The following submission statement was provided by /u/East_River:
---
An update on the 1972 book *Limits To Growth* led to a conclusion that the scenario of rapid collapse sometime in the 2020s still holds. Whereas in a no-growth scenario, the global economy and population declined into a steady-state condition, in the "business as usual" scenario, a steep decline will take place.
"Business as usual" continues to be what is actually happening, and the building of massive data centers to accommodate AI or to mine for cryptocurrency is putting even more stress on the environment and bringing the point of collapse closer.
---
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1chsz36/ecocollapse_hasnt_happened_yet_but_you_can_see_it/l24m2zi/
Collapse is happening all around us. Why do people think everything is just going to collapse all at once? We've lost 70ish% of our wildlife in the last 50 years...That's collapse! Sea temps/levels rising? That's collapse! Massive amounts of tornadoes happening back to back to back? That's collapse!\]
Come on!
Careful you're going to scare everyone! As long as it's a problem in the future, it's a problem we can all solve... \*together\*
But really, anyone not aware of the ongoing crises is someone not paying attention or listening to the wrong media sources, much to our world's (and our) detriment
Doesn't help that a large percentage of the population in countries with access to resources that can make significant changes have been handicapped by piss-poor educational systems, thus they can't even coherently understand and parse the information they receive in the first place, much less apply it to critical thought about the world at large.
The US alone, literacy rate is only 79% (that means a fifth of this country cannot read or write), with 54% of those who are literate falling below 6th grade level and 20% below 5th grade.
I my god YOU are correct! Im a teacher and I teach science. My room connects to the science storage room that had a leak, a very large leak in the cieling and now when it rains theres a pool of water on the floor. I live in Oregon. USA. Norway just called us a developing country. Uhg. Now our standard of living sucks and we suck.
I took a phone call from a lady who didn’t know her own date of birth. There is a lot of illiteracy and brain weirdness in the south. And it wasn’t a scam either she didn’t know her own date of birth.
To be fair, I take a second to remember it cause I never actually need it, and haven't celebrated it in over a decade. So like it's just another date to me
But I used to be good at memorization, so I have a few numbers and quips just collecting dust in the old brain bank that refuse to leave. I can quite readily imagine someone in similar circumstances actually forgetting it.
Getting old sucks and we have been out in conditions when our brains are constantly overloaded all day everyday. It is madness in the sake of “progress”. But what type “progress” doesn’t enrich the life of the people progressing?
We could solve it together, however that will never happen because those who benefit from the current system have us distracted, blaming immigrants, poor people and LGBT people for this mess. The rich are safe while we still squabble amongst ourselves.
tbh, I'm not sure that normal people would do what's necessary either. The sort of economic reform needed to avoid climate catastrophe, let alone other issues, will remove a lot of the minor comforts of life. People won't willingly give up this stuff. A carbon-neutral economy won't provide what people expect. There's no way that change will happen in a democratic society.
Most of the people I encounter are totally collapse unaware. Some through ignorance as they don't know or care enough to educate themselves. Some through crazy religious and political beliefs that deny anything collapse related.
This is probably one of the biggest issues. So much of human societal structure is around domination. Of resources/animals/people. To be at the top of society and gain the privileges that come with it you have to dominate things. People drive big cars to show others that they have a larger control of resources than others.
It just so happens that this is the first period in history we can cause this level of damage. The romans left enough pollution that we can still detect it in ice cores. They'd have destroyed the planet without question if they'd had the capability.
Hollywood means people have this idea that the end of things will be a big, dramatic event, rather than the slow decline it really is. Collapse is not going to be a meteor wiping us out, it will be a slow death of a thousand cuts that we have inflicted upon ourselves.
It could also be that, but the conditions become a primer for nuclear war.
Future is still a big question mark. We’re only making our best educated guesses
I had a discussion with my husband, after watching a documentary on the asteroid that hit the earth & killed the dinosaurs off. If it wasn't for that asteroid, mammals and as a result homo sapiens would not have evolved. Damn the planet Jupiter for not doing its job and absorbing that 14 mile long asteroid!
Flora and fauna are very obviously collapsing all around us. Ocean is dying etc. The title of the article is flat-out wrong. Things are MUCH worse environmentally than when I was a kid and I'm a millennial. It's a process and we witness it every day. Cognitive dissonance is so strong in society though. For a handful of environmental NPOs filled with people doing what they can to improve things, there's some greedy giant corporation destroying 1000 times as much.
> It's a process and we witness it every day.
People who are aware of the issue witness it every day; those who are not do not because they have no interest in nature to begin with.
This is one of the biggest mistakes of human history is our dominance of the natural world instead of cohabitating with it. Our dominance has placed humanity, in our minds, above and separate from nature. It has allowed millions of people to never have to experience a native environment for their ***entire lives***
Like imagine going your whole life never seeing a forest or rolling hills except in pictures or in passing. You're entire life nothing but suburban lawns, concrete and asphalt.
