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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-scientistsNoting 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 Motesharri 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."
Read the rest of the article at the link.
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MindMover
(5,016 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Our entire "civilization" is reliant on cheap and high-powered energy resources of fossil fuels. These are finite resources, even before worrying about the other considerations they raise.
Humans are also a famously short-sighted species. It's not our fault, as far as our biology is concerned, we should still be tropical plains-dwelling melon-eaters with a life expectancy of forty years. We're just not able to really plan years, much less generations, into the future. And even if some visionaries among us are, more short-sighted primates come by and dismantle the projects tor the here and now (good and relevant example - Reagan removing the solar panels from the white house)
What this means is that we will keep on burning fossil fuels until we reach a point where we spend more energy getting them than we can produce from them. At which point we will go "Oh shit, now what?" because we won't have prepared to any meaningful degree for that event.
Agriculture - the base point of any civilization - is currently based on petroleum. Not just hte energy needs of shipping, machinery, etc., but also the peripherals - hard to have a hose without hydrocarbon polymers. To say nothing of where all those fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides come from. The industrial farm will collapse, and the several billion people who depend on that industry for food, are going ot find themselves in a tough spot. Not that they'd be able to afford it anyway as the petroleum drought will end up putting most people out of work - we'll be having food riots well before the agricultural industry starts running dry.
andhten what, generations down the line? Well, fossil fuels are still depleted, along with most of hte minerals we were using for all our gadgets. Plastics of course are a thing of hte past. We won't be able to sustain megalopolis cities anymore. So. yeah. Irreversable collapse. The fossil fuel boom was an absurd and brief chapter of human history.
Unless, somehow, some way, we manage to defy human tendencies, put the smart guys in charge, and turn all of our production towards tapping into solar, tidal, and geothemal energy sources. The systems and functions of our planet provide more energy than we'll ever need, more than could ever be dug up in the form of coal or uranium, and all we have to do is invest the money and resources NOW for a system that will keep running until the next giant asteroid sneaks up on us.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)There are even plausible schemes to change the orbit of our planet to compensate for the warming of our sun as it ages.
A few more paragraphs from the article in the OP.
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."
ChisolmTrailDem
(9,463 posts)We're doomed!
Nay
(12,051 posts)than trying to siphon money from the public to set themselves up as feudal lords after the crash and dieoff. That's what is going on right this minute. The 'smart' ones who could have done something 30 years ago to set us on a different course are basically going to let us all die.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)I'm sorry, but this kind of wacky evopsych Social Darwinism-esque stuff is unacceptable to me. No, just no. (And humans aren't actually primates ourselves, either, for that matter, even if we are distant "cousins" to monkeys, etc.....but then again, we're also distant cousins to varying degrees to every other mammal, too, in that case).
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)It's amazing how a conversation can end before it even starts, isn't it?
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)That we *are* evolutionary cousins to primates, like gorillas, bonobos, etc., we're just not in that category anymore, if we ever were.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Electric Monk
(13,869 posts)(snip)
With the exception of humans, which inhabit every continent,[a] most primates live in tropical or subtropical regions of the Americas, Africa and Asia.
(snip)
The human species developed a much larger brain than that of other primates
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)
cpwm17
(3,829 posts)than they are to gorillas and orangutans. We are 100%, undiluted, primates.
http://www.janegoodall.ca/about-chimp-so-like-us.php
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)Okay, that much may be true. But the statement that "We are 100%, undiluted, primates." simply isn't true. We are much greater than that(and no, it didn't necessarily require a god or gods for that!).
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)It is one thing to be mistaken about something, but to be so completely sure that one is right when one is so totally wrong indicates to me that you most likely were instructed in this bullshit. Religious school?
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)Nobody told me anything, btw.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)??? !!!
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)
Nuclear Unicorn
(19,497 posts)So, we got that going for us.
Ironically, MLP toys are made out of plastic so our plains-dwelling, melon-eating descendants will still be able to amuse themselves while struggling through bouts of plague, wild predators, tribal competition, on-and-off ice ages, famine and the odd meteor strike.
