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future) have taken place on this planet. The era of abundance and predictability is slowly being replaced by one of scarcity and uncertainty. This will require a different attitude and a different set of skills.

* In the last few years, humanity has faced countless trials and crises. Pandemics, droughts and other regional conflicts have multiplied the number of hungry people in the world.

How can this process be curbed? Will the struggle for water and food completely consume the future of humanity, or are there still hopeful scenarios?

- Of course, there is a chance and a possibility for almost any scenario. It is a question of how many. It is time to reflect on the possibility that we are too late to avert a planet-wide environmental catastrophe, with all its consequences, in the lifetime of the people living today.

One of the most important things that we desperately need today, but which we feel is sorely lacking, is to have honest and open conversations about the decline of our civilisation and the possibility of its demise as we know it today. Without it, we are essentially depriving ourselves of a real chance to avoid the worst possible scenarios.

The biggest problem with the popularity of the 'we will fix it' approach is that it makes it taboo to have the much needed dialogue about what we can do in the face of the fact that we are unlikely to be able to fix the problem.

Getting people to honestly discuss the consequences of the irreversible processes they are causing, which threaten not only their way of life but their very existence, seems an almost impossible challenge in most cases.

* Today, unfortunately, not only people in the so-called third world, but also Western societies are facing a serious food crisis. Unprecedented soaring energy and food prices could bleed even the most affluent societies dry in the long term.

Do you not have the feeling that this is not a coincidence and that the ongoing crisis is being manipulated to unleash it on the vast majority of humanity?

- I would like to make it clear as soon as possible that I do not deal with conspiracy theories. Simply because I can prove them neither pro nor con. From now on, every moment I spend on this subject is a waste of my most precious and dwindling resource: time.

Anyway, the correlation theory not only sounds better, it makes more sense, doesn't it? Even so, let's acknowledge that as humans we have the capacity to make the most humiliating situation drastically worse.

And that does not even necessarily require malice. Without an understanding of natural systems, energy flows and history, even the best-intentioned person will make decisions that will catastrophically exacerbate the current extremely bad situation.

The social hopes in which we can still have hope in the difficult times ahead must be based on knowledge of the worst: the worst physical facts and the worst human characteristics.

* You, as a public figure, as a crash researcher, as a blogger, warn us all in numerous speeches, writings and interviews that if we do not change our mindset, we could lose our habitable planet in a short time. What are the most important mindsets and mechanisms that we should have changed long ago?

- We are heading steadily down a path from which we can no longer turn back, despite our best intentions.

But we do not really want to. There are many reasons for this, but the first and most important is man himself. In our ancestors' time, survival in the cave was based on squeezing as much as possible from the resources available, on short-term gain, on thinking locally, on dominating one's environment, on making one's own and one's immediate group's daily life as comfortable as possible, and on confronting rival tribes. This programme is still running and we are no longer able to transcend it at the level of the masses.

Moreover, the system of consumer capitalism that we have built around ourselves thrives on the amplification and exploitation of these very qualities.

* As a collapse researcher, you are probably often asked about the various apocalyptic scenarios, or in other words, possible apocalyptic scenarios. However, experience so far shows that these things will not happen in a flash, but in stages. What can this protracted period give humanity time to do? How can we adapt to the increasingly difficult living conditions of the future?

- Many see the first major waves of crisis as being followed by what is essentially a collapse. In contrast, it is likely that a crisis will be followed by an intermittent and partial recovery, followed by a series of deeper crises, and that the cycle will repeat itself again and again. The collapse of industrial civilisation has been happening all around us for some time, and will continue long after none of us are alive.

So let us think of the collapse not as a single event, but rather as a series of events, a process.

It is defined as a significant change in a negative direction in which a system moves from an existing, more complex state to a much simpler state.

By collapse, we mean a drastic reduction in the size and/or political/economic/social complexity of the human population over a significant area and for a prolonged period of time.

When we talk about the breakdown or collapse of societies, we mean a significant and drastic change in our existing living conditions. People who see this process as so likely as to be essentially inevitable or already unfolding use the term 'deep down' to describe the process of finding answers.

Deep learning is a possible way to understand the extremely complex situation of the world around us and helps people to re-evaluate and find what is truly important in their lives as the society around them crumbles under the weight of its own disasters.

The Deep Adaptation movement aims to enable any organisation, community or individual to prepare for the fact that, as a result of the combined impact of myriad factors, our living conditions will change significantly and we will need to adapt to the new conditions to the best of our ability and intentions in order to maintain a livable life.

* Many people, including the greats of science, are hoping for a second chance, that is, to put humanity on another planet. It seems a bit like life on Earth is some kind of video game that can be restarted and restarted constantly. Does humanity actually have enough time to get on a new track?

- Earth will be uninhabitable before Mars is habitable. And time, while meaningless in geological terms by human standards, is one of our most precious resources, and one that we are in very short supply of.

Every communication that tells people that we are running out of time, or that we have very little time left, is in fact telling them that we still have time, or, hey, we can spare it.

As we become more aware of the threats to our existence, the more we feel the urge to deal with everyday, 'real' things instead.

But as time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to deny what we experience, because as our attention turns to reality, we will see its confirmation everywhere, both locally and around the world.

I believe that anyone is free to make any decision about their life - less so if they are a parent - and that it is not good or bad, but theirs.

But they can only do so credibly in the light of a clear face to face reality and a decision one way or the other.

As time goes on and the processes unfold before our eyes, more and more of us will be at a loss to answer questions, and how many of us will then be able to support the other may well become the deciding factor. Let us never forget: all we can decide is what to do with the time we have been given.