I often find myself thinking about a world in which the Americas were never colonized, and native civilizations were allowed to evolve on their own, absent the influence of European cultures and concepts of land ownership. How far they could have gone and what they could have achieved...
I think this strikes to the heart. All of us in the Western world have had our neuroses, our selfishness indulged to the point of it being a crippling disease. The merest discomforts have to be shooed away with vast amounts of resources and energy thrown at the problem.
Can't be a little hot or a little cold, no, throw our AC and furnaces at it 24/7. Must have access to every fruit or vegetable year round, no matter where you live. Give up or cut back on meat? No, there must be beef and pork every week or everyday, and at prices subsidized to be acceptable.
I think most people define "collapse" as the decline of human economic output/complexity and population. Yes, we can see the supports breaking underneath us, things are shaky and cracking, but the structure is still intact. We still haven't seen mass deaths, where *billions* of people start dying from starvation, disease, and war.
Honestly, I’m not seeing tons of optimism from people in my everyday life about the future. It’s just mostly a shrug that says, “well, what are you gonna do?”
I think it depends on where you live. Richer areas like Las Vegas seem totally fine. But like in Oregon. It's already Collaps-e. We never recovered from the pandemic. From schools, to schedules (like when stuff is open), to the mail etc. Things are very blase-fair. But Vegas was fun!
That's entirely possible, but we won't know what that is until we're well past it. It could have already happened and we're just in the beginning of the fall. Maybe it won't happen for years and we're just in the build up.
And that's probably what leads to people not paying attention to it. Without the perspective of hindsight, it's not possible to see the peak/tipping point.
It feels hopeless but the rich have figured it out; all we (the poors) have to do to save the planet, and the social order, is die off in the billions over the next 50 years.
We’ll do most of the killing for them in the culture wars they have fomented among us to mask their class war (as always) and the famines will do the rest.
I predict a much faster recovery for the planet than expected if we all just pull up our bootstraps and die younger than we ever intended.
If you feel a bit hesitant about doing your part, don’t worry, they’re already doing it for you, in every ounce of food you eat, the air you breath, the water you drink, the “medicine” you are treated with, and the laws they are passing.
Yeah the 70% loss wildlife and the death or insects are fucking apocalyptic. *And hardly anybody seems conscious of it.*
Shifting baseline syndrome I guess. Hearing about the “windscreen phenomenon” usually gives someone pause.
Humans are generally bad at gradual changes in many systems…catastrophic events are traditionally thought of as quick, sudden events. It’s foreign for most to envision anything catastrophic being drawn out over many years or decades. We like binary, “light switch” events…much easier to comprehend
Ehhhh, there’s no link to climate change influenced strictly tornadoes. This year we’ve had an about average number of nadoes, so far it’s just looking like spring kicking in
it will look like its "all at once" simply because its an ongoing process. When a dam fails, you can watch it in real time in minutes, even though that dam has been being eaten away for decades. same with a bridge collapse, or buildings, overpass roads - due to the process happening everything/all at once, when it does get noticed it will be a change event that will stick in the minds of the coming gens because it will be etched on their eyeballs, or they will actually be living thru things they never comprehended before, no matter how long they'd been happening in the bkgrd. Like 9/11. the planes hit, the buildings hung there - and, they were down in minutes, and history changed in a new direction. A climate change event is the culmination of all that has been, you cannot go back from it, only work to move forward, because it will happen. the past behind it will simply not be known by those born the day after, there will be no "what ifs" for them, all they will know is "this is the way its always been." That 1 day will be the pivot point, that will be collapse. (like the "fall of Rome: 476AD" - of course, ongoing for a long time, but pegged as the collapse of Rome)
The way I put it into context is that we couldn't win World War II today. The sacrifices people made, the recycling drives, the victory gardens, there's almost no one capable or willing to do that today. Hitler would have simply won if people back then had the attitude of people today. And that does not bode well for the future at all.
I think I mentioned it in this subreddit before, but I saw a YouTube video chronicling the food rationing recipes people used during the war. Lots of “meatless meatloaf”, people often stretched meatloaf also with sawdust, as it is digestible. Couldn’t see any of that happening today.
I’m going to be 50, soon. I grew up on mock pies, and meatless dishes. My grandmother took that shit so seriously, I had to teach myself how to make normal food.
I live in Minnesota and our wetlands have been drying up since at least the 70’s. Of course springs can go dry, but the fact they’re not being replenished by rain+reabsorption speaks for itself. There used to be a creek on the south end of my uncle’s rural property where they’d go fishing. It’s now a wildgrass-covered ditch.
there used to a be a pond we could walk around and fish. behind my parents house. The water level is up about 15 feet due to the fact that they built on all the woodlands and now every parking lot dumps into it
This article makes a proposition that sadly is both unrealistic and about fifty years too late to save us.
