on March 21, 2014, 01:42:13 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on March 21, 2014, 01:38:31 PM
Wouldn't metals be the bigger concern? We've exhausted all surface deposits of iron and copper.
Elements typically don't disappear.
:hmm: Obviously you don't know what the Russians are capable of.
Quote from: DGuller on March 21, 2014, 01:54:20 PM
Quote from: The Brain on March 21, 2014, 01:42:13 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on March 21, 2014, 01:38:31 PM
Wouldn't metals be the bigger concern? We've exhausted all surface deposits of iron and copper.
Elements typically don't disappear.
:hmm: Obviously you don't know what the Russians are capable of.
Well it's not eating a barrel of blueberries without ill effects.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2014, 12:47:03 PM
The decline was permanent, it just was offset by natural progress over the following centuries. This differs from a period of war where there is a temporary decline but things pick up where they left off afterward.
Frankly this is bizarre thinking. You could just as easily say that the Soviet union permanently declined (after all it ceased to exist), and poverty that followedwas offset by the natural progress of the new economy.
Quote from: DGuller on March 21, 2014, 01:54:20 PM
Quote from: The Brain on March 21, 2014, 01:42:13 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on March 21, 2014, 01:38:31 PM
Wouldn't metals be the bigger concern? We've exhausted all surface deposits of iron and copper.
Elements typically don't disappear.
:hmm: Obviously you don't know what the Russians are capable of.
I think this last month has taught Spellus some unpleasant truths about Russia.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 21, 2014, 02:29:07 PM
Frankly this is bizarre thinking. You could just as easily say that the Soviet union permanently declined (after all it ceased to exist), and poverty that followedwas offset by the natural progress of the new economy.
Or you could say that the poverty that followed was still the same poverty, only differently distributed.
I think it's easier to simply say that the Soviet Union, as political, social and economic entity collapsed.
You're so hasty.
I use an ointment for that.
Quote from: The Brain on March 21, 2014, 01:42:13 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on March 21, 2014, 01:38:31 PM
Wouldn't metals be the bigger concern? We've exhausted all surface deposits of iron and copper.
Elements typically don't disappear.
Well then wouldn't a lot of the salvage be steel or some other allow that could not be used with relatively crude metallurgic techniques?
Quote from: Queequeg on March 21, 2014, 03:48:01 PM
Quote from: The Brain on March 21, 2014, 01:42:13 PM
Quote from: Queequeg on March 21, 2014, 01:38:31 PM
Wouldn't metals be the bigger concern? We've exhausted all surface deposits of iron and copper.
Elements typically don't disappear.
Well then wouldn't a lot of the salvage be steel or some other allow that could not be used with relatively crude metallurgic techniques?
I don't see a significant problem.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 21, 2014, 02:34:05 PM
I think it's easier to simply say that the Soviet Union, as political, social and economic entity collapsed.
Yet politics, society and economic activity still exist in the region. The Soviet Union as an entity is not equivalent to Russian civilization, which hasn't collapsed.
Quote from: jimmy olsen on March 21, 2014, 09:08:53 AM
DOOM!!! :o
A new study 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.
So, is this how a commie conspiracy theory looks like?
I raise you the blaze:
What Two Words Do Those 'Seeking to Increase Tyranny and Totalitarianism' Tend to Use?Rabbi Daniel Lapin of the American Alliance of Jews and Christians said Thursday that there are two words often used by those "seeking to increase tyranny and totalitarianism."
Speaking with guest host Stu Burguiere on the Glenn Beck Program, Lapin explained:
"For those seeking to increase tyranny and totalitarianism, fairness and equality is a great thing to work people up about, because you essentially get a population — particularly a docile population — to agree to almost anything in the name of equality and fairness."http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/20/what-two-words-do-those-seeking-to-increase-tyranny-and-totalitarianism-tend-to-use/
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2014, 04:26:40 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on March 21, 2014, 02:34:05 PM
I think it's easier to simply say that the Soviet Union, as political, social and economic entity collapsed.
