4 ms·

Chances of Societal Collapse in Next Few Decades Is Sky High, Modelling Suggests

31 points by myshpa 3y ago

myshpa 3y ago
From the article: This is all theoretical, of course. The study authors are both mathematical physicists who use modeling to understand complex systems, ranging from complicated biological processes to fiddly social systems. ... Forest is also taken as a proxy for all resources, which could be seen as oversimplistic. ... Nevertheless, the study paints a compelling image of how rampant deforestation and population collapse threaten human society as a whole. The study primarily looks at deforestation and our consumption of trees. Trees are an invaluable asset for humans and the wider ecosystem. Not only do they support natural and human food systems but they also are a lynchpin in a number of important systems, such as the carbon cycle, oxygen production, soil conservation, and the water cycle. As such, the researchers say deforestation will soon mean there are not enough resources to maintain the global population, at which point there will be a "disastrous collapse" of the population. -- Source: Deforestation and world population sustainability: a quantitative analysis https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6 Based on the current resource consumption rates and best estimate of technological rate growth our study shows that we have very low probability, less than 10% in most optimistic estimate, to survive without facing a catastrophic collapse. --- Safe and just Earth system boundaries https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06083-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06083-8 Agriculture production as a major driver of the Earth system exceeding planetary boundaries https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320356605_Agriculture_production_as_a_major_driver_of_the_Earth_system_exceeding_planetary_boundaries https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320356605_Agricultu... Earth’s health failing in seven out of eight key measures, say scientists https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/31/earth-health-failing-in-seven-out-of-eight-key-measures-say-scientists-earth-commission https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/31/earth-he... Assessing the efficiency of changes in land use for mitigating climate change https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0757-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0757-z Planetary boundaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries
- p1esk 3y ago
  We will turn into AI (or will be killed by AI) way before we run out of resources.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- jandrese 3y ago
  This kind of modeling far too often assumes that current (unsustainable) rates of consumption will continue right up to the point the last tree is cut down. In real life as resources become strained they also become expensive and people start finding alternatives or change behavior to be more efficient. This blows out the long term forecasts time and time again. It is important to recognize where we are consuming resources too destructively, but it is not a death sentence for civilization.
  - myshpa 3y ago
    They are aware. From the article: At the current rate of deforestation, all of Earth’s forests would disappear in 100 to 200 years. However, the study predicts that the scarcity of forests will start to cause problems long before all of the planet’s trees are gone. “Clearly it is unrealistic to imagine that the human society would start to be affected by the deforestation only when the last tree would be cut down,” they write. “The progressive degradation of the environment due to deforestation would heavily affect human society and consequently the human collapse would start much earlier.” > It is important to recognize where we are consuming resources too destructively It's not only about resources. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01157-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01157-x Earlier collapse of Anthropocene ecosystems driven by multiple faster and noisier drivers https://phys.org/news/2023-06-ecological-doom-loops-ecosystem-collapses-sooner.html https://phys.org/news/2023-06-ecological-doom-loops-ecosyste... Ecological doom-loops: Why ecosystem collapses may occur much sooner than expected https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01448-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01448-4 Humans are driving one million species to extinction - Landmark UN-backed report finds that agriculture is one of the biggest threats to Earth’s ecosystems.
austin-cheney 3y ago
I am not worried about logging/lumber. Lumber is a fully renewable resource so really that problem is just a matter of missing regulation in concerned geographic regions. I would be far more worried about over harvesting from the oceans which are far less renewable. Prior models have suggested humans are nowhere near over consumption of land based resources. I would be far more concerned with decadence. Economic decline that follows the consumption of social capital greater than what a given consumer contributes in return, which typically follows wealth inequality and faulty expectations among the wealth/poverty extremes. Fortunately, humans have gone through societal collapse a few times, even since eras of written history. It almost always occurs due to many factors occurring simultaneously. It has happened enough that the patterns are identifiable and predictable. Those that survive such periods of instability after accounting for natural disaster, military conflict, and disease tend to be biologically stronger for austere conditions and better at primitive innovation than peers who struggle to survive such. Sometimes the stresses are enough to modify human DNA.
- myshpa 3y ago
  > I am not worried about logging/lumber This is not about wood. > Those that survive such periods of instability We've never faced the overshoot.
Flatcircle 3y ago
People always think the world is going to shit and it always gets better. Song as old as time.
- mydogcanpurr 3y ago
  Even a cursory study of history should disavow anyone of the notion that progress (however defined or measured) is linear or guaranteed.
  - iancmceachern 3y ago
    It all depends on what time scale. As Akin's 6th law of spacecraft design states: "(Mar's Law) Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker"
  - ThrowawayR2 3y ago
    "Disabuse" is probably a better word choice than "disavow".
    - mydogcanpurr 3y ago
      You're right. Thanks for the correction.
  - Flatcircle 3y ago
    I think you're trying to say, in intellectually wordy/condescending syntax, that history is littered with examples of human progress going up and down. Yeah that's true, but it's getting better on the whole. The article literally says "Societal Collapse in the next few decades," not there's gonna be a few tough years, but that society is gonna collapse, lol.
    - mydogcanpurr 3y ago
      I'm not trying to say it. I'm saying it. Read a book.
- 3y ago
neverrroot 3y ago
Too many doomsday models hitting recently and over past decades. Multiple who preached the end of the world before ‘23. Life always finds a way. We’re gonna take care of everything, as we have done in the worst of our times (e.g. after Black Death claimed [according to some] 51% of the world population at the time).
- netsharc 3y ago
  "We've hit an iceberg and are sinking, and only 53% of us can fit on the lifeboats. So don't worry, not all of us are going to suffer death by drowning or hypothermia! First class passengers please make your way to the life boats!". I'm guessing we're both from "first class" nations, where we can have a comfortable life and die at the expected "normal" age of death, despite the world burning up?
  - LargeTomato 3y ago
    Eventually it will hit >135° somewhere and everyone there will die. It will be a massive wakeup call. If it happened in, say, one of the Pakistani refugee camps it would be a mass casualty event.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- bawolff 3y ago
  This is a weird statement.i can appreciate the black death didn't make humans go extinct. Doesn't mean i want to live through it.
  - PM_me_your_math 3y ago
    When have we ever had a choice? Time is going to tick. Bad things are going to happen. Seasons are going to change. All we ever can do is adapt, and we, as a specie, always have.
bratgpttamer 3y ago
Reminds me of a friend's refrain that we'll be old enough to die in The Climate Wars, but not fight in them. Also: https://xkcd.com/605/ https://xkcd.com/605/
- 1letterunixname 3y ago
  What happened to the trees on Easter Island is a harbinger of the fate of Earth with inaction. Unfortunately, popularity, political concerns, and corruption do not lend themselves to leaders taking initiative to address the elephant in the room... and this will lead us down the path to collapse like a slowly-boiling frog.
sillywalk 3y ago
Decades -plural- seems optimistic at this point.
kmoser 3y ago
> “Calculations show that, maintaining the actual rate of population growth and resource consumption, in particular forest consumption, we have a few decades left before an irreversible collapse of our civilization.” Given humanity's (or at least Western civilization's) desire to constantly consume more, plus a declining birth rate, I can only hope that if we don't stop killing the trees we can at least stop making more of us to consume those trees.

