NASA Study Concludes When Civilization Will End, And It's Not Looking Good for Us

[abelenkpe]

NASA Study Concludes When Civilization Will End, And It's Not Looking Good for Us

http://www.policymic.com/articles/85541/nasa-study-concludes-when-civilization-will-end-and-it-s-not-looking-good-for-us

(snip)

The report, written by applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei of the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center along with a team of natural and social scientists, explains that modern civilization is doomed. And there's not just one particular group to blame, but the entire fundamental structure and nature of our society.

Analyzing five risk factors for societal collapse (population, climate, water, agriculture and energy), the report says that the sudden downfall of complicated societal structures can follow when these factors converge to form two important criteria. Motesharrei's report says that all societal collapses over the past 5,000 years have involved both "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&quot [poor]." This "Elite" population restricts the flow of resources accessible to the "Masses", accumulating a surplus for themselves that is high enough to strain natural resources. Eventually this situation will inevitably result in the destruction of society.

Elite power, the report suggests, will buffer "detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners," allowing the privileged to "continue 'business as usual' despite the impending catastrophe."

(more at link)

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see Also:


Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'?
Natural and social scientists develop new model of how 'perfect storm' of crises could unravel global system
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists

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[CJCRANE]

1. Here's the part the 1%ers need to read:

""Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion."

[abelenkpe]

3. Exactly nt

[Spider Jerusalem]

14. The problem with that? In this scenario "the 1%ers"...

are those of us in the West who use a proportion of global resources out of scale to our total percentage of the population. If you live in the US, Canada, Australia, or Western Europe? You're one of those "elites". (Point of reference: the USA has 5% of the world's population and uses nearly 25% of the world's total energy output, produces 20% of greenhouse gases, uses three times as much water per capita as the rest of the world, and consumes 30% of total resources.

[Ikonoklast]

15. No. They are talking about you and me and everyone else in this and other Western nations

whose citizens use an average of %500 more resources each in their daily lives than individuals do in the rest of the world.

[meanit]

2. And as a people

we are just standing by and watching it start. Similar things like this have happened in history before and most of us know that.

[CJCRANE]

4. Even the IMF is now saying that inequality is a drag on economic growth.

The 1%ers' economic models do not work and have never worked.

But, thanks to Citizens United and the Koch Brothers, the correct message isn't getting through loud enough.

[abelenkpe]

8. Add in media consolidation

Difficult to get the message out under such circumstances.

[Auntie Bush]

5. So how much time do we have?

100 or 1000 or 5000 years? I have a feeling it's about 200-300 years and all will be lost unless things and ways change dramatically. First we run out of oil...then a revaluation ought to finish off about 1/2 of us and the other half will to squander the remaining resources.

[Vincardog]

6. I believe the collapse will be in more like 20 years on the outside, IMMINENT

"the study is largely theoretical, a number of other more empirically-focused studies - by KPMG and the UK Government Office of Science for instance - have warned that the convergence of food, water and energy crises could create a 'perfect storm' within about fifteen years. But these 'business as usual' forecasts could be very conservative."

[Octafish]

10. Explains Carlyle Frank Carlucci getting into the offshore floating cities concept early.

The Really Creepy People Behind the Libertarian-Inspired Billionaire Sea Castles

http://www.alternet.org/story/147058/the_really_creepy_people_behind_the_libertarian-inspired_billionaire_sea_castles

[ChisolmTrailDem]

19. 30 years, tops. We're already in a slow-motion collapse. Climate

change is tightening it's grip and there won't be enough oil left to lubricate economies as we continue to burn every barrel that comes out of the ground. All the wealth is already being sucked up to the top and we may see a return to a feudalistic arrangement, albeit a 21st Century version - a version I don't think will be pleasant. Not pleasant at all.

[abelenkpe]

7. from guardian link:

"Although the study is largely theoretical, a number of other more empirically-focused studies - by KPMG and the UK Government Office of Science for instance - have warned that the convergence of food, water and energy crises could create a 'perfect storm' within about fifteen years. But these 'business as usual' forecasts could be very conservative."



but don't worry also at guardian link:

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 civilisation.

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:

"Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion."

[IDemo]

13. "appropriate policy and structural changes could avoid collapse"

In other words, ain't gonna happen.

[abelenkpe]

18. Gotta admit that was my reaction too

I really gotta work on my attitude though.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

21. Beat me to it. To accomplish such a goal would require too much pain that too

many people are not willing to hear about having to experience, let alone put to actual practice.

Ain't gonna happen, indeed.

[Holly_Hobby]

12. This guy says 20 years...

http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange

(from 2008)

[Spider Jerusalem]

17. Try 40-60 years tops

declining energy supplies, global warming, drought, crop failures, rising sea levels, mass population displacements, famine...all those things are imminent. Look at what's happening in California now, and also the Southwest more generally; the American southwest is dependent on the Colorado River for water, and the region is in a 13-year drought (which some climatologists are looking at and asking "is this the new normal"?) The Colorado River is already overdrawn by about 1.3 million acre-feet (an acre-foot is 325k gallons). Reservoir storage is declining because of the effects of global warming on Rocky Mountain snowpack and increased consumption due to rising populations; Lake Mead is forecast to reach "dead pool" (where no water will flow out, below the lowest intake) within 20 years if not sooner. Miami is predicted to be underwater by midcentury. Agriculture in places like the San Joaquin and Imperial Valleys in California (which produce 15% of the USA's food) is probably doomed. Human settlement in the arid and desert US southwest is going to have to decline because there won't be water to support it; those people will be displaced elsewhere, the same way the Okies and Arkies fled the Dust Bowl and headed for California in the '30's (and Mexico will be harder-hit by increasing climate change, which will mean increasing numbers of people fleeing north across the Rio Grande, exacerbating tensions along the border). And this is just in the USA; the problem is worldwide.

