How sound or unsound is the reasoning and evidence that industrial civilization is heading for collapse during the 21st century? What should a skeptic conclude?
To start out, I'll define "collapse" as a significant (say, 50% or greater) decrease in worldwide economic productivity per capita, regardless of the time scale over which it happens (e.g. it could be sustained economic contraction, the opposite of economic growth, over many years; or a sudden calamity, or anything in between), and regardless of its causes or consequences. However, the scenario I'm most interested in, because it seems the most plausible, is of a slow collapse caused by resource limitations, especially energy resource limitations, and irreversible due to population pressure. That is to say, the aftermath of a population overshoot that's already put us above any sustainable level.
I listed the major elements of that scenario on another thread, in this post. As that post is in the members-only area, but contains no content unsuitable for the public discussion areas, I'll reproduce it in the next post.
The alternative scenarios to eventual (slow or fast) collapse appear to be the following:
- indefinite continued growth
- reaching (now or after further growth) an indefinitely sustainable equilibrium at at least the present population
- a future gradual population contraction to a sustainable equilibrium that occurs without collapse
- apocalypse (global nuclear war, meteor impact, solar mass ejection, nearby supernova, supervolcano, superflu, or other event that suddenly causes a radical population decrease)
- singularity (an event or change that makes any comparison with the present impossible, such as being invited to join the Federation of Planets, the Rapture, or uploading our consciousnesses into computers)
- delayed collapse; that is, continued growth or non-sustainable equilibrium through the 21st century but collapse sometime after
I find it interesting that almost no one on any side of any discussion about the future pays any attention to that last possibility. If I'm not mistaken, that suggests that even though predictions of what's going to happen in the 21st century tend to be polarized between doomers and optimists, the perception that the 21st century is indeed a critical time in the history of our species is nearly universally agreed upon.
At the same time, the idea that industrial civilization will collapse eventually is also generally well accepted. For example, the Long Now Foundation assumed from the start, in their project to build a clock that will last 10,000 years, that it will have to be able to survive periods of abandonment or barbarism. They've continued to assume that in their other projects, and to suggest that cycles of collapse and recovery are likely elements of a long-term view of future history. They don't usually get tagged as doomers for this, but as realists.
From what I've seen, the evidence is not clear enough, and the dynamics too complex, to conclude with certainty that a collapse in the 21st century is inevitable, but that it's at least as likely as not. In particular, I find each of the alternative possibilities, that I listed above, individually less plausible.
From bits and pieces of previous threads over the years, I've gotten the impression that some people here agree with that assessment at least in part. Of course, others do not, sometimes because they expect technological advances to solve the problems. What do you think, and why?
To start out, I'll define "collapse" as a significant (say, 50% or greater) decrease in worldwide economic productivity per capita, regardless of the time scale over which it happens (e.g. it could be sustained economic contraction, the opposite of economic growth, over many years; or a sudden calamity, or anything in between), and regardless of its causes or consequences. However, the scenario I'm most interested in, because it seems the most plausible, is of a slow collapse caused by resource limitations, especially energy resource limitations, and irreversible due to population pressure. That is to say, the aftermath of a population overshoot that's already put us above any sustainable level.
I listed the major elements of that scenario on another thread, in this post. As that post is in the members-only area, but contains no content unsuitable for the public discussion areas, I'll reproduce it in the next post.
The alternative scenarios to eventual (slow or fast) collapse appear to be the following:
- indefinite continued growth
- reaching (now or after further growth) an indefinitely sustainable equilibrium at at least the present population
- a future gradual population contraction to a sustainable equilibrium that occurs without collapse
- apocalypse (global nuclear war, meteor impact, solar mass ejection, nearby supernova, supervolcano, superflu, or other event that suddenly causes a radical population decrease)
- singularity (an event or change that makes any comparison with the present impossible, such as being invited to join the Federation of Planets, the Rapture, or uploading our consciousnesses into computers)
- delayed collapse; that is, continued growth or non-sustainable equilibrium through the 21st century but collapse sometime after
I find it interesting that almost no one on any side of any discussion about the future pays any attention to that last possibility. If I'm not mistaken, that suggests that even though predictions of what's going to happen in the 21st century tend to be polarized between doomers and optimists, the perception that the 21st century is indeed a critical time in the history of our species is nearly universally agreed upon.
At the same time, the idea that industrial civilization will collapse eventually is also generally well accepted. For example, the Long Now Foundation assumed from the start, in their project to build a clock that will last 10,000 years, that it will have to be able to survive periods of abandonment or barbarism. They've continued to assume that in their other projects, and to suggest that cycles of collapse and recovery are likely elements of a long-term view of future history. They don't usually get tagged as doomers for this, but as realists.
From what I've seen, the evidence is not clear enough, and the dynamics too complex, to conclude with certainty that a collapse in the 21st century is inevitable, but that it's at least as likely as not. In particular, I find each of the alternative possibilities, that I listed above, individually less plausible.
From bits and pieces of previous threads over the years, I've gotten the impression that some people here agree with that assessment at least in part. Of course, others do not, sometimes because they expect technological advances to solve the problems. What do you think, and why?
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