Bibliography
of Literature Relevant to Our Future Sustainability
VI. Synthesis of Existential Risks and the
Potential for Societal Collapse
Bounce me down to the bibliography
citations
This
bibliography is concerned with disturbing environmental and social trends, along
with the potential to make things better and the risks if we don’t. In this section, the referenced articles look
at the big picture, synthesizing the various problems and trends and projecting
our near future likely outcomes. If you
want to get maximally freaked out, this is your go-to section of the
bibliography.
Many
citations here are of articles from journals that are listed in italics, meaning they have gone through
a peer review process. There are also
links to books, essays from blogs, news magazine analyses and op eds, a few
videos, and some reports sponsored by government agencies and NGOs. These are analyses of what the future holds,
but few are modeling or statistics heavy studies. Instead, these are articles where authors are
sharing their evaluation based on a synthesis of many studies and their gut
feelings about our state of affairs and what they portend. This section is speculative.
There
are > 200 articles in this section written by even more authors. What is striking is the similarity of the
take home messages in the lot, regardless of publication venue or author
background. There is a growing, dark consensus here in the second decade of the
21st century. An ever-increasing segment of the climate scientists,
environmental scientists, social scientists, science beat journalists, etc. have looked squarely upon what we have wrought here
in the Anthropocene, in large part via their own review of the literature
represented in the first 4 sections of this bibliography, and have concluded
that our growth-at-all-costs capitalistic society will not be sustained. It should be concerning that so many people,
with their reputations on the line, are writing about the likelihood of
societal collapse in this century.
But
hey, maybe these authors have it all wrong.
Theirs is still, seemingly, a minority view. Maybe they are wrong because their views
reflect a vast conspiracy in the scientific community to usher in a leftist
autocracy, as some on the right would have you believe. Maybe they are wrong because they foolishly
have insufficient faith in the clever power of free markets, laissez faire
politics, plutocracy, and technological innovation to overcome any resource
limits, climate instability, or massive population shifts. Maybe they are wrong because climate change
and the elimination of the planet’s diversity just isn’t a concern.
The
previous paragraph is more than a little facetious. I dismiss these arguments
as the products of motivated reasoning.1,
2,
3 Section
III of this bibliography contains links to many articles that dismantle
these arguments in a variety of ways, including the simple application of
facts. But it is certainly fair to question just how justified are the gloomier
prognostications of the articles cited below. After all, every generation has
its doomsayers and yet we have been experiencing more or less continual
economic growth, technological development, and intertwining globalization for
centuries.
It
is also fair to wonder about the degree to which the authors represented in
this section may be biased by their own motivated reasoning as well. What might
motivate a rational person to conclude that society as we know it is destined
to collapse, aside from troubling
data and trends? Why is there an
apparent surge in apocalyptic thinking among people concerned with the
environment and social justice?4,
5, 6 To
some extent, this could come from an epidemic of despair over the failure of
attempts to significantly reform our socio-economic system.7, 8 Or perhaps characterizing our challenge as
potentially apocalyptic enables activists to better sell the urgency of their
cause and position themselves as the heroic protagonist.9,
10
There
is also an apparent romantic (or perhaps just exhausted) yearning within the
environmental community for a more decentralized, pastoral, and communal
lifestyle, which may well end up being the best-case scenario for fortunate
regions on the other side of significant economic and political collapse. There
are many advocates of eco-communalism as the way forward within the
sustainability community.5,
11
There
may also be something more subconscious influencing some doomsayers. If you reach the conclusion that we are
embedded in a system that is horrifically damaging, unjust, beyond democratic
control, and inherently pathological, you just might find some hidden comfort
in a narrative where it is destined to fall in relatively short order. In this
narrative, you no longer have any responsibility to do anything to fix a doomed
and irredeemable system. It’s going to happen and you can bide your time while
continuing to participate in a system you can simultaneously disavow.12 This is essentially the fatalistic take of
Jonathan Franzen in his 9/8/19 essay in The
New Yorker magazine that received so much pushback during the week I wrote this
preface.13
None
of this is to say, however, that the assessments projecting possible societal
collapse within this century are easily dismissed, regardless of any motivated
reasoning that may lurk in the hearts of the authors. Sometimes the data does support a conclusion that echoes
your preconceptions. Civilizations do collapse and there is little reason
to think that ours is immune to the stresses that have taken out so many
previous grand societies. Meanwhile, we are facing an additional, unique set of
serious challenges on a horrifying time table as detailed in sections I,
II,
III
and IV. Collapsed is not an inappropriate description
right now for the status of countries like Yemen and Venezuela and it certainly
seems like the world is becoming more unstable.14,
15,
16
Ultimately, however, it is up to you – the judicious reader – to decide whether
the conclusions of the articles in this section are justified or not.
