The rise and fall of civilizations is a well noted and recorded phenomenon, and it may be a fate that the current modern civilization could face. "A new study sponsored by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilization could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution collapse of civilizations has been a well noted phenomenon for humans. Modern civilization maybe facing that fate too in the coming decades." The study was conducted with the collaboration of the National Socio-Enviromental Synthesis Center. "The research project is based on a new cross-disciplinary 'Human And Nature Dynamical' (HANDY) model, led by applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei of the US National Science Foundation-supported National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, in association with a team of natural and social scientists. The study based on the HANDY model has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal, Ecological Economics." The usual suspects noted and studied are the largest threats to modern civilization's and each one alone could cause collapse or destabilization.. Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy...and since all of them are coinciding...you can see the picture that is being painted right? "These factors can lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial social features: "the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity"; and "the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or "Commoners") [poor]" These social phenomena have played "a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse," in all such cases over the last five thousand years." The bourgeoisie and upper one percent won't have to worry...or at least not for a while. "Another scenario focuses on the role of continued resource exploitation, finding that "with a larger depletion rate, the decline of the Commoners occurs faster, while the Elites are still thriving, but eventually the Commoners collapse completely, followed by the Elites." " In both scenarios, Elite wealth monopolies mean that they are buffered from the most "detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners", allowing them to "continue 'business as usual' despite the impending catastrophe." The same mechanism, they argue, could explain how "historical collapses were allowed to occur by elites who appear to be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory " And for the optimists who believe that technology will be our ace in the hole... "Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use." and just to hammer in that point for the optimist... "Productivity increases in agriculture and industry over the last two centuries has come from "increased (rather than decreased) resource throughput," despite dramatic efficiency gains over the same period. Modelling a range of different scenarios, Motesharri and his colleagues conclude that under conditions "closely reflecting the reality of the world today... we find that collapse is difficult to avoid." In the first of these scenarios, civilization" There is a ray of sunshine...but you've just got to fight the upper class,their supporters and the modern paradigm and ideologies that govern this world..so good luck with that! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! "However, the scientists point out that the worst-case scenarios are by no means inevitable, and suggest that appropriate policy and structural changes could avoid collapse, if not pave the way toward a more stable civilization. The two key solutions are to reduce economic inequality so as to ensure fairer distribution of resources, and to dramatically reduce resource consumption by relying on less intensive renewable resources and reducing population growth" If we don't change... well just enjoy what you got while it last,and if you have children, be sure to buy them copies of the television series of "Life" and "Planet Earth" as lasting visual testaments to what this planet used to be like. [HR][/HR] Sources http://www.theguardian.com/environm...sation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists http://www.sesync.org/ [HR][/HR]
I don't know about the pessimism displayed in this post. Past civilizations were always isolated when they collapsed, and other cultures not connected to the collapsing civilizations were not affected by the collapse of the other. The world today is very different from the time when collapses occurred, and we have the ability to change the outcome, probably even to the point where it some would consider it to be too late to make a change. There are a lot of things wrong, for sure, but there are a lot of things right too. I'm reminded of what my grandfather said; the end of the world has been predicted so many times, one should just stop worrying about it and live the best life you can.
Although it takes more to bring down a larger society, such as the globally connected world of the industrial elites currently riding the wave, but the Great Depression of the 1930s shows us that it can happen. The wars can be World Wars, the economic ruin can extend planet wide, and the empires of entire continents can find themselves broken and reorganized in ways far beyond the control of their elites as surely as the empires of mere islands or nation states. It's happened, within living memory.
The Obvious Question Dude, it's a study by the one government agency in the United States that consistently does its job properly. What possible credibility could such a paper have?
Tiassa: I'd like to think you subliminally didn't want to see MR banned, but actually set out to quote Saturnine Pariah. Not to stoke any more coals, that is.
My apologies I will at once thank you for the correction—such errors are emharrassing—and set aside your tinfoil bullshit about banning anyone. I mean, really, such ridiculous horseshit can't possibly be genuine. No, really, you're not stupid. So, yeah. You know. What the fuck ever. My apologies to MR and SP for the error.
Mod Hat — Confusion Mod Hat — Confusion I have no record of Magical Realist's suspension; when was it, and who issued it?
My mistake. It was Greatest I Am who got banned. I just now realize that I had been thinking of them as the same person, maybe because they both had a similar motif to their avatars. Apologies to you, Magical Realist and Greatest I Am for my mistake. I meant to say I was sorry to see GIA banned. That was the poster I was sorry to see punished. Sorry for the confusion.