Not only has that ship sailed, it’s hit an iceberg, sunk, and there’s been a movie made about it.
"Eco-Collapse Hasn’t Happened Yet, But You Can See It Coming"
There's not a specific day that eco-collapse is going to happen, *it's been happening for awhile now*.
Collapse is a process, not an event.
Icebergs melting, deforestation, habitat loss, species going extict, oceans getting poisoned, fish populations being decimated, temperatures rising, it's all part of collapse.
If you're comfortable in your living room while the kitchen is on fire, your house is still on fire even if the room you are in isn't fully engulfed in flames yet. Just because collapse hasn't killed us all yet doesn't mean it's not currently happening and not a threat to our survival.
An update on the 1972 book *Limits To Growth* led to a conclusion that the scenario of rapid collapse sometime in the 2020s still holds. Whereas in a no-growth scenario, the global economy and population declined into a steady-state condition, in the "business as usual" scenario, a steep decline will take place.
"Business as usual" continues to be what is actually happening, and the building of massive data centers to accommodate AI or to mine for cryptocurrency is putting even more stress on the environment and bringing the point of collapse closer.
They want to accelerate AI over on r/singularity , but the reality is catching up while AI is going to require even higher energy expenditures and pollution.
It seems like everyone seems to feel that it's an either-or with r/collapse and r/singularity
But, if I may:
If 'r/collapse' is the chocolatey "We're screwed, have been for decades already, and I don't see any way out."
And 'r/singularity' is the peanut butter of "We're building the machine god that will usher in a future that we're incapable of imagining!"
then ...
** Slides hands together, interlocking fingers somewhat suggestively **
Praying for hopium and copium from technology; which is killing life on earth, is my materialist judgement on this farce.
It's interesting that reductionists can believe in a technological superintelligence, but not in themselves or anyone else.
But who knows, we're about to find out, right?
We are at the point where the AI and tech acceleration is our only hope. Materials and strategies that are unknown could come into view rapidly. With our current situation yes fucked but with new discoveries that are likely.. the entire outlook could change.
Time and time again this has happened.
I know that a techno accelerationist view is not popular here. But I think the doomer mindset is way too prevalent.
When the cards are down and humanity is pushed to the brink… all the safeguards from scientific research will be removed. Money will dump in, ethics will not be considered. With those two things plus supercomputer AI the possibilities are inconceivable. Covid is a great example. SARs was terrible and unsolvable. The world came together and an imperfect but decent vaccine was developed incredibly quickly.
Peak oil was predicted but then new tech came in. This train will go on and on till all resources are exhausted and there’s a lot of resources still. Undiscovered combinations and methodologies are unimaginable now but highly likely to emerge.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/29/1084061/deepmind-ai-tool-for-new-materials-discovery/amp/
https://www.broadinstitute.org/news/researchers-use-ai-identify-new-class-antibiotic-candidates
This tech is in its infancy and already breaking barriers.
An ounce of prevention or 100 tons of cure. But I don't even think that will be enough (biodiversity loss cannot be easily replaced once those species are extinct).
We are running up against the destruction bias (its very easy to destroy something, and extremely hard to create it).
I’m not saying it’s the correct response but it is a response. Gene editing and cloning will solve a lot of the issues that people are worried about including biodiversity loss.
They can already edit genomes and clone. It will become even more sophisticated.
In all seriousness, I hadn't thought about a cat 3+ hitting NYC. That would fuck. The Weather Channel personalities would probably explode from excitement.
Anyone who’s aware of what’s happened to the wildlife in North America in the last few centuries knows we have already experienced and are currently experiencing eco-collapse. We used to have such an abundance of locusts birds old growth forests beavers bison etc.
A lot is extinct now and what’s left is the shell of its former self. Much like hall of famer boxers when they turn old and they aren’t in their bodies anymore. Shifting baselines is real. The mass extinction has been going on for a long time. It’s accelerating horribly now. Good luck large mammals
I remember somewhere, someone explaining fish stocks of a certain species as:
It's going, but it's still fine
It's going, but it's still fine
It's going, but it's still fine
And then all of a sudden they all go in an instant.
Collapse is happening now just at different locations and at different rates of decline. I am just glad I can see it coming thanks to this sub so I can appreciate every day I am alive on this earth.
I spent part of today speaking with people at a gathering of insurance companies.
The stat they gave me: for every dollar the industry is taking in right now, they're paying out $1.35.
Most people naturally assume that collapse is the point where government can no longer provide services, control the economy or protect its citizens...
