Four reasons why our civilisation will collapse, not decline
As the shelf-life of modern civilisation slowly comes to an end, more and more scientists are turning their attention to the decline and fall of past civilisations. Competing studies have emerged to explain how certain societies collapsed and why civilisations disappeared. Meanwhile, a new and booming market of post-apocalyptic novels, films and TV shows has emerged for those who want to experience the catastrophic events of the dark and violent world to come from the comfort of their armchairs. But real survival will be about something else entirely...
The latent fear that the days of our industrial civilisation are numbered has given rise to a counter-reaction of sorts to the movement of insurmountable optimists who cling almost desperately to their belief in endless progress. Like the popular positivist, cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, who reassures the anxious masses that the titanic ship of progress is unsinkable. Pinker's publications have made him the high priest of progress. While civilisation circles its shrinking concentric circles around the drain, his enthusiastic audience is reassured by his lectures and his books of hard facts that prove that life is better today than it has ever been, and that this progress continues unabated. But when the question is put to him, he himself admits it:
"It is wrong to conclude from the fact that we have progressed so far that it will certainly continue to do so."
Pinker's rosy statistics cleverly expose the fatal flaw in his argument. Progress of the past, built at the sacrifice of the future! All the positive facts he cites about life standards, life expectancy and economic growth are the result of an industrial civilization that has exploited and polluted the planet to achieve a temporary advance for a growing middle class and staggering levels of profit and power for a narrow elite.
Not everyone who understands that the progress made has been at the expense of the future thinks that the collapse of industrial civilisation will be swift and painful. Scholars of ancient societies, such as Jared Diamond and John Michael Greer, have accurately pointed out that sudden collapse is a rare historical phenomenon. In The Long Decline, Greer assures his readers that the same pattern repeats itself throughout history. Civilizations end in gradual disintegration, not in sudden catastrophic collapse. Greer estimates that the decline and fall of civilisations takes on average about 250 years, and finds no reason why modern industrial civilisation should not follow this 'normal timeline'.
But Greer's assumption is on shaky ground because industrial civilisation differs from all previous civilisations in four crucial ways. Each of these may accelerate and intensify the coming collapse, while greatly complicating the chances of normalisation.
1.
Unlike all previous civilisations, modern industrial civilisation is powered by an exceptionally abundant, NON-renewable and irreplaceable energy source, fossil fuels. This unique energy source dooms industrial civilization to a short, shooting star-like lifespan, with unprecedented boom and spectacular bust. Megacities, globalised manufacturing, industrial agriculture and a population approaching 8 billion people are all historically unique and completely unsustainable without fossil fuels. Today, the Earth's cheap and easily exploitable abundant reserves of oil and coal are being depleted. And while there are energy alternatives, there are no real substitutes that can provide us with the net energy with the intensity that fossil fuels do. Our complex, sprawling, high-speed civilization owes its short and intense lifespan to this single, rapidly depleting energy abundance.
2.
Unlike the civilisations of the past, the economy of industrial society is capitalist. Production for profit is the main guideline and driving force. The unprecedented surplus energy available to us from fossil fuels has enabled exceptional growth and huge profits over the last two centuries. But in the decades ahead, the sudden and unexpected phenomena of abundant energy, steady growth and predictable profits will be no more.
But we must see that, unless it is abolished, capitalism will not disappear just because the boom is over. Instead, energy-starved, growthless capitalism will become catabolic. Catabolism refers to the state in which a living being devours itself. Once the profitable means of production cease, capitalism is forced to produce profits by breaking down the social goods it once created. By eating itself, the profit motive only exacerbates the dramatic decline of industrial society.
Catabolic capitalism will profit from scarcity, crisis, disaster and conflict. Warfare, resource hoarding, ecological disaster and epidemic disease will be the new big profit-makers. Capital will flow into lucrative enterprises such as computer piracy, usury lending, financial fraud; bribery, corruption and organised crime; arms, drugs and human trafficking. As disintegration and destruction become the primary source of profit, catabolic capitalism will rage on the path of decline, following each self-inflicted disaster.
3.
Unlike the societies of the past, industrial civilisation is not Roman, Chinese, Egyptian, Aztec or Mayan. Modern civilisation is entirely human-centred and planet-wide in scale, threatening the very existence of the entire ecosystem. Pre-industrial civilisations have also depleted their soil, cut down their forests and polluted their rivers. But the damage they caused was more limited in time and space. Nature was able to heal the wounds inflicted on it. But industrial civilisation, having harnessed the vast energy of fossil fuels to market demands, has turned it to the exploitation of nature's resources, with dire consequences for the whole planet that are now obvious to all. Two centuries of intensive use of fossil fuels have resulted in excess carbon emissions that are changing the planet's climate and causing devastation for generations to come. The destruction of the Earth's highly complex living systems - the stability of the atmosphere and ocean processes, the biodiversity of the entire planet - is essentially irreversible.
Man has undoubtedly become the most invasive (violently expanding at the expense of his environment) species. Although we account for only 0.01 per cent of the planet's biomass, our domesticated plants and animals are taking over life on Earth. In terms of total biomass (total weight), 96 percent of all terrestrial mammals on Earth are farmed and only 4 percent are wild mammals (36 percent human, 60 percent domestic, 4 percent wild).Of all birds, 70 percent are domesticated poultry and only 30 percent are wild. About half of the Earth's wild animals are thought to have been lost in the last 50 years (~60% of wild populations since 1970).Scientists estimate that half of the remaining species will be extinct by the end of the century. There are no more pristine ecosystems or new areas where people can escape the damage they have caused and start their lives afresh after the collapse.
4.
Human civilization's collective ability to face its escalating crises is crippled by a fragmented political system of disparate nations, ruled by corrupt elites more interested in power and wealth than life and planet. Humanity is facing the compounding effects of global calamities and devastation in their own right. Profound hardships such as the chaos of climate change, the mass extinction of entire ecosystems, food and fresh water shortages, extreme poverty, extreme inequality and the spread of pandemics, which are becoming more frequent, will erode the foundations of our modern life with unforeseen speed.
A fragile and highly fragmented international political system based on a delicate balance makes it virtually impossible to take effective action and find a potentially successful response. And the more self-destructive industrial capitalism becomes, the greater the danger that hostile powers will fan the flames of nationalism and go to war over scarce resources. Of course, war is not a new phenomenon. But modern warfare is so destructive, destructive and poisonous that there is little left to do about it. It would be the final nail in the coffin of civilisation.
Rise from the ruins?
How people react to the collapse of industrial civilisation will determine to a large extent how bad things get, as well as what replaces them. The challenges are monumental. They will force us to question our identities, values and allegiances in ways and to an extent never before in our history. Who are we really? Are we first and foremost human beings, struggling to provide for our families, to strengthen our communities and to live peacefully with the rest of the world?Or do we owe our primary allegiance to our nation, our culture, our race, our ideology or our religion? Can we prioritise the survival of our species and our planet, or let ourselves drift hopelessly towards an end along national, cultural, racial, religious or party lines?
The result of the collapse we face is almost tangible. Will we overcome despair and denial? Will we overcome our dependence on hydrocarbons and break the hold of multinational corporations over our lives? Will we create real democracy, harness the potential of renewable energy, rebuild our communities, learn skills long forgotten, and heal the wounds we have inflicted on the Earth? Or will fear and prejudice drive us into hostile camps, and we will fight each other to the limit for the dwindling resources of a decaying planet?
Let us all look within ourselves... The stakes could not be higher.
This post is based on Craig Collins.
Four causes of collapse - deepadaptation.com