I agree. It may well be a natural cycle for what we call "civilisations" to rise and fall periodically, but so what? Every fall has been followed by another rise and often the degree of "fall" when one collapses is by no means catastrophic. Having been to Aachen to see Charlemagne's chapel, built in 800 in the depths of the so-called "Dark Ages" that followed the "collapse" of Rome, I'm not sure we need to wring our hands about some kind of ultimate catastrophe. We'll have a setback, sure, but history suggests there is every reason to suppose it will be weathered. I think the point about it being unhealthy to have too great a disparity in wealth is a good one, though. It is plain that this is bad for social cohesion. I think wealthy elites that know what is good for them and their children have always recognised this. Noblesse oblige, and all that. And anyway, how many luxury yachts does a man really need?
If this a assessment to the phrasing of the the intro the post, i would like say that despite the credibility of NASA as a publisher of information, i try to avoid absolutes on the principle, of recognizing the probability of error inherent to any investigation or projections. The article itself goes on to say that it's projections are not absolutes, but highly probably and that the results could be altered if humanity strives for change. Or your post is questioning the validity of the article as a farce..which is equally justifiable since it is only ONE organization making global predictions and claims. But i found it interesting and thought i would share it with all of you. Did my post get cynical and pessimistic near the end ..yes..and i do apologize for that. I try my best to avoid letting my misanthropy cloud my judgment, but it was difficult to keep this under taps, when sharing an article that doesn't exactly paint a bright future for the modern civilization we all live in.
Pardon Tiassa can you close my thread I didn't see this one. http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?141133-A-NASA-did-a-study-Do-you-agree-with-the-info As for this thread. Its very interesting to me, but in just 15 years! I hope not. And Here is the link I had. http://www.policymic.com/articles/8...ion-will-end-and-it-s-not-looking-good-for-us
Nature has lasted billions of years, due to natural selection, not artificial selection based on human subjectivity. When humans deviate from the natural way and institute artificial ways, this is when problems arise. For example, quotas in work and education is not natural selection. The quota system will cause the weaker to be substitute for the stronger, thereby making the system, average weaker. This is not how nature works. This leads to extinction. It may help with maximizing the subjectivity of feelings, but feelings do not enhance the food supply. For example, the historical separation, into rich and poor is closer to natural, because it uses less resources than all being equal. The billionaire may have a huge house or two, many fancy cars and even a private jet, but he can only eat so much. If we redistributed all his wealth to 500 people, we now need at least 500 houses, at least 500 cars, at least 500 times more food and drinking water. He may wear $10,000 suits, but that has the same square yards of materials and a cheap suit. Now we need 500 times as many yards of material. Nasa has become a political hack that is promoting decline. The Obama Administration cut NASA, like a mafia shake down, and with a further threat of cuts hanging in the balance, if they don't cooperate. They are yes men pitching the way of decline. Culture may gain, at the emotional level, but emotions does not generate food or water, while it is being used at a faster rate. At one time, only the best students went to college, with college relatively cheap. In 1980, MIT was $6000/year. Since the push to socialize education, so all can go no matter what, the costs have gone up, due to too much demand for scarce resources. We all may feel better. But now the good feeling causes so many students to be stuck with debt handover, and no jobs. The huge debt, means many have already borrowed from the future, accelerating the decline of the future. I have sympathy for the poor and down trodden. But increasing subjective need for resources, by creating emotional division and envy, accelerates the decline, since it enhances the use of scarce resources, at a faster rate. This is not natural, but is the root of decline. Do the math. The counter argument will be about emotional gains and emotional manipulation, not tangible resource gains. If the do gooders have their way and we redistribute so all the people of the earth can now houses and cars, extinction is near. Do the calculation of how much oil will be needed to run 5 billion cars.
You would have to judge it on its own merit. http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~ekalnay/p...paper-draft-safa-motesharrei-rivas-kalnay.pdf I only glanced at the first few pages. I can see no reason to assume that it's biased. The opening remarks about the implications of the Lotka–Volterra equation as it applies to population dynamics is standard textbook fare for related fields of math and science. Such presentation is a candid and transparent way for a modeler to introduce the theoretical basis for selecting and implementing an algorithm used in a model without regard to any political concerns you speak of. I think the political lesson we have learned from climate science is that we can never do too much research into the nature of human impact upon all of the fragile systems we tend to take for granted. Below is a simplified example of the effect of predation on relative populations of predator and prey. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! http://classes.entom.wsu.edu/543/LVmodel.htm That much for sure can't be biased by current politics since it was propounded in the 1920s.
In 1980 college education in the US was quite a bit more socialized than it is now, so you must be happy at the trend anyway.
