Collapse

My utopian tendencies arise, in part, from a belief I hold that present society is unsustainable on numerous levels. I have shied away from any essays describing this insufficiency for several reasons. Firstly I find the topic to be negative and critical which is generally an unproductive tone to approach anything one wishes to help with. Perhaps the reason it has been somewhat overlooked is a result of the fact there seems to be no way to make the news palatable. Secondly I have done very little in the way of research on the subject and cannot offer reliable information to support my beliefs, which is not to say that the information is not available. Lastly I have not wished to brand myself as an environmental activist. While it may be one of the more significant topics facing humanity that falls into the remit of this blog, it is far from the being the only topic. Once branded as an environmentalist the reader will tend to assume the known environmentalist's motives are for those ends alone. The general assumption that people who care about the environment care about very little else has not been helped by a few individuals who's approach to spreading the importance of this message has been counterproductive, and so I do not wish to add to this. Having outed myself as someone who sees the practical merits to conserving ecosystems and resources (aka; tree hugger/lefty/hippy/liberal) I would kindly ask the reader to take my motives to be those stated for all of my essays. Consider the difference between the person who goes from door to door spreading the good word and preaching in the street compared with the person who unassumingly attends weekly church. They both believe the same thing where as one forces it in your face while the other does not even require you to be aware of their beliefs to know them. This distinction between peoples approaches to religion (particularly those which offer salvation) is applicable to environmentalists, I wish to be regarded as someone who believes that humanity lacks sustainability and not as someone who preaches this belief and tells people to change. I may offer suggestions as to how society may operate in sustainable means but I will not castigate the individual nor impose my will upon them. This I feel would be a wise approach for others to use for activism and also for religious belief if they wish to gain support rather than alienating people.

I have been compelled to write this unplanned essay after watching a documentary called “Collapse” which discusses the unsustainable aspects of society and the issues that will arise from them. While a sobering experience it is pragmatic, offering both logical arguments and sensible advice, supported with some evidence. For the most part it is an interview with Michael Ruppert who is outstanding in all respects. While he is not entirely able to control his emotions, his restraint is remarkable, only serving to reinforce his apparent honesty and integrity. While his account is neither positive nor optimistic it was by all accounts the best attempt I have encountered at providing information on a vitally important topic in a manner than is unlikely to alienate people. Although I intend to provide a very brief synopsis of his ideas that specifically relate to the mechanisms of collapse I would recommend that you watch this documentary and encourage others to do so too. I hope that Ruppert has missed something in making his predictions as otherwise we are likely too short on time and resources to enact the changes needed to go on with a similar quality of life if he is at all accurate, which he has proved thus far to be. Predictions of time-scales aside, his logic is flawless and without some change to how we live the collapse he describes is inevitable. It may be far enough away that we have found new energy sources to exploit or be a slow enough process that we can suitably adapt while it occurs. There is even the outside possibility that humanity unites on this topic and solves things before a collapse irreversibly begins. The inevitable change may occur without cataclysmic consequence but this does not make it any less prudent to be prepared and informed about the causes and possible effects of those changes.

The main premise upon which Ruppert arrives at the conclusion of the imminent collapse of present society is the dependency we have on oil. It runs all of our transport, provides the vast majority of our electricity which we may enjoy in the home but is essential in industry for refrigeration and other processes that provide for our needs. Oil is used our plastics and our fertilizers, without oil Ruppert argues electric cars would be just as useless as those with a combustion engine based on the oil requirements in making a car. Mass industry and transport is so dependant on oil and it so engrained within those systems that they will fail as they supply runs out. Large cities will no longer be able to be supported by imported goods and humanity will return to living in small self sufficient communities. The level of oil we have left is unknown, and as far as I am concern not relevant to whether we should live sustainably. We can safely say we are past peak oil however, and as such the economy will suffer incredible turmoil.

The infinite economic paradigm as Ruppert calls it is a simple yet accurate portrayal of the global economy that rests on three premises.

