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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNASA-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'?
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists<snip>
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."
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.
Currently, high levels of economic stratification are linked directly to overconsumption of resources, with "Elites" based largely in industrialised countries responsible for both:
PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)This is why we need to defund STEM education, they are just getting indoctrinated into liberal eco-nuts.
Do I need:
?
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)a hoax in 3...2...1...
postulater
(5,075 posts)Not like there's been anyone saying that for say FIFTY F**KING YEARS at least.
Another experiment wrecked, thanks a lot god.
Igel
(35,197 posts)Others, esp. in social sciences, just keep repeating the same predictions over and over.
At some point, given that civilizations really are impermanent and unstable, they're likely to be right. I'd say that it's not just for the last 50 years. Malthus, anybody?
I wonder if for the last 200 years of the Roman Empire there were people saying how close they were to collapse, what with peak olive oil and all the money spent on empire. Then there were the fringe cults.
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)And a bit later there was the Black Death, which further reduced Chinese populations, as well as reducing European population by over 1/3. The Chinese population fell by over 1/2 after the Song.
Population in 2100 will likely be closer to 1 billion than 10 billion, and global warming will not be a problem.