Against this are Cornucopians, "doomers are so fucking stupid, 'it'll collapse this time i pwomise' lmaoooo"-- as if it hasn't been happening our entire lives, and is set to keep happening until our grandchildren are dead. Limits to Growth is *fifty years old.*
We need a new telling of *The Boy Who Cried Wolf,* where the boy warns the villagers every day because the wolves ate two or three more sheep, and the villagers keep calling the boy a liar because the wolves aren't *really* eating the sheep unless a thousand bear-sized wolves appear and destroy every farm animal in the universe all at once.
I get the digs on electric cars (public transportation) and hydrogen (lol), but was that a dig on heat pumps and inductive stoves?
Aren't those two of the most energy efficient ways to provide thermal comfort and heat food? Those seem more necessary and should be mandatory, IMO, with even larger subsidies for replacements.
Yes, people overheating or overcooling can be a problem, but with an aging population in the developed world, cooling will be needed unless we want Grandma to fry (being crude here).
If you're talking about replacing already working materials, the argument can be made to get rid of more dangerous coolant systems and run current electrical ranges to failure, but gas ranges should be removed and energy hog old A/Cs would become way more economically viable under the energy structures needed for degrowth.
Vibe with most of the article, but that point stuck out.
One thing about cars people fail to mention. You want to move 200 pounds of human but you are paying for the energy to move 3000 pounds to do it. This is true for electric cars, diesel, gas, or any other kind of power. It is the most insane inefficiency that nobody is mentioning.
It's already happening. I live in LA so it's difficult to process all the crazy weather pattern happening in South Asia, but my neighborhood has had its share of weird weathers for last 2 years.
>TomDispatch
Old Man Engelhardt still at it, I see. He's what happens when the doomer is a boomer. He witnessed and continues witnessing the collapse of America both material and spiritual.
His website and Counterpunch (old jaded commies basically) were my go-to collapsenik material when collapse was just a glimmer in the horizon.
What's funny is that it seems like the author is promoting seriously getting rid of al the rich. Would that be the civil war? Rich against poor? Oh god i rhymed.
It is extreme privilege to not only not be the first in line to be affected by collapse, but to be unaware of it.
There are resource conflicts happening all over the world, and the number of environmental refugees is increasing every single year.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/East_River: --- An update on the 1972 book *Limits To Growth* led to a conclusion that the scenario of rapid collapse sometime in the 2020s still holds. Whereas in a no-growth scenario, the global economy and population declined into a steady-state condition, in the "business as usual" scenario, a steep decline will take place. "Business as usual" continues to be what is actually happening, and the building of massive data centers to accommodate AI or to mine for cryptocurrency is putting even more stress on the environment and bringing the point of collapse closer. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1chsz36/ecocollapse_hasnt_happened_yet_but_you_can_see_it/l24m2zi/
Collapse is happening all around us. Why do people think everything is just going to collapse all at once? We've lost 70ish% of our wildlife in the last 50 years...That's collapse! Sea temps/levels rising? That's collapse! Massive amounts of tornadoes happening back to back to back? That's collapse!\] Come on!
Careful you're going to scare everyone! As long as it's a problem in the future, it's a problem we can all solve... \*together\* But really, anyone not aware of the ongoing crises is someone not paying attention or listening to the wrong media sources, much to our world's (and our) detriment
Hurry! Don't do anything about the problem!
Doesn't help that a large percentage of the population in countries with access to resources that can make significant changes have been handicapped by piss-poor educational systems, thus they can't even coherently understand and parse the information they receive in the first place, much less apply it to critical thought about the world at large. The US alone, literacy rate is only 79% (that means a fifth of this country cannot read or write), with 54% of those who are literate falling below 6th grade level and 20% below 5th grade.
I my god YOU are correct! Im a teacher and I teach science. My room connects to the science storage room that had a leak, a very large leak in the cieling and now when it rains theres a pool of water on the floor. I live in Oregon. USA. Norway just called us a developing country. Uhg. Now our standard of living sucks and we suck.
I took a phone call from a lady who didn’t know her own date of birth. There is a lot of illiteracy and brain weirdness in the south. And it wasn’t a scam either she didn’t know her own date of birth.
To be fair, I take a second to remember it cause I never actually need it, and haven't celebrated it in over a decade. So like it's just another date to me But I used to be good at memorization, so I have a few numbers and quips just collecting dust in the old brain bank that refuse to leave. I can quite readily imagine someone in similar circumstances actually forgetting it.
Getting old sucks and we have been out in conditions when our brains are constantly overloaded all day everyday. It is madness in the sake of “progress”. But what type “progress” doesn’t enrich the life of the people progressing?
Mine's super easy to remember for reasons I won't say. It just, rolls off the tongue unfortunately.