Many
people have been performing this exact evaluation and section
VII of this bibliography (Activisim, Eco-anxiety and the Psychology of
Confronting the “Traumacene”) shares articles
relating the impacts this process is having on those who feel that our future
prospects are grim indeed. As is apparent via the articles of section
VII, there is a groundswell of environmental anxiety, grief, and alarm to
the extent that children are protesting in the streets,17, 18
women are swearing off having children,19,
20
the trending climate activism group
is called Extinction Rebellion, and the
psychiatric community is grappling with a whole new kind of PTSD. 21,
22
If
you are looking for some solace, you can see how the collapse outcome isn’t
explicitly included in most of the scenario analyses of the articles shared in section
V, though it is a potential trajectory in the
Great Transitions
analysis. Also, section
XII (Hopeful Resources – On Hope,
Activism, and Examples of Positive Change) contains many resources meant to
alleviate the despair and paralysis from feeling that a dystopian future is in
the cards. For example, there are links
in that section to many groups one could support in their fight against a
darker future, along with tales of success and the power of hope. In that vein, section
VIII (Conservation, Restoration, Mitigation,
Adaptation ŕ Resilience)
shares articles on many varied efforts, both occurring and proposed, to foster
resilience and thus shore up society in some recognizable form. Section
XI (Sustainability Manifestos),
on the other hand, provides links to numerous proposals for more
transformative, just, and sustainable reformations of culture and
socio-economics that we can implement to either avoid outright collapse or use
as guides in the aftermath of non-apocalyptic forms of collapse. And yes, there are movements afoot to prepare
for and soften any imminent collapse.23, 24, 25, 26
I have written all of the above to prepare you
- to inoculate you - prior to reading the articles cited below. They aren’t likely to sit well unless you are
craving some confirmation of your own preconceived dystopian fears. Professors and teachers of all levels may
want to start with Jem Bendell’s landmark paper
as he is writing specifically to his fellow academics and he has followed it up
by establishing a community (grown to >10,000 participants in just 6 months)
to discuss how best to adapt to collapse.27,
28
If reading these
articles are making you despair, take a break and deflect with a
laugh. Still too dark? Ok, try this
one. Not making you feel better? Go full absurd here.
?? (2021). Collapse.
Annuel.net. https://www.annuel.nl/collapse/
[Links to many books of relevance to Collapse, nicely categorized.]
Ahmed, N (2014). Nasa-funded
Study: Industrial Civilisation Headed for
'Irreversible Collapse'? The Guardian, March 14. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists
Ahmed, N (2017). Failing States,
Collapsing Systems: BioPhysical Triggers of Political
Violence. Springer International Pub. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319478142
or https://www.worldcat.org/title/failing-states-collapsing-systems-biophysical-triggers-of-political-violence/oclc/1120608422?referer=br&ht=edition
Ahmed, N (2019a). Scientists Warn
the UN of Capitalism’s Imminent Demise. Resilience.org, May 2. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-05-02/scientists-warn-the-un-of-capitalisms-imminent-demise/
Ahmed, N (2019b). U.S. Military Could Collapse Within 20 Years Due to Climate Change,
Report Commissioned By Pentagon Says. Vice, Oct. 24. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/mbmkz8/us-military-could-collapse-within-20-years-due-to-climate-change-report-commissioned-by-pentagon-says
Ahmed, N (2019c). The Collapse of
Civilization May Have Already Begun. Vice, Nov. 22. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xwygg/the-collapse-of-civilization-may-have-already-begun
Ahmed, N (2020a). West’s ‘Dust Bowl’ Future now ‘Locked In’, as World Risks Imminent Food Crisis. Resilience, Jan. 6. https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-01-06/wests-dust-bowl-future-now-locked-in-as-world-risks-imminent-food-crisis/
Ahmed, N (2020b). Theoretical Physicists Say 90% Chance of Societal
Collapse Within Several Decades. Vice, July 28. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/akzn5a/theoretical-physicists-say-90-chance-of-societal-collapse-within-several-decades
Ahmed, N and
Miller, A (2020). Our Naked Emperors
Catch Coronavirus: Nafeez Ahmed on Global System
Breakdown. Crazy Town podcast, April. Post Carbon Institute. https://www.buzzsprout.com/244372/3169123-our-naked-emperors-catch-coronavirus-nafeez-ahmed-on-global-system-breakdown
Alexander, S
(2015). Voluntary Simplification as an
Alternative to Collapse, in
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American Association for the Advancement of Science (2014). What We Know:
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Assadourian, E (2020a). Living
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Assadourian, E (2020b). America’s
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Bardi, U, Falsini, S and Perissi, I (2019). Toward a General Theory of Societal Collapse: A Biophysical Examination of Tainter’s Model of the Diminishing Returns of Complexity. BioPhysical Economics and Resource Quality, 4(3). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41247-018-0049-0
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Barnosky, A, Ehrlich, P
and Hadly, E (2016). Avoiding Collapse: Grand Challenges for Science and Society to Solve by
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[Leads
to several related articles]
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J (2019a). Notes on Hunger and Collapse.
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Bendell,
J (2019b). Compendium of Research
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Jem Bendell.com, July 27.
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Bendell,
J (2020c). If Guys with Guns are Talking About Collapse, Why Can’t We? Jem
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Bendell,
J et al., (2020). International Scholars Warning on Societal Disruption and
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[Thorough overview.]
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Farquhar, S,
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[On the more proximal likelihood of economic collapse compared to climate
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Last
Updated – January 4, 2021