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The struggle to survive a collapsing society
Mohamed Ataya, a 31-year-old Syrian tends to his plants on the rooftop of his damaged building in the Syrian rebel-held town of Arbin, in the eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus last week. Ataya, who used to be a professional football player before the war, cultivates seeds for sale. Reddit March, 2017.
The crisis of civilisation
People seem confused, deluded by mainstream media into to wishful thinking, about the current state of affairs in the world. But there is that uneasy feeling that all the alarming reports about peak oil, climate change, desertification, species mass extinction, freshwater scarcity, dying coral reefs, melting of polar ice caps and toxification of our environment are piling up. In fact, we are currently living in a time of a collapsing civilisation, the end to wasteful resource use and reliance on fossil fuels. Everything is becoming increasingly expensive leading to falling standards of living and a majority of the world's population who can barely afford food, shelter or gas for transport anymore. When food becomes too expensive people riot and revolt against the ruling elite. Conflict arises and sometimes it breaks out into wars. Syria being the prime example. For Syrians who are still within the country's borders a total and rapid collapse has long since been underway and is continuing to this day. Look at the man watering his seeds in a city of concrete ruins. Its utterly sad and beautiful at the same time. That is reality. And we will be seeing more of it as entropy starts moving in from the periphery of the global economy towards the centre.
Source: Lagi et al. (2011)
Since it's clear now, almost fifty years after The Limits to Growth (1972) was published, that humans will not take preemptive action to avoid a collapse of the system, the global economy will have to shrink. And the process has been underway for some time now, especially since 2008, it's just that some regions will feel it much harder and sooner than others. Nobody is safe from its crushing effects, that's why building resilience is important for every community on Earth.
People who are well aware of the seriousness of our current situation are suggesting radical ideas because they know there will be mayhem as hundreds of millions of people will be displaced due to a rapidly degrading biosphere and unstable climate.
“Why not create a climate passport, actually, give it to all those people who cannot live anymore in their original homes, which gives them access to all the countries who destroyed their home, like the United States” - H.J Schellnhuber (Climate Change: A Last Call for the Planet, 2018)
Well, sure... that probably wont happen but it shows the inequality of the issue and where, to the centre of the global economy, people with the possibility to do so will be fleeing as their own areas are devastated. The world's richest 10% account for half the carbon emissions while the poorest 3.5 billion account for just a tenth.
Now, climate is not the only issue here, it's just one of the symptoms of a full world. Syria suffered lost state revenue from declining oil exports due to a peak in production, massive population growth, reduced food and fuel subsidies, at the same time as they had the worst drought in 900 years. It's a combination of converging crises that crushes nations that lack resilience. This is only one way that collapse manifests. But it will impact every nation, either direct or indirect, and cause instability and hardship for ordinary people while a small percentage of the rich continue to overexploit remaining resources.
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