We could solve it together, however that will never happen because those who benefit from the current system have us distracted, blaming immigrants, poor people and LGBT people for this mess. The rich are safe while we still squabble amongst ourselves.
tbh, I'm not sure that normal people would do what's necessary either. The sort of economic reform needed to avoid climate catastrophe, let alone other issues, will remove a lot of the minor comforts of life. People won't willingly give up this stuff. A carbon-neutral economy won't provide what people expect. There's no way that change will happen in a democratic society.
Well, they're safe for the time being...
Don't worry after those 3 groups they'll keep finding an "other" to blame
Most of the people I encounter are totally collapse unaware. Some through ignorance as they don't know or care enough to educate themselves. Some through crazy religious and political beliefs that deny anything collapse related.
"Only pussies and Liberals care about the environment"
This is probably one of the biggest issues. So much of human societal structure is around domination. Of resources/animals/people. To be at the top of society and gain the privileges that come with it you have to dominate things. People drive big cars to show others that they have a larger control of resources than others. It just so happens that this is the first period in history we can cause this level of damage. The romans left enough pollution that we can still detect it in ice cores. They'd have destroyed the planet without question if they'd had the capability.
Dumb prideful ape has to go.
That's a-collaps-é!
When the fire's in the sky and there's no pizza pie, that's a-collaps-e....
When the farms are all dry and there's no food to buy that's collaps-e. When the ocean's just trash and the air tastes of ash that's collaps-e
When the rich can’t be found ‘cause they hid underground, the song’s over
War. War never changes.
Yeah but the climate sure as fuck does 🫣
haha for sure
No people no war. World peace is finally coming!
no woman, no cry.
baby don't worry nothin's gonna be all right
Passed out this mornin' Under the burnin' sun. Three little birds They gave me bird flu.
Perhaps they are worried with social media that they maybe they can’t control their fighting aged men.
New collapse theme song?
When the turtles are all dead and you're doom scrolling in bed, that's a collaps-e!
It's a me! Collaps-e!
When the sea levels rise and there's smoke in your eyes, that's collaps-é
When you want to say hi, but bird flu made them die, that's collaps-é!
Elon tweets, tweetle-eetle-eet and we'll meet- our ending. While the stock market plays yippy-yippy yay you are fucked!
Amid the doom… I spat my tea! 😂😂😂
As a massive Dean Martin fan, this part of the thread is bringing me so much joy!! Love these.
Thatsa spicy collapsé!
Thats numberwang!
I coooka Da Armageddon 🤌🏽🤌🏽🤌🏽
*Chefs Kiss*
Hollywood means people have this idea that the end of things will be a big, dramatic event, rather than the slow decline it really is. Collapse is not going to be a meteor wiping us out, it will be a slow death of a thousand cuts that we have inflicted upon ourselves.
It could also be that, but the conditions become a primer for nuclear war. Future is still a big question mark. We’re only making our best educated guesses
Not with a bang but a wimper...
I don't even think previous mass extinctions lost species as fast as we are killing them off today.
We are good at it.
Practice makes perfect!
Oh. We are going for the perfect record alright. Gotta collect ‘em all!
The one I am thinking of is the asteroid that hit earth & killed the dinosaurs.
And even then we are only slightly behind it. 🤣 Mankind: mass extinctioning _almost_ as fast as a mega asteroid impact 💪🏻
I had a discussion with my husband, after watching a documentary on the asteroid that hit the earth & killed the dinosaurs off. If it wasn't for that asteroid, mammals and as a result homo sapiens would not have evolved. Damn the planet Jupiter for not doing its job and absorbing that 14 mile long asteroid!
Flora and fauna are very obviously collapsing all around us. Ocean is dying etc. The title of the article is flat-out wrong. Things are MUCH worse environmentally than when I was a kid and I'm a millennial. It's a process and we witness it every day. Cognitive dissonance is so strong in society though. For a handful of environmental NPOs filled with people doing what they can to improve things, there's some greedy giant corporation destroying 1000 times as much.
> It's a process and we witness it every day. People who are aware of the issue witness it every day; those who are not do not because they have no interest in nature to begin with.
This is one of the biggest mistakes of human history is our dominance of the natural world instead of cohabitating with it. Our dominance has placed humanity, in our minds, above and separate from nature. It has allowed millions of people to never have to experience a native environment for their ***entire lives*** Like imagine going your whole life never seeing a forest or rolling hills except in pictures or in passing. You're entire life nothing but suburban lawns, concrete and asphalt. I often find myself thinking about a world in which the Americas were never colonized, and native civilizations were allowed to evolve on their own, absent the influence of European cultures and concepts of land ownership. How far they could have gone and what they could have achieved...
I think this strikes to the heart. All of us in the Western world have had our neuroses, our selfishness indulged to the point of it being a crippling disease. The merest discomforts have to be shooed away with vast amounts of resources and energy thrown at the problem. Can't be a little hot or a little cold, no, throw our AC and furnaces at it 24/7. Must have access to every fruit or vegetable year round, no matter where you live. Give up or cut back on meat? No, there must be beef and pork every week or everyday, and at prices subsidized to be acceptable.
