MARCH 13, 2020
As modern civilization’s shelf
life expires, more scholars have turned their attention to the decline and fall
of civilizations past. Their studies have generated rival explanations of
why societies collapse and civilizations die. Meanwhile, a lucrative market has emerged for post-apocalyptic novels, movies, TV shows, and video
games for those who enjoy the vicarious thrill of dark, futuristic disaster and
mayhem from the comfort of their cozy couch. Of course, surviving the real thing will become a much different story.
The latent fear
that civilization is living on borrowed time has also spawned a counter-market
of “happily ever after” optimists who desperately cling to their belief in endless
progress. Popular Pollyannas, like cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker,
provide this anxious crowd with soothing assurances that the titanic ship of
progress is unsinkable. Pinker’s publications have made him the high
priest of progress.[1] While
civilization circles the drain, his ardent audiences find comfort in lectures
and books brimming with cherry-picked evidence to prove that life is better
than ever, and will surely keep improving. Yet, when questioned, Pinker
himself admits, “It’s incorrect to extrapolate that
the fact that we’ve made progress is a prediction that we’re guaranteed to make
progress.”[2]
Pinker’s rosy statistics cleverly disguise the fatal flaw in his
argument. The progress of the past was built by sacrificing the
future—and the future is upon us. All the happy facts he cites about
living standards, life expectancy, and economic growth are the product of an
industrial civilization that has pillaged and polluted the planet to produce
temporary progress for a growing middle class—and enormous profits and power
for a tiny elite.
Not everyone who
understands that progress has been purchased at the expense of the future
thinks that civilization’s collapse will be abrupt and bitter. Scholars
of ancient societies, like Jared Diamond and John Michael Greer, accurately
point out that abrupt collapse is a rare historical phenomenon. In The
Long Descent, Greer assures his readers that, “The same pattern repeats over and over again in history. Gradual
disintegration, not sudden catastrophic collapse, is the way civilizations
end.” Greer estimates that it takes, on average,
about 250 years for civilizations to decline and fall, and he finds no reason
why modern civilization shouldn’t follow this “usual timeline.”[3]
But Greer’s assumption is built on shaky ground because industrial
civilization differs from all past civilizations in four crucial ways.
And every one of them may accelerate and intensify the coming collapse while
increasing the difficulty of recovery.
Difference
#1: Unlike all previous civilizations, modern industrial
civilization is powered by an exceptionally rich, NON-renewable, and
irreplaceable energy source—fossil fuels. This unique energy base
predisposes industrial civilization to a short, meteoric lifespan of
unprecedented boom and drastic bust. Megacities, globalized production,
industrial agriculture, and a human population approaching 8 billion are all
historically exceptional—and unsustainable—without fossil fuels. Today,
the rich easily exploited oilfields and coal mines of the past are mostly depleted.
And, while there are energy alternatives, there are no realistic replacements
that can deliver the abundant net energy fossil fuels once provided.[4]
Our complex, expansive, high-speed civilization owes its brief lifespan to this
one-time, rapidly dwindling energy bonanza.
Difference
#2: Unlike past civilizations, the economy
of industrial society is capitalist. Production for profit is its prime
directive and driving force. The unprecedented surplus energy supplied by
fossil fuels has generated exceptional growth and enormous profits over the
past two centuries. But in the coming decades, these historic windfalls
of abundant energy, constant growth, and rising profits will vanish.
However, unless
it is abolished, capitalism will not disappear when boom turns to bust.
Instead, energy-starved, growth-less capitalism will turn catabolic. Catabolism refers to the condition whereby a living thing devours itself. As profitable
sources of production dry up, capitalism will be compelled to turn a profit by
consuming the social assets it once created. By cannibalizing itself, the
profit motive will exacerbate industrial society’s dramatic decline.
Catabolic
capitalism will profit from scarcity, crisis, disaster, and conflict.
Warfare, resource hoarding, ecological disaster, and pandemic diseases will
become the big profit makers. Capital will flow toward lucrative ventures
like cybercrime, predatory lending, and financial fraud; bribery, corruption,
and racketeering; weapons, drugs, and human trafficking. Once
disintegration and destruction become the primary source of profit, catabolic
capitalism will rampage down the road to ruin, gorging itself on one self-inflicted
disaster after another.[5]
Difference
#3: Unlike past societies, industrial
civilization isn’t Roman, Chinese, Egyptian, Aztec, or Mayan. Modern
civilization is HUMAN, PLANETARY, and ECOCIDAL. Pre-industrial
civilizations depleted their topsoil, felled their forests, and polluted their
rivers. But the harm was far more temporary and geographically limited.
