Multiple systems supporting human life on earth are threatened. We are running into a number of boundaries in the natural and social worlds. First, the financial system partially collapses. Second, energy sources like oil are depleting without yet a serious replacement, and other natural resources like fish, fresh water, minerals and a stable climate are increasingly scarce. Third, social inequality is soaring, bringing many negative consequences.
Analyses on these crises are abundant, so we will keep them concise, mainly linking to trustworthy other sources. We’ll only explore so much as is needed to understand why and how to deal with the changes these crises are evoking.
High inequality has strong negative effects on societies, at the bottom as well as at the top. People die sooner in more unequal countries, mainly because social status has a staggering impact on health and wellbeing. Using a wealth of data and meticulous reasoning Wilkinsons and Picketts reach this conclusion: socio-economic inequality stands out as a crucial factor explaining life expectancy and many other problems like violence, drug abuse, mental illness and obesity.
For the first time in human history we are altering the climate of the planet in a way that is threatening our own subsistence. Global warming can make the Earth uninhabitable – at least for the nine billion people that could be alive halfway the current century, and certainly for the poorest part.
Geographic distribution Mortailty from Climate Change. Source: Human Impact Report 2009.
The climate crisis is interlinked with other crises. Biodiversity is threatened by global warming because forests can’t cope and die, taking the animals for which they are the habitats with them.[1] Floods, droughts, hurricanes, rising seawater levels and disappearing glaciers affect the poor in developing countries the most, so social inequality is increased as well.
The lower curve shows per capita oil production. Source: http://www.albartlett.org/articles/art2000jan.html
Why is energy in a state of crisis? Simply because there is a decreasing amount of freely disposable energy to meet the demand of a growing global population. The chapter on Guidelines for Energy will show that this is not a reason for despair. There is one virtually infinite nuclear energy source and of course it’s called the sun. The past century has been spent by burning a condensed form of solar energy: petroleum.
Economy is complex. A basic understanding of the big picture in crisis times is found with Chris Martenson. Chris, a somewhat peculiar but original and profound thinker, constructed a crash course explaining core concepts like money, rent, banking and resource depletion. Somewhat debatable, cataclysmic and US-centred but highly insightful.
Chris Martenson argues that cheap energy and other natural resources are depleting, which means they cost increasingly more energy to subtract. The financial system, whose collapse is so visible in the media, mainly reacts by showing higher prices and unsustainable debt.
This short video – although grossly simplified – shows the lines of the argument quite well.
Eurasia only land mass with comparable climate. Source: 4thtransition.ws
It’s Geography, stupid! The world developed in an inequal way mainly because of the way the landmasses are laid out. No decisive cultural differences, no genetically better races. Jared Diamond compellingly argues how it’s geography, because large landmasses with comparable climates result in more diverse species over time – and thus more species usefull to support human life. Like what? Like wheat and horses.
This gave Western peoples advantages like guns, germs and steel. PBC made a documentary series based on the book by that title. Watch it here. Brilliant.
Food. The ultimate crucial resource. It’s production is highly dependent on the availability of ecosystems services like water, clean air, biodiversity and a suitable climate. Food scarcity means hunger, too much hunger means people die.
Lester Brown compellingly makes this point, by showing that civilizations have a tendency to collapse when running low on food, and food production is dependent on the natural ecosystems we live in. The following (Matt Damon narrated) documentary sums up his position.
Jared Diamond in his 2005 book Collapse also analyses how population growth and their impact on the environment is worsening ten fundamental and interrelated areas of resource depletion:[1]
People feel more insecure because politics and power have been disconnected. Multinational corporations make decisions within transnational market conditions that can just marginally be controlled. This feeling of insecurity undoubtedly goes with the fear of losing jobs and material welfare; legitimate fears. Zygmunt Bauman describes them:
Power is the ability to act, Bauman argues. Politics is the ability to decide what will happen. Power and politics have been torn apart. Where politics used to have power to make thinks happen, they can now only make plans but have limited power for their execution.
We are running out of natural resources. Limited resources for more people means trouble. What are we running out of exactly, how do these relate and what does it mean?
Zizek, with Ed Ayres, sees four spikes of environmental threat: population growth, consumption of resources, carbon gas emissions, mass extinction of species.[1]
Bloomberg recently turned things around; it’s not that humanity is threatening the earth, but the earth treats humanity. That is, they distinguished nine boundaries that will threat human living conditions. From their perspective (see image), it’s first and foremost declining biodiversity that will render the planet uninhabitable.
Main conclusion is that systems that support human life are being depleted now rapidly, with unpredictable effects but with food being the ultimate resource. Some of these we are experiencing already quite forcefully; high oil prices, rising food prices, atmospheric instability.
The most important dimensions of resource depletion will be described in this part.
“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.”
Free market atrocities have to be balanced by government. Judt describes how the wellfare state, built upon the ruins of the Second World War, has been squandered since Reagan and Thatcher adopted neo-liberal market fundamentalism. Every statesman and citizen should read this book. I think the argument is powerful and of life-saving importance. On top of that, I like timely and seemingly-pathetic statements.