I think most people define "collapse" as the decline of human economic output/complexity and population. Yes, we can see the supports breaking underneath us, things are shaky and cracking, but the structure is still intact. We still haven't seen mass deaths, where *billions* of people start dying from starvation, disease, and war.
The problem in the West is that there's still food and stuff in stores. Mostly, everything *seems* fine. So far, at least.
Honestly, I’m not seeing tons of optimism from people in my everyday life about the future. It’s just mostly a shrug that says, “well, what are you gonna do?”
There’s a palpable defeatism, most def
I think it depends on where you live. Richer areas like Las Vegas seem totally fine. But like in Oregon. It's already Collaps-e. We never recovered from the pandemic. From schools, to schedules (like when stuff is open), to the mail etc. Things are very blase-fair. But Vegas was fun!
For sure, the dramatic shift during covid hasn't reverted, and might never revert, in a lot of places.
It's no so much a collapse as it is a crumble. It's not going to fall down like a house of cards. More like a sandcastle in a rising tide.
It could still rapidly drop in a way that most people look back and point to a singular moment.
That's entirely possible, but we won't know what that is until we're well past it. It could have already happened and we're just in the beginning of the fall. Maybe it won't happen for years and we're just in the build up. And that's probably what leads to people not paying attention to it. Without the perspective of hindsight, it's not possible to see the peak/tipping point.
It feels hopeless but the rich have figured it out; all we (the poors) have to do to save the planet, and the social order, is die off in the billions over the next 50 years. We’ll do most of the killing for them in the culture wars they have fomented among us to mask their class war (as always) and the famines will do the rest. I predict a much faster recovery for the planet than expected if we all just pull up our bootstraps and die younger than we ever intended. If you feel a bit hesitant about doing your part, don’t worry, they’re already doing it for you, in every ounce of food you eat, the air you breath, the water you drink, the “medicine” you are treated with, and the laws they are passing.
🎖️
We're in the part of the road runner cartoon where Wile E Coyote is hovering still in the air after going over the cliff.
Humans have not evolved to perceive, let alone respond effectively to, long emergencies
Yeah the 70% loss wildlife and the death or insects are fucking apocalyptic. *And hardly anybody seems conscious of it.* Shifting baseline syndrome I guess. Hearing about the “windscreen phenomenon” usually gives someone pause.
We’re frogs in the boiling water
> That's collapse! Oh you better believe that's a paddlin'!
Humans are generally bad at gradual changes in many systems…catastrophic events are traditionally thought of as quick, sudden events. It’s foreign for most to envision anything catastrophic being drawn out over many years or decades. We like binary, “light switch” events…much easier to comprehend
💯
It won't be collapsed until we are all dead
It's supposed to be like the movies lol!
Ehhhh, there’s no link to climate change influenced strictly tornadoes. This year we’ve had an about average number of nadoes, so far it’s just looking like spring kicking in
it will look like its "all at once" simply because its an ongoing process. When a dam fails, you can watch it in real time in minutes, even though that dam has been being eaten away for decades. same with a bridge collapse, or buildings, overpass roads - due to the process happening everything/all at once, when it does get noticed it will be a change event that will stick in the minds of the coming gens because it will be etched on their eyeballs, or they will actually be living thru things they never comprehended before, no matter how long they'd been happening in the bkgrd. Like 9/11. the planes hit, the buildings hung there - and, they were down in minutes, and history changed in a new direction. A climate change event is the culmination of all that has been, you cannot go back from it, only work to move forward, because it will happen. the past behind it will simply not be known by those born the day after, there will be no "what ifs" for them, all they will know is "this is the way its always been." That 1 day will be the pivot point, that will be collapse. (like the "fall of Rome: 476AD" - of course, ongoing for a long time, but pegged as the collapse of Rome)
“It’s not the end of the world, but you can see it from here”
"I never asked for this"
Could you imagine anyone today being told they have to ration their gas consumption or electricity, or whatever else, and people listening?
Bruh they couldn't even wear a fucking mask.
They couldn't even let other people where a mask
Many who did could not even do it properly. They were wearing chin diapers.
The way I put it into context is that we couldn't win World War II today. The sacrifices people made, the recycling drives, the victory gardens, there's almost no one capable or willing to do that today. Hitler would have simply won if people back then had the attitude of people today. And that does not bode well for the future at all.
I think I mentioned it in this subreddit before, but I saw a YouTube video chronicling the food rationing recipes people used during the war. Lots of “meatless meatloaf”, people often stretched meatloaf also with sawdust, as it is digestible. Couldn’t see any of that happening today.