Once market incentives harnessed the colossal power of fossil fuels to exploit
nature, the dire results were planetary. Two centuries of fossil fuel
combustion have saturated the biosphere with climate-altering carbon that will
continue wreaking havoc for generations to come. The damage to Earth’s
living systems—the circulation and chemical composition of the atmosphere and
the ocean; the stability of the hydrological and biogeochemical cycles; and the
biodiversity of the entire planet—is essentially permanent.
Humans have
become the most invasive species ever known. Although we are a mere .01
percent of the planet’s biomass, our domesticated crops and livestock dominate
life on Earth. In terms of total biomass, 96 percent of all the mammals
on Earth are livestock; only 4 percent are wild mammals. Seventy percent
of all birds are domesticated poultry, only 30 percent are wild. About
half the Earth’s wild animals are thought to have been lost in just the last 50
years.[6]
Scientists estimate that half of all remaining species will be extinct by the
end of the century.[7] There
are no more unspoiled ecosystems or new frontiers where people can escape the
damage they’ve caused and recover from collapse.
Difference
#4: Human civilization’s collective capacity
to confront its mounting crises is crippled by a fragmented political system of
antagonistic nations ruled by corrupt elites who care more about power and
wealth than people and the planet. Humanity faces a perfect storm of
converging global calamities. Intersecting tribulations like climate
chaos, rampant extinction, food and freshwater scarcity, poverty, extreme
inequality and the rise of global pandemics are rapidly eroding the
foundations of modern life.
Yet, this fractious and fractured political system makes organizing and
mounting a cooperative response nearly impossible. And, the more
catabolic industrial capitalism becomes, the greater the danger that hostile
rulers will fan the flames of nationalism and go to war over scarce resources.
Of course, warfare is not new. But modern warfare is so
devastating, destructive, and toxic that little would remain in its aftermath.
This would be the final nail in civilization’s coffin.
Rising
From the Ruins?
How people respond to the collapse of industrial civilization will
determine how bad things get and what will replace it. The challenges are
monumental. They will force us to question our identities, our values,
and our loyalties like no other experience in our history. Who are
we? Are we, first and foremost, human beings struggling to raise our
families, strengthen our communities, and coexist with the other inhabitants of
Earth? Or do our primary loyalties belong to our nation, our culture, our
race, our ideology, or our religion? Can we put the survival of our
species and our planet first, or will we allow ourselves to become hopelessly
divided along national, cultural, racial, religious, or party lines?
The eventual outcome of this great implosion is up for grabs. Will
we overcome denial and despair; kick our addiction to petroleum, and pull
together to break the grip of corporate power over our lives? Can we
foster genuine democracy, harness renewable energy, reweave our communities,
re-learn forgotten skills, and heal the wounds we’ve inflicted on the
Earth? Or will fear and prejudice drive us into hostile camps, fighting
over the dwindling resources of a degraded planet? The stakes could not
be higher.
Notes.
[1] His books include: The
Better Angels of Our Nature and Enlightenment
Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.
[2] King, Darryn. “Steven
Pinker on the Past, Present, and Future of Optimism” (OneZero,
Jan 10, 2019) https://onezero.medium.com/steven-pinker-on-the-past-present-and-future-of-optimism-f362398c604b
[5] For more on catabolic capitalism
see Collins, Craig. “Catabolism: Capitalism’s
Frightening Future,” CounterPunch (Nov. 1, 2018). https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/01/catabolism-capitalisms-frightening-future/
[6] Carrington, Damian. “New
Study: Humans Just 0.01% Of All Life But Have Destroyed 83% Off Wild Mammals,”
The Guardian (May 21, 2018). https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/21/human-race-just-001-of-all-life-but-has-destroyed-over-80-of-wild-mammals-study
[7] Ceballos, Ehrlich, Barnosky, Garcia, Pringle &
Palmer. “Accelerated
Modern Human-Induced Species Losses: Entering The 6th Mass Extinction,” Science Advances. (June 19, 2015). http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/5/e1400253
Craig Collins Ph.D. is the author of “Toxic Loopholes” (Cambridge University Press), which examines
America’s dysfunctional system of environmental protection. He teaches
political science and environmental law at California State University East Bay
and was a founding member of the Green Party of California.
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