31 points by myshpa 3y ago

From the article: This is all theoretical, of course. The study authors are both mathematical physicists who use modeling to understand complex systems, ranging from complicated biological processes to fiddly social systems. ... Forest is also taken as a proxy for all resources, which could be seen as oversimplistic. ... Nevertheless, the study paints a compelling image of how rampant deforestation and population collapse threaten human society as a whole. The study primarily looks at deforestation and our consumption of trees. Trees are an invaluable asset for humans and the wider ecosystem. Not only do they support natural and human food systems but they also are a lynchpin in a number of important systems, such as the carbon cycle, oxygen production, soil conservation, and the water cycle. As such, the researchers say deforestation will soon mean there are not enough resources to maintain the global population, at which point there will be a "disastrous collapse" of the population. -- Source: Deforestation and world population sustainability: a quantitative analysis https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63657-6 Based on the current resource consumption rates and best estimate of technological rate growth our study shows that we have very low probability, less than 10% in most optimistic estimate, to survive without facing a catastrophic collapse. --- Safe and just Earth system boundaries https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06083-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06083-8 Agriculture production as a major driver of the Earth system exceeding planetary boundaries https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320356605_Agriculture_production_as_a_major_driver_of_the_Earth_system_exceeding_planetary_boundaries https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320356605_Agricultu... Earth’s health failing in seven out of eight key measures, say scientists https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/31/earth-health-failing-in-seven-out-of-eight-key-measures-say-scientists-earth-commission https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/31/earth-he... Assessing the efficiency of changes in land use for mitigating climate change https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0757-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0757-z Planetary boundaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries

