6 ms·

Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided? (2013)

42 points by mettamage 4y ago

DoingIsLearning 4y ago
> Unfortunately, essential steps such as curbing global emissions to peak by 2020 and reducing them to half of present levels by 2050 [66] are extremely problematic economically and politically. Fossil fuel companies would have to leave most of their proven reserves in the ground, thus destroying much of the industry's economic value [67]. Because the ethics of some businesses include knowingly continuing lethal but profitable activities [68], it is hardly surprising that interests with large financial stakes in fossil fuel burning have launched a gigantic and largely successful disinformation campaign in the USA to confuse people about climate disruption [69,70] and block attempts to deal with it [71]. No words minced in this article.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  The value of oil left in the ground is a rough analog to the value of the slaves during the US Civil War. That financial question couldn't get settled without a very bloody and costly war, mostly killing people with no (or indeed a negative) financial interest in the system continuing. In most other places the previous owners of the property ensured via their political connections that they were financially compensated for their terrible loss. It's not a hopeful comparison, but illuminating I think. Centuries later, the propaganda generated is still having negative effects.
  - purpleflame1257 4y ago
    The big difference is that the U.S. economic system was evidently not dependent on slavery to continue. From 1850 to 1870, U.S. cotton production almost doubled, not withstanding the Civil War and emancipation. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/FRB/pages/1920-1924/26396_1920-1924.pdf https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/FRB/pa... Meanwhile, "greening" electricity use will have extremely negative impacts to many people living right now. Look what happened in DK as they shut down nuke plants and then had the Ukraine war interrupt gas supplies. And this is in one of the richest countries in the world! https://www.statista.com/statistics/1267541/germany-monthly-wholesale-electricity-price/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1267541/germany-monthly-...
    - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
      I would argue you'd see the exact same thing, and this is another reason it's a great parallel, see this summary from 2017: https://carbontracker.org/reports/no-country-for-coal-gen-below-2c-and-regulatory-risk-for-us-coal-power-owners/ https://carbontracker.org/reports/no-country-for-coal-gen-be... > provide a tool for investors who have exposure to US coal power to make their portfolio compliant with the Paris Agreement in an economically rational way; > detail how an outdated regulatory framework is one of the only reasons why uncompetitive coal power continues to operate in the US; and > highlight how phasing-out coal power could save US citizens money and make the US economy more competitive > Given the current political backdrop, the assumptions underpinning our analysis are deeply conservative: no Clean Power Plan (CPP) or carbon prices and only well established environmental regulations, originally drafted in 1970s. Plus, you're talking about nuclear being replaced with fossil fuels, which is the exact opposite of what would happen if we abolished subsidising fossil fuels. On slavery, people still argue that slavery made the US rich, or enabled the Industrial Revolution or various other contrarian "thing you thought was bad was actually good" takes, but I believe the standard view is that, while it might have helped get things going, it was eventually, at the time of the civil war, a net negative, even not accounting for costs of the war, and that afterwards the economy grew faster without that deadweight. (The book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism_and_Slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism_and_Slavery covers this.) I'm sure there were people arguing at the time of abolition that it was a necessary evil too though: > Defenders of slavery argued that the sudden end to the slave economy would have had a profound and killing economic impact in the South where reliance on slave labor was the foundation of their economy. The cotton economy would collapse. The tobacco crop would dry in the fields. Rice would cease being profitable. > Defenders of slavery argued that if all the slaves were freed, there would be widespread unemployment and chaos. This would lead to uprisings, bloodshed, and anarchy. They pointed to the mob's "rule of terror" during the French Revolution and argued for the continuation of the status quo, which was providing for affluence and stability for the slaveholding class and for all free people who enjoyed the bounty of the slave society.
imtringued 4y ago
I hope not because I like Karma. The answers and solutions are quite obvious yet no one seems to care. Growth dependence and it's nasty side effects have made it impossible to address any downstream problems.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  The stockmarket may have been a mistake. It turns fractional ownership into an information game with the price to be borne by those that are not playing that particular game (externalization). This is one of the root causes that is super hard to address.
bmitc 4y ago
It will not be avoided. The oligarchy is in control, and until they see downsides, nothing will change.
mettamage 4y ago
I posted this on HN, because I'm genuinely hoping to have a lively discussion about it. I hope the best problem solvers will be able to give their take. I don't know what to make of it, I am frankly in denial. So please upvote this submission (this will be the first and last time I'd ask this but since it's about societal collapse and the threat seems real, I think it's warranted). I'm not doing it for the karma, I really want a discussion on this with a community that I consider to be intelligent.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Fair enough, upvoted. Let's see where it goes.
mikewarot 4y ago
The very concept of climate change has been so politicized in the US, I see any efforts to discuss it as extremely unlikely to have a positive outcome. However, I do see a discussion which could be had, which results in effectively the same actions, that doesn't mention this topic... resource depletion. We're out of easy to reach oil, the amount of energy required to pump a barrel of oil out of the ground has been rising steadily since the first commercial wells. If we want to have a prosperous future for our grandchildren, we owe it to ourselves to divest away from fossil fuels before we're forced into it. Nuclear power with a closed fuel cycle (where old fuel is reprocessed and re-used) can deliver the power we need for generations to come. It has been show that the amount of power a person has per capital is roughly proportional to wealth, let's make power more affordable, and give everyone a better future.
- LatteLazy 4y ago
  The issues with nuclear are the same ones you mention as oil only worse: It costs vastly more per kWh to get energy from nuclear than it does from Oil (or gas or other fuels). And if you think getting people to agree on climate change is hard, try getting them to agree on big subsidies for nuclear, let alone agree to have plants (and waste stores) built on their districts...