1000words
(7,051 posts)I'm willing to take the trade-off.
airplaneman
(1,239 posts)Global warming causes the collapse of agriculture where 50 to 75% of the food produced today disappears. Add to this major lakes drying up and water becoming contaminated by modern civilizations to the point there is not enough drinkable water or food to sustain the current population by a long shot. The total human population peaks and starts its dive. Societies begin to collapse and anarchy takes over in many parts of the world. Once the collapse take hold there will only be small pockets of peaceful civilization here and there. We will never again regain what we have today.
-Airplane
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)As I've pointed out elsewhere, this kind of thing has *never* really been needed.....or helpful for that matter.
If this is what NASA's putting out these days.....I fear for their future.(Thanks GOP!)
THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is just one more reason why NASA needs better funding.....so they can have a better focus on actually building stuff to get us back into space, and not have to rely on poorly-thought out and excessively attention grabbing stuff like this.
Honestly, this whole study is flawed to a T. No joke. Just the fact that they tried to take the circumstances of ancient Mesopotamia & Rome and apply that to the *modern civilization as a whole*, which is *vastly* different in so many ways is already enough for that.....it's apples and oranges in fact.
This is disappointing in a lot of ways, really. NASA got us to the moon, for Pete's sakes! And now they're a shell of their former self.
But I don't blame them. No, I believe the fault lies squarely with the Republican Party; they're the morons who started this slash-and-burn type Reaganite nonsense in the first place.
And I stand by what I said. Because you know something? This really is a symptom of how far NASA's gone now. We *need* to give them more resources and better funding. And if that means we'll have to take back the House in this year's elections.....then let it be done. But, I for one, am *tired* of this outright Chicken Little stuff no matter how well intentioned some of it may be.
It's time to get NASA back into shape. The Republicans have done so much damage that it almost boggles the mind, really. In fact, maybe we should start a petition to get NASA working well again. Because they really do need the help.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Civilizations have risen and fallen regularly throughout the history of such.
Now we have a global civilization and there is a non-zero chance it could fall.
Did you happen to miss this part of the article?
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."
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)I'm afraid it doesn't really add up to much in the end. It was still over-the-top hyperbolic, though The Guardian does deserve a little credit for at least exercising some *basic restraint.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)leeroysphitz
(10,462 posts)1000words
(7,051 posts)AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)Including from Skeptical Science and others. And yes, all of the solid evidence we have is telling us that there's a problem and that it needs to be fixed or there could be some serious trouble in the years ahead.
It does not, however, say that we are doomed to extinction or even a near-term collapse of *global* civilization.
NASA still puts out some good stuff, but they're only human; they just made a mistake this time. Really, I'm only upset because I hold them to a higher standard than I would, say, Fire Dog Lake, but more that this has become a cross-platform problem more than anything else.....and people wonder why we've only started progressing again within the past few years.
1000words
(7,051 posts)Perhaps you will help out NASA and share it with them.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)For goodness sakes, pal. Think! It's not that hard.
BTW, do enlighten us all on how the hard evidence supposedly tells us that humanity is at risk for total extinction *by AGW alone*, in any timescale that the layman can conceive of(we'll go with 200 years for the sake of discussion.)?
1000words
(7,051 posts)You're the one who's done research.
NoOneMan
(4,795 posts)And remembers/reposts the stuff that agrees with him.
AJ is on a crusade to tell us, disaster after disaster, dissertation after dissertation, that "its not that bad". Yet the disasters are getting worse. The research is getting more damning. And the "solutions" are becoming more intangible and remain un-applied/un-attempted
Wow. What an exhausting crusade that one has adopted.
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)problem. Global Warming is only one aspect of our run-away consumption.
NickB79
(19,236 posts)That right there tells us all we need to know about your "understanding" of AGW.
Hint: we're ALREADY seeing serious trouble.
AverageJoe90
(10,745 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Yeah, and? Overcoming earth's gravitational pull and using trigonometry to land on our sattelite is certainly challenging, but it's an entirely different ballpark from what we're looking at with regards to the intricacies of human impact on the planet's overal ecology and hte ramifications that may have on what we consider "civilization."
Do remember that much of the world dwells in conditions you and i probably wouldn't consider to be very "civilized" (not a value judgement on the people, just a note of the technological and resource disparity between societies.) Most, simply because of flukes of economics or politics. The wrong guy(s) in office can send an entire nation into a civilizational death-spiral. The wrong people having economic influence can have the same effect. "Civilization" is a fragile thing supported by a very intricate network of interconnected things, where hte failure of one can threaten the entire network and send civilization into freefall.