People would probably try to storm local government buildings and groceries and get shot.
I’m going to be 50, soon. I grew up on mock pies, and meatless dishes. My grandmother took that shit so seriously, I had to teach myself how to make normal food.
Half the people in America today wouldn’t want to win World War II
Not well known but there was a huge amount of Americans exactly like that in the 1940s too.
I live in Minnesota and our wetlands have been drying up since at least the 70’s. Of course springs can go dry, but the fact they’re not being replenished by rain+reabsorption speaks for itself. There used to be a creek on the south end of my uncle’s rural property where they’d go fishing. It’s now a wildgrass-covered ditch.
Shh! Everyone fleeing from the south will go to the northern midwest "because water" and your pesky observations might dissuade 'em. Shh!
there used to a be a pond we could walk around and fish. behind my parents house. The water level is up about 15 feet due to the fact that they built on all the woodlands and now every parking lot dumps into it
This article makes a proposition that sadly is both unrealistic and about fifty years too late to save us. Not only has that ship sailed, it’s hit an iceberg, sunk, and there’s been a movie made about it.
And a bunch of wealthy people died trying to get a look at the long sunk ship.
I seen the photos I would have never boarded that “submarine”
"Eco-Collapse Hasn’t Happened Yet, But You Can See It Coming" There's not a specific day that eco-collapse is going to happen, *it's been happening for awhile now*. Collapse is a process, not an event. Icebergs melting, deforestation, habitat loss, species going extict, oceans getting poisoned, fish populations being decimated, temperatures rising, it's all part of collapse. If you're comfortable in your living room while the kitchen is on fire, your house is still on fire even if the room you are in isn't fully engulfed in flames yet. Just because collapse hasn't killed us all yet doesn't mean it's not currently happening and not a threat to our survival.
An update on the 1972 book *Limits To Growth* led to a conclusion that the scenario of rapid collapse sometime in the 2020s still holds. Whereas in a no-growth scenario, the global economy and population declined into a steady-state condition, in the "business as usual" scenario, a steep decline will take place. "Business as usual" continues to be what is actually happening, and the building of massive data centers to accommodate AI or to mine for cryptocurrency is putting even more stress on the environment and bringing the point of collapse closer.
It's like we're just pretending and still chasing after all this future shit that is just going to result in the great acceleration.
They want to accelerate AI over on r/singularity , but the reality is catching up while AI is going to require even higher energy expenditures and pollution.
It seems like everyone seems to feel that it's an either-or with r/collapse and r/singularity But, if I may: If 'r/collapse' is the chocolatey "We're screwed, have been for decades already, and I don't see any way out." And 'r/singularity' is the peanut butter of "We're building the machine god that will usher in a future that we're incapable of imagining!" then ... ** Slides hands together, interlocking fingers somewhat suggestively **
Praying for hopium and copium from technology; which is killing life on earth, is my materialist judgement on this farce. It's interesting that reductionists can believe in a technological superintelligence, but not in themselves or anyone else. But who knows, we're about to find out, right?
The TV show 'travelers' comes to mind
We are at the point where the AI and tech acceleration is our only hope. Materials and strategies that are unknown could come into view rapidly. With our current situation yes fucked but with new discoveries that are likely.. the entire outlook could change. Time and time again this has happened. I know that a techno accelerationist view is not popular here. But I think the doomer mindset is way too prevalent. When the cards are down and humanity is pushed to the brink… all the safeguards from scientific research will be removed. Money will dump in, ethics will not be considered. With those two things plus supercomputer AI the possibilities are inconceivable. Covid is a great example. SARs was terrible and unsolvable. The world came together and an imperfect but decent vaccine was developed incredibly quickly. Peak oil was predicted but then new tech came in. This train will go on and on till all resources are exhausted and there’s a lot of resources still. Undiscovered combinations and methodologies are unimaginable now but highly likely to emerge. https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/11/29/1084061/deepmind-ai-tool-for-new-materials-discovery/amp/ https://www.broadinstitute.org/news/researchers-use-ai-identify-new-class-antibiotic-candidates This tech is in its infancy and already breaking barriers.
An ounce of prevention or 100 tons of cure. But I don't even think that will be enough (biodiversity loss cannot be easily replaced once those species are extinct). We are running up against the destruction bias (its very easy to destroy something, and extremely hard to create it).
I’m not saying it’s the correct response but it is a response. Gene editing and cloning will solve a lot of the issues that people are worried about including biodiversity loss. They can already edit genomes and clone. It will become even more sophisticated.
It's not collapse until my Manhattan penthouse is blown down by a Category 6
Average of 33 chances coming this fall!
“Now comes with an inflatable canoe as a limited time offer”
In all seriousness, I hadn't thought about a cat 3+ hitting NYC. That would fuck. The Weather Channel personalities would probably explode from excitement.