  - mikewarot 4y ago
    We're not about to run out of Uranium, we've got tons of it just sitting around, waiting to be reprocessed. We also don't have to drill down 10 miles, then turn sideways to find more of it. Nuclear just needs the fuel cycle to be closed again, as it was originally intended to be. The technology is known, and well proven, we just need to deploy it.
    - LatteLazy 4y ago
      The problem is you will run out of money long long before we run out of fossil fuels. And closed fuel cycles are great but they're even more expensive, and you're still going to end up with at least some waste. People think there is an easy simple answer to this. But there isn't. People think it's nuclear, and it is if you ignore the costs, the waste and the political issues. But then fossil fuels are a great solution... if you ignore all the issues.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
I like to look at these things through the lens of "collective action problems". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem Notably, this recasts the problem as "we can't do this noble thing because everyone would suffer" to "we can't do this smart thing that will improve everyone's lives, because small connected groups currently profit from everyone else's misery". It's like the scheme in the original superman film (and Office Space) to become rich by stealing fractions of pennies from lots of people. In some ways that is more hopeful, if only people could be made to see that it's in everyone's benefit and work together we'd be fine. But then you look at recorded human history and see that, while "civilization" does overall trend in that direction, it gets fought all the way by the concentrated interests, often to catastrophic ends. Like WW1 and WW2 essentially being about people trying to hold back the rising tide of democracy (see footnote). The Holocaust arising fairly directly from Russian royalty's anti-democratic propaganda being constantly repurposed for the same ends. A pattern that continues to this day. Footnote: > In 1919 Adolf Hitler was recruited into the political department of the German Army in Munich. During his training he impressed the senior officers with his abilities as an orator. Hitler soon became an educational officer whose duties included lecturing soldiers returning from the war on the dangers of socialism, pacifism and democracy. The army considered this important work, as they feared that the Russian Revolution might spread to Germany. > Hitler was also asked to investigate the radical political organisations that had emerged in the city after the war. In September 1919, he was sent to spy on the German Workers' Party. Hitler reported back that it posed no threat as it was small in numbers (only 40 members) and was extremely hostile to communism. Under the orders of his commanding officer, Captain Karl Mayr, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party with instructions to use his talents to help it grow.
shdnx 4y ago
This paints a very bleak picture and as others have expressed, I see little hope that this will be addressed. It's clear that the economy (companies) will not take action because they're completely disincentivized to do so... And even if a single company were to try, it'd get outcompeted on the market, and would eventually have to stop. Academia clearly is aware of the issue, but lacks the connections, reach, or credibility to really turn attention to it. Governments and politicians are concerned only with the current or next election cycle, and beyond that this would be an extremely unpopular topic to talk about: nobody wants to know or hear that their comforts have to be taken away for any reason, or that the world is going to end. Further, none of the above would even be sufficient, as this would require global consensus and action to feasibly mitigate.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  I see lots of corporate action, in concert with governments on climate change and various other topics. I also see (sometimes the same) corporations funding think-tanks and government officials to slow it down, so it's not all rosy, but global co-operation to deal with climate change is a thing. So much so that one of the repeating strands of the delaying tactics is to talk about globalists and communism. And also how the Chinese or Indians will betray us by pretending to cooperate. So it seems weird to say its just not happening when there's very visible clashes between groups attempting it and those trying to sabotage it.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Academia only lacks credibility in the circles of the delusional, and outside of those people are happy to ignore them because there isn't a percentage in it. If Academia would come up with something that would generate free cash while avoiding the collapse of global civilization you can bet that the people that currently ignore them would be all over it.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
I think the talk of population growth are misplaced here. The births have largely already happened, we're just not dying as early. Almost all of the talk about overpopulation seems, historically and currently, be a way to introduce the idea that "those other people" are coming to take our stuff. Which I think is both false and dangerous. This is related to famine, I'm a fan of the theory that famines are generally man-made political events. Similar to current gas shortages, or COVID toilet rolls people don't immediately think "how can we all reduce waste to make this a non-problem", they think "how can I hoard as much as possible" and in doing so make the problem worse.
- Isamu 4y ago
  >This is related to famine, I'm a fan of the theory that famines are generally man-made political events. If anyone wants to learn more about this, look up Amartya Sen and his work on the causes of modern famines. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen Spoiler: famine not caused by war is a preventable failure of government.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    And even those that are caused by war (but then it's someone else's government).
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    That has a good summary: > Sen's interest in famine stemmed from personal experience. As a nine-year-old he witnessed the Bengal famine of 1943, in which three million people died. This staggering loss of life was unnecessary, Sen later concluded. He presents data that there was an adequate food supply in Bengal at the time, but particular groups of people including rural landless labourers and urban service providers like barbers did not have the means to buy food as its price rose rapidly due to factors that include acquisitions by the military, panic buying, hoarding, and price gouging, all of them connected to the war in the region. In Poverty and Famines, Sen revealed that in many cases of famine, food supplies were not significantly reduced. In Bengal, for example, food production, while down on the previous year, was higher than in previous non-famine years. Sen points to a number of social and economic factors, such as declining wages, unemployment, rising food prices, and poor food-distribution, which led to starvation.

