What are the primary pressures leading us towards collapse?
I’m trying to organize a series of statements which reflect the primary pressures pushing civilization towards collapse. Ideally, I could be as concise as possible and provide additional resources for understanding and sources in defense of each. Any feedback would be helpful, as I would like to incorporate them into a general guide for better understanding collapse.
We are overwhelmingly dependent on finite resources.
Fossil fuels account for 87% of the world’s total energy consumption. 1 2 3
Economic pressures will manifest well before reserves are actually depleted as more energy is required to extract the same amount of resources over time (or as the steepness of the EROEI cliff intensifies). 1 2
We are transitioning to renewables very slowly.
Renewables have had an average growth rate of 5.4% over the past decade. 1 2 3 4
Renewables are not taking off any faster than coal or oil once did and there is no technical or financial reason to believe they will rise any quicker, in part because energy demand is soaring globally, making it hard for natural gas, much less renewables, to just keep up. 1
Total world energy consumption increased 15% from 2009 to 2016. New renewables powered less than 30% of the growth in demand during that period. 1
Transitioning to renewables too quickly would disrupt the global economy.
A rush to build an new global infrastructure based on renewables would require an enormous amount resources and produce massive amounts of pollution. 1 2
Current renewables are ineffective replacements for fossil fuels.
Energy can only be substituted by other energy. Conventional economic thinking on most depletable resources considers substitution possibilities as essentially infinite. But not all joules perform equally. There is a large difference between potential and kinetic energy. Energy properties such as: intermittence, variability, energy density, power density, spatial distribution, energy return on energy invested, scalability, transportability, etc. make energy substitution a complex prospect. The ability of a technology to provide ‘joules’ is different than its ability to contribute to ‘work’ for society. All joules do not contribute equally to human economies. 1 2 3
Best-case energy transition scenarios will still result in severe climate change.
Even if every renewable energy technology advanced as quickly as imagined and they were all applied globally, atmospheric CO2 levels wouldn’t just remain above 350 ppm; they would continue to rise exponentially due to continued fossil fuel use. So our best-case scenario, which was based on our most optimistic forecasts for renewable energy, would still result in severe climate change, with all its dire consequences: shifting climatic zones, freshwater shortages, eroding coasts, and ocean acidification, among others. Our reckoning showed that reversing the trend would require both radical technological advances in cheap zero-carbon energy, as well as a method of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering the carbon. 1
The speed and scale of transitions and of technological change required to limit warming to 1.5°C has been observed in the past within specific sectors and technologies {4.2.2.1}. But the geographical and economic scales at which the required rates of change in the energy, land, urban, infrastructure and industrial systems would need to take place, are larger and have no documented historic precedent. 1
Global economic growth peaked forty years ago.
Global economic growth peaked forty years ago and is projected to settle at 3.7% in 2018. 1 2 3
The increased price of energy, agricultural stress, energy demand, and declining EROEI suggest the energy-surplus economy already peaked in the early 20th century. 1 2
The size of the global economy is still projected to double within the next 25 years. 1
Our institutions and financial systems are based on expectations of continued GDP growth perpetually into the future. Current OECD (2015) forecasts are for more than a tripling of the physical size of the world economy by 2050. No serious government or institution entity forecasts the end of growth this century (at least not publicly). 1
Global energy demand is increasing.
Global energy demand has increased 0.5-2% per year from 2011-2017, despite increases in efficiency. 1 2 3
Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use. 1 2 3 4
World population is increasing.
World population is growing at a rate of around 1.09% per year (2018, down from 1.12% in 2017 and 1.14% in 2016. The current average population increase is estimated at 83 million people per year. The annual growth rate reached its peak in the late 1960s, when it was at around 2%. The rate of increase has nearly halved since then, and will continue to decline in the coming years. 1 2
Our supplies of food and water are diminishing.
Global crop yields are expected to fall by 10% on average over the next 30 years as a result of land degradation and climate change. 1
An estimated 38% of the world’s cropland has been degraded or reduced water and nutrient availability. 1 2
Two-thirds of the world (4.0 billion people) lives under conditions of severe water scarcity at least one month per year. 1
Climate change is rapidly destabilizing our environment.
An overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree humans are the primary cause of climate change. 1
A comparison of past IPCC predictions against 22 years of weather data and the latest climate science find the IPCC has consistently underplayed the intensity of climate change in each of its four major reports released since 1990. 1
15,000 scientists, the most to ever cosign and formally support a published journal article, recently called on humankind to curtail environmental destruction and cautioned that “a great change in our stewardship of the Earth and the life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided.” 1
Emissions are still rising globally and far from enabling us to stay under two degrees of global average warming. 1 2
Climate feedback loops could exponentially accelerate climate change.
In addition to increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, many disrupted systems can trigger various positive or negative feedbacks within the larger system. 1 2 3 4 5
Biodiversity is falling rapidly.
The current species extinction rate is 1,000 to 10,000 times greater than the natural background rate. 1 2
World wildlife populations have declined by an average 58% in the past four decades. 1
The marginal utility of societal complexity is declining.
Civilization solves problems via increased societal complexity (e.g. specialization, political organization, technology, economic relationships). However, each increase in complexity has a declining marginal utility to overall society, until it eventually becomes negative. At such a point, complexity would decrease and a process of collapse or decline would begin, since it becomes more useful to decrease societal complexity than it would be to increase it. 1 2 3
These are great suggestions, particularly #2. I had a write-up for it with a couple sources, but feel like I might try to connect it to a broader statement I have yet to determine.
Yes, I'd love to see a list and/or sources of solutions. My intention with this is to move on towards means of action, I just hadn't gotten to that phase yet. I certainly realize how unlikely or unfeasible certain solutions are, but I also think it's important to acknowledge how voluntary our predicament has become and explore responses together.
Thank you for offering such a well-stated overview off all these solutions. It's taken me awhile to go through them in detail, I apologize for the late response. I'd love to discuss these with you further and/or help facilitate some form of these which are more condensed, sourced, and similar to the format I've used above. I think many people would get quite a bit out of them, and I'd be sure to include them in the page I'm currently working on.
There are definitely systemic factors here, which you acknowledge. I think they'd be critical to include in any descriptions for each solution and how they relate to each toher. Timelines would be important as well. For example, I can see the IAEA estimates Seaborg Molten Salt Reactor would become available after 2024.
This material is generally challenging to summarize, but I get the impression you've already done quite a bit of reading and are able to communicate it quite well. Let me know if you'd like to chat further about working together. Drop me a line through here and we can discuss via email.
Good compilation you've got so far.
On top of what you have, I'm worried about the effect that AI and automation technologies will have on the world if we don't play our cards right. When human physical & brain labor become more expensive than robotic or electronic alternatives, there will be a large proportion of the global workforce that will be forced out of the workforce through no fault of their own. While things aren't yet so dire, the technology is only getting better and will continue to get better barring some kind of unforeseen barrier preventing technology from reaching a human or post-human level. But if we assume that the technology will continue to improve, and that there's nothing inherently special or magical about the wetware we carry inside our heads, then we're faced with a scenario that forces us to consider a future in which many or most people will not be able to make their living performing the kind of labor they do now.
During the Great Depression in the 1930's, unemployment rose to 25% in the US and up to 33% in some countries. It would not take inconceivable superhuman-AI technologies to bring us to a similar level in the coming decades. If we're not prepared to live in such a world, and adjust our way of doing things accordingly, then that's a recipe for a global economic collapse at least.
Personally I try to stay optimistic with automation technologies, as it has the potential to be utopian or quasi-utopian unlike a lot of what you've hitherto compiled, but I see it as a knifes edge we could easily harm ourselves with by falling off the side.
I think that's the point where we start to wonder about the benefits of capitalism. I also think capitalism and consumerism are the largest perpetrators of environmental damage. There is never enough, and everyone always wants more.
I believe history will repeat - see industrial revolution. New discoveries, new techniques, new factories - and, most importantly to my example - new machines (especially textile machines at the beginning). People were worried they'll lose their job to the machines, so they tried as hard as they could to delay the process. For example Luddites was a radical group that destroyed those machines. And while industrial revolution brought serious society problems, it pushed humanity forward, gave us new vital technologies, increased production effectivity and improved living standart.
I think the same will happen. Machines will slowly start taking over peoples' jobs followed by millions of people falling into despair. But in few decades, humans will adapt and prosper like never before.