1. Fiat currency

2. Fractional Reserve Banking

3. Compound Interest.

These are different terms for things I discussed at reasonable length in my economics essays that ensure the global economy is required to grow continually and create what Ruppert beautifully describes as a giant pyramid scheme. Fractional reserve banking and interest allow money to create more money as banks can loan out more than they have in reserve and charge for it. The total amount of money in the system always increases and we are able to print more money to balance this. Money however represents the value of something and the manner in which we can add value to commodities or harvest them is limited. This limitation is mostly our power and resources for which fossil fuels comprise the largest portion of both. Our economy has reached the stage of growth by which we cannot simply increase the money supply as we cannot create sufficient value to accommodate that new money. As oil is only getting more expensive the economic situation will decline with it in what Ruppert called the jagged plateau. This will mean loss of jobs and services reducing the quality of life for all, starting as ever with the poorest. This stage has already begun according to Ruppert.

The final aspect of Ruppert's argument predicting collapse is based on a dismissal of alternative energy sources. While most of what he says is true it is only a current truth and need not remain the case. We can at least be sure that as the price of oil increases our capitalist system will provide ever more incentive towards improving and producing alternatives. Being no expert on sustainable energy sources and recycling I won't say much on this subject other than I am more optimistic than Ruppert in this area (although a lot less informed), particularly as we are gaining a financial incentive to solve this problem as well as the moral one we already have.

The most chilling aspect of Ruppert's predictions are not the wars for resources of the social anarchy that may result as cities dissolve and people occupy the anger stage of the five stages of grief, or even the reverting to a medieval lifestyle but that of the necessary population loss. It is quite clear from the historic world population graphs that the massive recent spike closing fast on seven billion coincides with the use of fossil fuels coming onto the main stage. Before humanity was exploiting oil the world population had been very slowly and steadily increasing and was around a billion people. Ruppert argues that oil is the only thing that has allowed such an explosive growth to occur and if we were to remove that oil the planet could not support those extra people. That is a lot of people. While I think oil supports a lot of that extra population I also would argue that it has facilitated technologies that will not be entirely lost without the use of oil and that these technologies support a decent proportion of the population. Again, while I do not agree with the extent of the pessimism I agree with the logic and that we will observe less severe effects. Something only has as severe as the demise of six billion people still constitutes a very severe incident in my books.

The main area that I find myself in disagreement with Ruppert is the best way in which a collapse of society could occur. Ruppert thinks that a quick collapse would be best as a long one would ensure more extensive neglect to infrastructure thus making the recovery of humanity harder. I feel however that a quick collapse would have more undesirable social consequences. While I agree that small local communities are the best method humanity has of continued survival in a world without oil or suitable alternatives, I feel that a quick collapse will inhibit the formation of communities. A quick collapse is more likely to cause significant panic and unrest. Once a government has lost control while under the conditions of collapse (such as food, electricity and fuel shortages with potential for hyper-inflation) it will struggle to regain it. If anarchy were to descend on society with shortages on essentials it would not take many people who decide to look out only for themselves to destroy the chances of many communities from forming. The longer we can draw out the transition from an oil dependant society to an oil independent one the better in terms of gaining a good position to restart society and also in terms of the numbers of people that would die. Infrastructure may become severely neglected if a collapse was long but it is less likely to be vandalized and more likely to have coordinated work done upon it.

If all goes well the collapse may just be the step back that humanity needs to take in order to take the next two steps forwards. Anyone who subscribes to the school of logic can see that oil will run out if things remain as they are, and that a lack of oil would be very detrimental to humanity as it presently stands. Only scaremongers and pessimists however will guarantee that the end is nigh, for it is impossible to predict how things will adapt and change over time. Humanity has at least shown that it excels in the ability to adapt. The sooner we fully accept the need to adapt the better chances we have of extending the collapse and weathering it without incident.