42 points by mettamage 4y ago

> Unfortunately, essential steps such as curbing global emissions to peak by 2020 and reducing them to half of present levels by 2050 [66] are extremely problematic economically and politically. Fossil fuel companies would have to leave most of their proven reserves in the ground, thus destroying much of the industry's economic value [67]. Because the ethics of some businesses include knowingly continuing lethal but profitable activities [68], it is hardly surprising that interests with large financial stakes in fossil fuel burning have launched a gigantic and largely successful disinformation campaign in the USA to confuse people about climate disruption [69,70] and block attempts to deal with it [71]. No words minced in this article.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
The value of oil left in the ground is a rough analog to the value of the slaves during the US Civil War. That financial question couldn't get settled without a very bloody and costly war, mostly killing people with no (or indeed a negative) financial interest in the system continuing. In most other places the previous owners of the property ensured via their political connections that they were financially compensated for their terrible loss. It's not a hopeful comparison, but illuminating I think. Centuries later, the propaganda generated is still having negative effects.
- purpleflame1257 4y ago
  The big difference is that the U.S. economic system was evidently not dependent on slavery to continue. From 1850 to 1870, U.S. cotton production almost doubled, not withstanding the Civil War and emancipation. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/FRB/pages/1920-1924/26396_1920-1924.pdf https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/FRB/pa... Meanwhile, "greening" electricity use will have extremely negative impacts to many people living right now. Look what happened in DK as they shut down nuke plants and then had the Ukraine war interrupt gas supplies. And this is in one of the richest countries in the world! https://www.statista.com/statistics/1267541/germany-monthly-wholesale-electricity-price/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1267541/germany-monthly-...
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    I would argue you'd see the exact same thing, and this is another reason it's a great parallel, see this summary from 2017: https://carbontracker.org/reports/no-country-for-coal-gen-below-2c-and-regulatory-risk-for-us-coal-power-owners/ https://carbontracker.org/reports/no-country-for-coal-gen-be... > provide a tool for investors who have exposure to US coal power to make their portfolio compliant with the Paris Agreement in an economically rational way; > detail how an outdated regulatory framework is one of the only reasons why uncompetitive coal power continues to operate in the US; and > highlight how phasing-out coal power could save US citizens money and make the US economy more competitive > Given the current political backdrop, the assumptions underpinning our analysis are deeply conservative: no Clean Power Plan (CPP) or carbon prices and only well established environmental regulations, originally drafted in 1970s. Plus, you're talking about nuclear being replaced with fossil fuels, which is the exact opposite of what would happen if we abolished subsidising fossil fuels. On slavery, people still argue that slavery made the US rich, or enabled the Industrial Revolution or various other contrarian "thing you thought was bad was actually good" takes, but I believe the standard view is that, while it might have helped get things going, it was eventually, at the time of the civil war, a net negative, even not accounting for costs of the war, and that afterwards the economy grew faster without that deadweight. (The book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism_and_Slavery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism_and_Slavery covers this.) I'm sure there were people arguing at the time of abolition that it was a necessary evil too though: > Defenders of slavery argued that the sudden end to the slave economy would have had a profound and killing economic impact in the South where reliance on slave labor was the foundation of their economy. The cotton economy would collapse. The tobacco crop would dry in the fields. Rice would cease being profitable. > Defenders of slavery argued that if all the slaves were freed, there would be widespread unemployment and chaos. This would lead to uprisings, bloodshed, and anarchy. They pointed to the mob's "rule of terror" during the French Revolution and argued for the continuation of the status quo, which was providing for affluence and stability for the slaveholding class and for all free people who enjoyed the bounty of the slave society.