The real trick is adapting to it.
If we manage to build a mind, which our current understanding of science doesn't prohibit, and it's at or above human level, then humans have been largely pushed aside in the job market. Surely there will be industries in which people will prefer a human touch, such as health or education, but unless automation creates new sectors of the economy which only people can do for some reason then we're still left with a great deal of people without employment. You (probably) just can't have an art and therapy based economy.
It's not the technology itself that frightens me. On the contrary, I look forward to it. Projections differ, but most place the point of creating a simulated general intelligence to around 2040, which is both right around the corner and within my natural lifetime. What I'm afraid of is the ruling class and the wealthy abusing the technology to uplift themselves in a horrible Elysium-type scenario, and not uplifting the whole of the world in a Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism-type scenario.
Which side the coin lands on seems to me to depend on how the governments and ruling bodies of the world decide to handle things. There's a worrying rise of Authoritarianism in the world right now, which would not be the ideal environment for this technology to flourish. However, in many places the citizens of the world are moving in a more collectivist, progressive sort of direction, which would be much more conducive to a glorious future in tandem with automation technologies. If one philosophy wins out over the other before the first artificial minds come online, then it seems likely that automation will enhance or entrench that given philosophy. I just hope that it's a good one.
I would add to your list something at the crux of "World population is increasing" and "Climate change is rapidly destabilizing our environment." This, in order to point out that major population centers and increases to those centers is taking place in coastal regions - many of which are imperiled by rising seas. The threat to global stability of climate migrants is hard to understate.
I would also add to "Our supplies of food and water are diminishing" a mention of the length of food supply lines. In the developed world, disruption of the supply chain from southern production areas to northern consumption areas has a staggering potential to threaten stability. I forget who but someone who studies this likes to mention that the global north is, at any given moment, about three days away from collapse. Once the ships bringing food north stop, that's basically it for organized society in North America and Europe.
Though, I'm not so learned in these areas, the increased intensity of the boom-bust cycle of global capitalism and debt bubbles also seem to be looming rather intensely over our heads.
All, said though, I think this list you have here commendable as is. I really appreciate that you focus on ecological threats over the economic ones which seem to receive so much more attention.
Thank you. I think many of the issues are interconnected and may be able to justify an additional statement which broadly underlines this fact (I don't think population and climate change are the only deeply linked aspects, but you are correct in they are).
My understanding was the US grew food the most efficiently in the world and was one of the top three largest exporters. Disruptions could certainly cascade (and I can't speak for Europe) and it may still be irrelevant (a few extra days wouldn't make much difference, realistically).
And no worries, I'm not learned in these areas either! The bubbles are definitely looming, among other factors.
That's true, but I'm not just talking about the US. AFAIK the US relies on imports for stuff they can't grow for themselves during winter and things that are cheaper to import.
I think I'm too much of an optimist to agree with the collusion that it will lead to civilisation collapse, even though I agree with pretty much all your points, and these are some serious issues that will need to get solved.
I think it's important to specify what you mean by ineffective. They are damn effective at reducing co2 emissions, economically not so much. It's unrealistic to assume that reducing emissions would be 'free'. Green energy is not very good at coping with demand spikes and power storage. The technology exists to mitigate all these problems it's just a case of implementing them when their is need, which unfortunately is not yet the case. Besides the worst-case scenario is some brownouts, and that's not going to collapse society.
As far as mobile energy storage, yeah it's true nothing beats oil.
This is not necessarily a negative, part of the solution to climate change will have to include revaluating markers used to measure an economies health. Things like GDP will have to get replaced with something that directly measures the economies benefit to people rather then the amount of consumption. When all your metrics are focused around consumption it's not a surprise that the goal is to consume more, faster. Countries like Japan provide some sort of example while in a recession they still have very high standard of living with all the services associated with a healthy economy.
While tragic, I don't think this will lead to a collapsed civilisation.
I don't see why keeping society at a fixed complexity is not an option, why does it have to increase or decrease?
This is like the boogie man, we've been hearing about over population for decades. But like you say it will stop at some point. Whatever the number is it's not physical space we will runout of the concern is they will be using more scares racecourses. Only this population is growing in countries that use comparatively very little.