p1esk 3y ago
We will turn into AI (or will be killed by AI) way before we run out of resources.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
jandrese 3y ago
This kind of modeling far too often assumes that current (unsustainable) rates of consumption will continue right up to the point the last tree is cut down. In real life as resources become strained they also become expensive and people start finding alternatives or change behavior to be more efficient. This blows out the long term forecasts time and time again. It is important to recognize where we are consuming resources too destructively, but it is not a death sentence for civilization.
- myshpa 3y ago
  They are aware. From the article: At the current rate of deforestation, all of Earth’s forests would disappear in 100 to 200 years. However, the study predicts that the scarcity of forests will start to cause problems long before all of the planet’s trees are gone. “Clearly it is unrealistic to imagine that the human society would start to be affected by the deforestation only when the last tree would be cut down,” they write. “The progressive degradation of the environment due to deforestation would heavily affect human society and consequently the human collapse would start much earlier.” > It is important to recognize where we are consuming resources too destructively It's not only about resources. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01157-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01157-x Earlier collapse of Anthropocene ecosystems driven by multiple faster and noisier drivers https://phys.org/news/2023-06-ecological-doom-loops-ecosystem-collapses-sooner.html https://phys.org/news/2023-06-ecological-doom-loops-ecosyste... Ecological doom-loops: Why ecosystem collapses may occur much sooner than expected https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01448-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01448-4 Humans are driving one million species to extinction - Landmark UN-backed report finds that agriculture is one of the biggest threats to Earth’s ecosystems.

austin-cheney 3y ago

I am not worried about logging/lumber. Lumber is a fully renewable resource so really that problem is just a matter of missing regulation in concerned geographic regions. I would be far more worried about over harvesting from the oceans which are far less renewable. Prior models have suggested humans are nowhere near over consumption of land based resources. I would be far more concerned with decadence. Economic decline that follows the consumption of social capital greater than what a given consumer contributes in return, which typically follows wealth inequality and faulty expectations among the wealth/poverty extremes. Fortunately, humans have gone through societal collapse a few times, even since eras of written history. It almost always occurs due to many factors occurring simultaneously. It has happened enough that the patterns are identifiable and predictable. Those that survive such periods of instability after accounting for natural disaster, military conflict, and disease tend to be biologically stronger for austere conditions and better at primitive innovation than peers who struggle to survive such. Sometimes the stresses are enough to modify human DNA.

myshpa 3y ago
> I am not worried about logging/lumber This is not about wood. > Those that survive such periods of instability We've never faced the overshoot.

Flatcircle 3y ago

People always think the world is going to shit and it always gets better. Song as old as time.

mydogcanpurr 3y ago
Even a cursory study of history should disavow anyone of the notion that progress (however defined or measured) is linear or guaranteed.
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  It all depends on what time scale. As Akin's 6th law of spacecraft design states: "(Mar's Law) Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker"
- ThrowawayR2 3y ago
  "Disabuse" is probably a better word choice than "disavow".
  - mydogcanpurr 3y ago
    You're right. Thanks for the correction.
- Flatcircle 3y ago
  I think you're trying to say, in intellectually wordy/condescending syntax, that history is littered with examples of human progress going up and down. Yeah that's true, but it's getting better on the whole. The article literally says "Societal Collapse in the next few decades," not there's gonna be a few tough years, but that society is gonna collapse, lol.
  - mydogcanpurr 3y ago
    I'm not trying to say it. I'm saying it. Read a book.
3y ago

neverrroot 3y ago

Too many doomsday models hitting recently and over past decades. Multiple who preached the end of the world before ‘23. Life always finds a way. We’re gonna take care of everything, as we have done in the worst of our times (e.g. after Black Death claimed [according to some] 51% of the world population at the time).

netsharc 3y ago
"We've hit an iceberg and are sinking, and only 53% of us can fit on the lifeboats. So don't worry, not all of us are going to suffer death by drowning or hypothermia! First class passengers please make your way to the life boats!". I'm guessing we're both from "first class" nations, where we can have a comfortable life and die at the expected "normal" age of death, despite the world burning up?
- LargeTomato 3y ago
  Eventually it will hit >135° somewhere and everyone there will die. It will be a massive wakeup call. If it happened in, say, one of the Pakistani refugee camps it would be a mass casualty event.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
bawolff 3y ago
This is a weird statement.i can appreciate the black death didn't make humans go extinct. Doesn't mean i want to live through it.
- PM_me_your_math 3y ago
  When have we ever had a choice? Time is going to tick. Bad things are going to happen. Seasons are going to change. All we ever can do is adapt, and we, as a specie, always have.

bratgpttamer 3y ago

Reminds me of a friend's refrain that we'll be old enough to die in The Climate Wars, but not fight in them. Also: https://xkcd.com/605/ https://xkcd.com/605/

1letterunixname 3y ago
What happened to the trees on Easter Island is a harbinger of the fate of Earth with inaction. Unfortunately, popularity, political concerns, and corruption do not lend themselves to leaders taking initiative to address the elephant in the room... and this will lead us down the path to collapse like a slowly-boiling frog.

sillywalk 3y ago

Decades -plural- seems optimistic at this point.

kmoser 3y ago

> “Calculations show that, maintaining the actual rate of population growth and resource consumption, in particular forest consumption, we have a few decades left before an irreversible collapse of our civilization.” Given humanity's (or at least Western civilization's) desire to constantly consume more, plus a declining birth rate, I can only hope that if we don't stop killing the trees we can at least stop making more of us to consume those trees.