Societal Collapse
April 30, 2012 in Collapse
What does the following list represent?
- deforestation and habitat destruction (50% forests gone, [1]; losing species faster than last 65 M years [3])
- soil problems: erosion (6 bushels soil lost/bushel wheat), salinization (1/3 land affected), & soil fertility losses (40% desertified in Africa) [2]
- water management problems (water tables and quality declining [1])
- overhunting
- overfishing [90% large ocean predators gone in last 50 years [1])
- effects of introduced species on native species (Millions imported yearly. 400/1352 endangered native species threatened [6])
- human population growth (76M/year. Rate = 1.09%, We’ve hit 7 billion [7])
- increased per-capita impact of people (6.8 planets worth [1])
- climate change (There’s so much on this, there’s no point in citing here)
- buildup of toxic chemicals in environment (unknown health consequences for many. Known effects on cancer, reproduction, birth defects, brain development [4-5]).
- energy shortages (End of cheap fuel with no equivalent alternative…again, so much written about this, no point in citing)
- full human use of Earth’s photosynthetic capacity (“Humans are already using 40% of all the ‘plant biomass’ produced by photosynthesis on the planet” [3])
This is a list of causes of societal collapse (see Jared Diamond’s book on Collapse) and they are all occurring. The first 8 are old as time and have been responsible for past societal collapses. The last 4 are new and we could probably add more to the list, such as nuclear war and financial system fragility (for the latter, see Nobel prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, Nicole Foss, and Chris Martenson). But notice something important: only a few of them are necessary to create a collapse. That means, you don’t have to believe all of them. Pick the ones that seem reasonable and for which there is indisputable proof…you’ll still have enough causes of collapse to elicit concern.
A point eloquently made by Thomas Homer Dixon in The Ingenuity Gap is that complex systems can collapse unpredictably and catastrophically without warning. He illustrates the point with a true story about an airline crash. One engine’s fan blade had been manufactured with tiny flaws. Only after years of use did these flaws grow into tiny cracks, missed by regular maintenance inspections. After 1000′s more rotations, the cracks became fatal and, all of a sudden, a very good flying machine was experiencing catastrophic failure. Furthermore, the problem happened to defeat all of the airplane’s safety redundancies. This left the pilots with no control over the plane and even people conferring with them on the ground could not help. Under the stress of the situation, further systems were also put under stress. In the end, the pilots claimed incredible luck in being able to crash land the plane, losing only a portion of the plane’s 100s of passengers.
This crash was the product of many, tiny, but interrelated variables going wrong at the same time. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s not good. The question is not whether to do something about the list above, but how. Even if one does not believe that one or more of those variables are happening, there will be plenty of variables left over to make possible the collapse of our society at some degree of severity. This might range from Rwanda style collapse to Detroit to the Great Depression. Collapse can happen quickly or slowly and end with total or partial collapse. Easter Islanders, for example, went from the production of their largest statue to cannibalism, military coup, and a new Island religion within about 60 years.
In speaking of societal collapse, Professor Jared Diamond says that his students at UCLA often ask: Why didn’t the people in these societies do anything? My main answer to this is: (1) Ignorance: people simply didn’t know that things like soil problems were occurring (too slow and not readily observable), and (2) Avoidance: people either would not or could not change in the ways necessary to prevent the collapse of their society. The Greenland Norse come to mind as a culture who theoretically could have imitated the sustainable practices of the Inuit but who, instead, continued to think and behave like Europeans, and probably ended up eating each other as their last — and best situated — ranch was over-run by starving compatriots. A good reason to avoid thinking about societal collapse is to avoid feeling anxious. This is reasonable too if there’s nothing we can do about it anyway! Compare someone trying and failing to build a new lifeboat on the Titanic to person dressed in a Tuxedo and toasting champagne as the Titanic went down.
Pretend that climate change is real and is caused to some degree by human factors and thus changeable by humans. Notice that we’re not ignorant of climate change. The vast majority of scientists provide convincing data. However, avoidance is a really strong pull: rather than actually change our status quo, we simply deny there is a reason to. Ahhh….I feel my anxiety disappearing (see this post on the Dark Side of Optimism).
Ridicule is often brought to bear to support avoidance: “Chicken Little has been saying the sky is falling for years.” This misses the point that (1) no one is talking about the sky falling; it is talk about societies collapsing, (2) societies have collapsed before many times, and (3) the causes of those collapses are occurring. Imagine, though, a miner who ignores or ridicules his canary instead of vacating the mine because it is filling with deadly methane gas (see this 3 minute musical riff on this idea).
It takes courage to consider these scary possibilities. Whether we decide to do anything depends on our view of the costs and benefits of action and also on the probability that something unpleasant (in this case, collapse) will come to pass. Note this: no one can predict the future, much less the depth and timing of potential collapse. The real question is how to deal with uncertainty. But facing scary possibilities and putting our eggs in multiple baskets seems wise.
A sustainable life necessarily means a resilient life: not putting all our eggs in one basket. An analogy: We buy fire insurance not because we believe a fire WILL come or even have any idea of WHEN, but because it CAN and, if it does, it could really mess up our lives. Fire insurance has a cost may never be needed. But, if there is a fire, it could make all the difference. Obviously, people make the calculation about whether the potential benefits (e.g., peace of mind, the lack of financial ruin should a fire occur) outweigh the costs (e.g., monthly payments for the insurance, the anxiety that might come from considering the idea of a fire).
Sources: [1] State of the World (2004); [2] Permaculture in a Nutshell (2009); [3] www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110518131427.htm; [4] ewg.org; [5] In Harm’s Way, www.preventingharm.org; [6] www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/congress-may-ban-dangerous-0224.html; [7] CIA World Fact Book
In consulting with Mandy and Ryan from 
This film, Fuel (2009), was recommended by a friend and new father (M.J.). I just watched it online