And at the end of the day, every society is 100% dependent on the environment. We can't escape that, ever. There is no Asimovian magic pill to free us from the demands of earth or the biology thereof. We're plugged in, for good. Even if in some wild future we leave, we'll still be carrying earth-bubbles with us the whole way.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)
Kingofalldems
(38,454 posts)
The Straight Story
(48,121 posts)
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)
The Straight Story
(48,121 posts)I forget them all 
hatrack
(59,584 posts).
Autumn
(45,066 posts)And pot that looks like candy. No one is thinking of the children, well maybe the ones standing outside with their children, smoking.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)Modern civilization is global. It's collapse will be on a scale that is unprecedented.
cprise
(8,445 posts)It could make a fall come faster and harder. The planet wasn't maxed-out in those earlier collapses.
DeadLetterOffice
(1,352 posts)by a total economic/agricultural collapse. That takes too long. I can't imagine that Nature is willing to give us quite that much rope.
My money is on catastrophic population reduction due to a biological event. Think 14th century Black Death, but with airplane travel instead of boats and horses.
LiberalElite
(14,691 posts)is basically "fragile and impermanent." See, Buddha.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)In other words, SPLAT!
Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the time table:
His admonitions, so that the universe will not laugh its ass off at our going extinct:
In the meantime, we'd better vote out the anti-science idiots who believe they will be raptured out of here, for a hell of a lot more reasons than a one in 250K chance of SPLAT.
They will not be raptured, but they will stop the rest of us in the reality based community from taking any measures to protect life on planet Earth. They've already given up and are voting to curry the divine's favor by telling women they are just vessels for errant sperm.
Or observing all calamity with glee, letting our ecosystem be destroyed just for shits and giggles, because they ain't gonna be here, or so they say.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)I don't think we needed NASA to tell us what intelligent people already know.
G_j
(40,367 posts)By AL GORE FEB. 10, 2014
Over the past decade, Elizabeth Kolbert has established herself as one of our very best science writers. She has developed a distinctive and eloquent voice of conscience on issues arising from the extraordinary assault on the ecosphere, and those who have enjoyed her previous works like “Field Notes From a Catastrophe” will not be disappointed by her powerful new book, “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.”
Kolbert, a staff writer at The New Yorker, reports from the front lines of the violent collision between civilization and our planet’s
ecosystem: the Andes, the Amazon rain forest, the Great Barrier Reef — and her backyard. In lucid prose, she examines the role of
man-made climate change in causing what biologists call the sixth mass extinction — the current spasm of plant and animal loss that threatens to eliminate 20 to 50 percent of all living species on earth within this century.
Extinction is a relatively new idea in the scientific community. Well into the 18th century, people found it impossible to accept the idea that species had once lived on earth but had been subsequently lost. Scientists simply could not envision a planetary force powerful enough to wipe out forms of life that were common in prior ages.
In the same way, and for many of the same reasons, many today find it inconceivable that we could possibly be responsible for destroying the integrity of our planet’s ecology. There are psychological barriers to even imagining that what we love so much could be lost — could be destroyed forever. As a result, many of us refuse to contemplate it. Like an audience entertained by a magician, we allow ourselves to be deceived by those with a stake in persuading us to ignore reality.
For example, we continue to use the world’s atmosphere as an open sewer for the daily dumping of more than 90 million tons of gaseous waste. If trends continue, the global temperature will keep rising, triggering “world-altering events,” Kolbert writes. According to a conservative and unchallenged calculation by the climatologist James Hansen, the man-made pollution already in the atmosphere traps as much extra heat energy every 24 hours as would be released by the explosion of 400,000 Hiroshima-class nuclear bombs. The resulting rapid warming of both the atmosphere and the ocean, which Kolbert notes has absorbed about one-third of the carbon dioxide we have produced, is wreaking havoc on earth’s delicately balanced ecosystems. It threatens both the web of living species with which we share the planet and the future viability of civilization. “By disrupting these systems,” Kolbert writes, “we’re putting our own survival in danger.”
..more..
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)This thread is a marvel of misinformation delivered with confidence and authority.