imtringued 4y ago

I hope not because I like Karma. The answers and solutions are quite obvious yet no one seems to care. Growth dependence and it's nasty side effects have made it impossible to address any downstream problems.

jacquesm 4y ago
The stockmarket may have been a mistake. It turns fractional ownership into an information game with the price to be borne by those that are not playing that particular game (externalization). This is one of the root causes that is super hard to address.

bmitc 4y ago

It will not be avoided. The oligarchy is in control, and until they see downsides, nothing will change.

mettamage 4y ago

I posted this on HN, because I'm genuinely hoping to have a lively discussion about it. I hope the best problem solvers will be able to give their take. I don't know what to make of it, I am frankly in denial. So please upvote this submission (this will be the first and last time I'd ask this but since it's about societal collapse and the threat seems real, I think it's warranted). I'm not doing it for the karma, I really want a discussion on this with a community that I consider to be intelligent.

jacquesm 4y ago
Fair enough, upvoted. Let's see where it goes.

mikewarot 4y ago

The very concept of climate change has been so politicized in the US, I see any efforts to discuss it as extremely unlikely to have a positive outcome. However, I do see a discussion which could be had, which results in effectively the same actions, that doesn't mention this topic... resource depletion. We're out of easy to reach oil, the amount of energy required to pump a barrel of oil out of the ground has been rising steadily since the first commercial wells. If we want to have a prosperous future for our grandchildren, we owe it to ourselves to divest away from fossil fuels before we're forced into it. Nuclear power with a closed fuel cycle (where old fuel is reprocessed and re-used) can deliver the power we need for generations to come. It has been show that the amount of power a person has per capital is roughly proportional to wealth, let's make power more affordable, and give everyone a better future.

LatteLazy 4y ago
The issues with nuclear are the same ones you mention as oil only worse: It costs vastly more per kWh to get energy from nuclear than it does from Oil (or gas or other fuels). And if you think getting people to agree on climate change is hard, try getting them to agree on big subsidies for nuclear, let alone agree to have plants (and waste stores) built on their districts...
- mikewarot 4y ago
  We're not about to run out of Uranium, we've got tons of it just sitting around, waiting to be reprocessed. We also don't have to drill down 10 miles, then turn sideways to find more of it. Nuclear just needs the fuel cycle to be closed again, as it was originally intended to be. The technology is known, and well proven, we just need to deploy it.
  - LatteLazy 4y ago
    The problem is you will run out of money long long before we run out of fossil fuels. And closed fuel cycles are great but they're even more expensive, and you're still going to end up with at least some waste. People think there is an easy simple answer to this. But there isn't. People think it's nuclear, and it is if you ignore the costs, the waste and the political issues. But then fossil fuels are a great solution... if you ignore all the issues.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