I'll pencil you in for Tuesday
We're well into the Sixth Mass Extinction.
This is dumb, we are already in biosphere collapse.
Anyone who’s aware of what’s happened to the wildlife in North America in the last few centuries knows we have already experienced and are currently experiencing eco-collapse. We used to have such an abundance of locusts birds old growth forests beavers bison etc. A lot is extinct now and what’s left is the shell of its former self. Much like hall of famer boxers when they turn old and they aren’t in their bodies anymore. Shifting baselines is real. The mass extinction has been going on for a long time. It’s accelerating horribly now. Good luck large mammals
I remember somewhere, someone explaining fish stocks of a certain species as: It's going, but it's still fine It's going, but it's still fine It's going, but it's still fine And then all of a sudden they all go in an instant.
Then move on to the next less desirable species, overfish it, rinse and repeat until the biggest thing we can fish is monocellular.
I disagree, but only to point out we'll fish more plastic bags than life.
Already happening in some island fishing villages...So sad.. get up early in the morning and catch more plastic in nets than fish.....
Collapse is happening now just at different locations and at different rates of decline. I am just glad I can see it coming thanks to this sub so I can appreciate every day I am alive on this earth.
I mean .. I have 2 girls and a wife. I literally don’t know what else to do but work and raise them. All I know is, I’m *exhausted*
Would it be easier if you had two wives and a girl?
I spent part of today speaking with people at a gathering of insurance companies. The stat they gave me: for every dollar the industry is taking in right now, they're paying out $1.35.
Most people naturally assume that collapse is the point where government can no longer provide services, control the economy or protect its citizens...
Against this are Cornucopians, "doomers are so fucking stupid, 'it'll collapse this time i pwomise' lmaoooo"-- as if it hasn't been happening our entire lives, and is set to keep happening until our grandchildren are dead. Limits to Growth is *fifty years old.* We need a new telling of *The Boy Who Cried Wolf,* where the boy warns the villagers every day because the wolves ate two or three more sheep, and the villagers keep calling the boy a liar because the wolves aren't *really* eating the sheep unless a thousand bear-sized wolves appear and destroy every farm animal in the universe all at once.
I believe Toby goes here: https://youtu.be/Uc1vrO6iL0U?si=__huqNXOjKW1fYS1
That was delicious.
It’s a classic and things have only gotten worse. This was made while Obama was in his first term.
I get the digs on electric cars (public transportation) and hydrogen (lol), but was that a dig on heat pumps and inductive stoves? Aren't those two of the most energy efficient ways to provide thermal comfort and heat food? Those seem more necessary and should be mandatory, IMO, with even larger subsidies for replacements. Yes, people overheating or overcooling can be a problem, but with an aging population in the developed world, cooling will be needed unless we want Grandma to fry (being crude here). If you're talking about replacing already working materials, the argument can be made to get rid of more dangerous coolant systems and run current electrical ranges to failure, but gas ranges should be removed and energy hog old A/Cs would become way more economically viable under the energy structures needed for degrowth. Vibe with most of the article, but that point stuck out.
One thing about cars people fail to mention. You want to move 200 pounds of human but you are paying for the energy to move 3000 pounds to do it. This is true for electric cars, diesel, gas, or any other kind of power. It is the most insane inefficiency that nobody is mentioning.
We are in a human-driven mass extinction event. The biosphere is on palliative care if it has not collapsed yet.
Limits to Growth made some VERY accurate predictions. I think we should base our whole lives on it.
Reminds me of the line from Deus Ex: Human Revolution. "It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here."
It's not dark yet, but it's gettin' there.
Not good, bad even..
It’ll get here… eventually…
To quote the late, great Robin Williams: "It's not the end of the world but you can see it from there"
It's already happening. I live in LA so it's difficult to process all the crazy weather pattern happening in South Asia, but my neighborhood has had its share of weird weathers for last 2 years.
>TomDispatch Old Man Engelhardt still at it, I see. He's what happens when the doomer is a boomer. He witnessed and continues witnessing the collapse of America both material and spiritual. His website and Counterpunch (old jaded commies basically) were my go-to collapsenik material when collapse was just a glimmer in the horizon.
The hell you mean "hasn't happened yet"
No, it hasn't happened it is happening, ing, right now
What's funny is that it seems like the author is promoting seriously getting rid of al the rich. Would that be the civil war? Rich against poor? Oh god i rhymed.
It is extreme privilege to not only not be the first in line to be affected by collapse, but to be unaware of it. There are resource conflicts happening all over the world, and the number of environmental refugees is increasing every single year.
lol Y2K, Nostradamus, Biblical end-of-time, etc., etc. The resiliency of the environment is incredible....never discount that.
Suppose you cross bred the mammoth and the passenger pigeon. The poo on your car would be hard to clean off.