Yet politics, society and economic activity still exist in the region. The Soviet Union as an entity is not equivalent to Russian civilization, which hasn't collapsed.
I don't think a collapse is the same as destruction of the entire populace. Otherwise all the other collapses aren't actually collapses either. When Rome fell Italy didn't become depopulated. There were still people living there, people who spoke Latin, and had a society and engaged in economic activity.
Quote from: Siege on March 21, 2014, 04:49:03 PM
What Two Words Do Those 'Seeking to Increase Tyranny and Totalitarianism' Tend to Use?
Freedom and Liberty.
Quote from: Siege on March 21, 2014, 04:49:03 PM
Speaking with guest host Stu Burguiere on the Glenn Beck Program, Lapin explained: "For those seeking to increase tyranny and totalitarianism, fairness and equality is a great thing to work people up about, because you essentially get a population — particularly a docile population — to agree to almost anything in the name of equality and fairness."
That is sort of a platitude, you can get a population to agree to all sorts of things in the name of lots of things. I would have thought security, fear of foreign danger is good tool.
Of course we are talking about the Glenn Beck program and the guy is pretty insane and not particularly bright.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 21, 2014, 04:50:13 PM
I don't think a collapse is the same as destruction of the entire populace. Otherwise all the other collapses aren't actually collapses either. When Rome fell Italy didn't become depopulated. There were still people living there, people who spoke Latin, and had a society and engaged in economic activity.
I think the fall of Rome* was actually worse on the provinces than Italy. Italy was retaken by Byzantium, Britain and France remained "barbarian" until the barbarians civilized themselves. Point is, there was an actual fall and it took centuries to recover. Russia in the 90s is not at all comparable, in many if not most ways it improved. Governments collapse all the time, but they rarely take society with them.
*locally, not the actual fall in Rome.
On the one hand NASA would say this wouldn't they.
On the other we are on a bit of a countdown timer to get off Earth. We only have one shot.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 21, 2014, 06:11:44 PM
Quote from: Razgovory on March 21, 2014, 04:50:13 PM
I don't think a collapse is the same as destruction of the entire populace. Otherwise all the other collapses aren't actually collapses either. When Rome fell Italy didn't become depopulated. There were still people living there, people who spoke Latin, and had a society and engaged in economic activity.
I think the fall of Rome* was actually worse on the provinces than Italy. Italy was retaken by Byzantium, Britain and France remained "barbarian" until the barbarians civilized themselves. Point is, there was an actual fall and it took centuries to recover. Russia in the 90s is not at all comparable, in many if not most ways it improved. Governments collapse all the time, but they rarely take society with them.
*locally, not the actual fall in Rome.
Italy's re-conquest by Byzantium (the Eastern Empire) was its fall; the region was devastated by twenty years of back-and-forth warfare and left open to the Lombards by the end.
There is some evidence of population decline in the Late Empire, and it seems clear that by the 600s, populations are a lot lower than they were during the imperial period. But exactly why, how and when that decline occurs is tricky to entangle and a simple connection to late 5th century regime change isn't so clear. As for literacy, it does decline but from a rather low base. Very few people were literate in Roman Gaul, Britain and Spain to begin with.
One clear impact is on long-distance trade - the mass requisitions of grain from Africa cease as does the mass production and export of pottery.
Trade does continue but more focused on portable, high value goods: precious metals, amber, furs, slaves.
Judging by this forum, YES. :D
Quote from: mongers on March 24, 2014, 02:21:29 PM
Judging by this forum, YES. :D
Civilization as a whole includes sufficient females to allow replenishment.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 24, 2014, 02:46:34 PMCivilization as a whole includes sufficient females to allow replenishment.
Yeah, there'd be some interesting politics going on if this forum was the end of the world, but we'd have no chance at repopulating the Earth with our 99.5% male population and I think all the female posters are past prime reproductive age in any case.
Whoa! Dude! :o
Languish women are lovely. -_-