I like to look at these things through the lens of "collective action problems". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem Notably, this recasts the problem as "we can't do this noble thing because everyone would suffer" to "we can't do this smart thing that will improve everyone's lives, because small connected groups currently profit from everyone else's misery". It's like the scheme in the original superman film (and Office Space) to become rich by stealing fractions of pennies from lots of people. In some ways that is more hopeful, if only people could be made to see that it's in everyone's benefit and work together we'd be fine. But then you look at recorded human history and see that, while "civilization" does overall trend in that direction, it gets fought all the way by the concentrated interests, often to catastrophic ends. Like WW1 and WW2 essentially being about people trying to hold back the rising tide of democracy (see footnote). The Holocaust arising fairly directly from Russian royalty's anti-democratic propaganda being constantly repurposed for the same ends. A pattern that continues to this day. Footnote: > In 1919 Adolf Hitler was recruited into the political department of the German Army in Munich. During his training he impressed the senior officers with his abilities as an orator. Hitler soon became an educational officer whose duties included lecturing soldiers returning from the war on the dangers of socialism, pacifism and democracy. The army considered this important work, as they feared that the Russian Revolution might spread to Germany. > Hitler was also asked to investigate the radical political organisations that had emerged in the city after the war. In September 1919, he was sent to spy on the German Workers' Party. Hitler reported back that it posed no threat as it was small in numbers (only 40 members) and was extremely hostile to communism. Under the orders of his commanding officer, Captain Karl Mayr, Hitler joined the German Workers' Party with instructions to use his talents to help it grow.

shdnx 4y ago

This paints a very bleak picture and as others have expressed, I see little hope that this will be addressed. It's clear that the economy (companies) will not take action because they're completely disincentivized to do so... And even if a single company were to try, it'd get outcompeted on the market, and would eventually have to stop. Academia clearly is aware of the issue, but lacks the connections, reach, or credibility to really turn attention to it. Governments and politicians are concerned only with the current or next election cycle, and beyond that this would be an extremely unpopular topic to talk about: nobody wants to know or hear that their comforts have to be taken away for any reason, or that the world is going to end. Further, none of the above would even be sufficient, as this would require global consensus and action to feasibly mitigate.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
I see lots of corporate action, in concert with governments on climate change and various other topics. I also see (sometimes the same) corporations funding think-tanks and government officials to slow it down, so it's not all rosy, but global co-operation to deal with climate change is a thing. So much so that one of the repeating strands of the delaying tactics is to talk about globalists and communism. And also how the Chinese or Indians will betray us by pretending to cooperate. So it seems weird to say its just not happening when there's very visible clashes between groups attempting it and those trying to sabotage it.
jacquesm 4y ago
Academia only lacks credibility in the circles of the delusional, and outside of those people are happy to ignore them because there isn't a percentage in it. If Academia would come up with something that would generate free cash while avoiding the collapse of global civilization you can bet that the people that currently ignore them would be all over it.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

I think the talk of population growth are misplaced here. The births have largely already happened, we're just not dying as early. Almost all of the talk about overpopulation seems, historically and currently, be a way to introduce the idea that "those other people" are coming to take our stuff. Which I think is both false and dangerous. This is related to famine, I'm a fan of the theory that famines are generally man-made political events. Similar to current gas shortages, or COVID toilet rolls people don't immediately think "how can we all reduce waste to make this a non-problem", they think "how can I hoard as much as possible" and in doing so make the problem worse.

Isamu 4y ago
>This is related to famine, I'm a fan of the theory that famines are generally man-made political events. If anyone wants to learn more about this, look up Amartya Sen and his work on the causes of modern famines. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen Spoiler: famine not caused by war is a preventable failure of government.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  And even those that are caused by war (but then it's someone else's government).
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  That has a good summary: > Sen's interest in famine stemmed from personal experience. As a nine-year-old he witnessed the Bengal famine of 1943, in which three million people died. This staggering loss of life was unnecessary, Sen later concluded. He presents data that there was an adequate food supply in Bengal at the time, but particular groups of people including rural landless labourers and urban service providers like barbers did not have the means to buy food as its price rose rapidly due to factors that include acquisitions by the military, panic buying, hoarding, and price gouging, all of them connected to the war in the region. In Poverty and Famines, Sen revealed that in many cases of famine, food supplies were not significantly reduced. In Bengal, for example, food production, while down on the previous year, was higher than in previous non-famine years. Sen points to a number of social and economic factors, such as declining wages, unemployment, rising food prices, and poor food-distribution, which led to starvation.