[Auntie Bush]

23. Sorry I asked...That's depressing!

I thought we had longer. But what you say is true and it's just a matter of how much time it will take to come to pass.

[Octafish]

9. That's why real Democracy is good for us -- everybody.

When money equals free speech, we get into some of these problems that require a secret police state.

[bvar22]

11. Civilization has already ended in the USA.

We're just going through the motions right now in order to allow the RICH to loot that last bits of wealth from the Working Class before they Pull Up the Ladders.

THAT is why "they" are building this massive Surveillance/Security Police State..... NOT to protect them from "terrorists",
but to protect them from US when we finally realize how badly we have been screwed by the people who said they were Working for us.

If we can stay alive,
it WILL be entertaining to watch all the Water Carriers and Mouth Pieces for the 1% be cast back among all the rest of us when they show up on the doorstep at the BIG Country Club expecting to be seated at the table of the REALLY RICH.

We can eat them first.

[ChisolmTrailDem]

22. "We're just going through the motions". Indeed. nt

[idendoit]

16. Went to the SESYNC website.

They do a stunning array of environmental studies. Which makes this report that much more scary.

[Orsino]

20. Don't worry. Cheney's brain will be safe in its underground bunker.

Sometimes you have to live in the shadows.

[GeorgeGist]

24. The sociopaths and their enablers will dismiss the solution as ...

socialism.

[Mojorabbit]

25. k&r. nt

[Warpy]

26. We already know what we have is simply unsustainable.

The best defense is a marketable skill, something that can be bartered for scarce resources.

[ZombieHorde]

27. NASA Clarifies Its Role in Civilization-Collapse Study

NASA is distancing itself from a new study that investigates how unsustainable resource exploitation and rising income inequality could potentially lead to the collapse of human civilization as we know it.

NASA officials released this statement on the study today (March 20): "A soon-to-be published research paper, 'Human and Nature Dynamics (HANDY): Modeling Inequality and Use of Resources in the Collapse or Sustainability of Societies' by University of Maryland researchers Safa Motesharrei and Eugenia Kalnay, and University of Minnesota's Jorge Rivas, was not solicited, directed or reviewed by NASA. It is an independent study by the university researchers utilizing research tools developed for a separate NASA activity. As is the case with all independent research, the views and conclusions in the paper are those of the authors alone. NASA does not endorse the paper or its conclusions."

The study, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Ecological Economics, received a lot of attention recently. For example, a story about it that ran last Friday (March 14) in the British newspaper The Guardian had been shared more than 113,000 times on Facebook as of today (March 20) and was picked up by Gizmodo and other media outlets. Many of the media reports about the forthcoming paper have made much of NASA's involvement. The Guardian's story, for example, sports the following headline: "Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'?" Such accounts motivated the space agency to issue the statement as a clarification.

http://www.space.com/25160-nasa-statement-civilization-collapse-study.html

This is not to say the study is false, but the headline of the story about the study is false.

[Warren DeMontague]

29. WERE DOOOOOMED! NASA SAID SO, SHEEPLE! DOOOOMED! ITS A FACT! DOOOOMED DOOOOMED

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!

[Warren DeMontague]

30. I'm noticing a pattern with these OPs.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4694719

[freshwest]

34. You had the best comments on that one. The thread reminds me of this article from years ago:

U.S. Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion

Feb 16, 2010

WASHINGTON—The U.S. economy ceased to function this week after unexpected existential remarks by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke shocked Americans into realizing that money is, in fact, just a meaningless and intangible social construct...



"It's just an illusion," a wide-eyed Bernanke added as he removed bills from his wallet and slowly spread them out before him. "Just look at it: Meaningless pieces of paper with numbers printed on them. Worthless..."

Screams then filled the Senate Chamber as lawmakers and members of the press ran for the exits, leaving in their wake aisles littered with the remains of torn currency...

A few U.S. banks have remained open, though most teller windows are unmanned due to a lack of interest in transactions involving mere scraps of paper or, worse, decimal points and computer data signifying mere scraps of paper. At a Bank of America branch in Spokane, WA, curious former customers wandered aimlessly through a large empty vault, while several would-be robbers of a Chase bank in Columbus, OH reportedly put their guns down and exited the building hand in hand with security guards, laughing over the inherent absurdity of the idea of $100 bills...

http://www.theonion.com/articles/us-economy-grinds-to-halt-as-nation-realizes-money,2912/

FREEDUMB!

[Warren DeMontague]

35. Indeed. Going Galt sounds Great until Rick James gets involved.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. Can we please STOP with the Study that was NOT done by NASA and did NOT say Civilization is ending?

Please?

Yes, I know, "WUR DOOMED! Oh no, head for the hills, buy gold*, help, help."

Rinse, repeat. Go ahead, get it all out. Yes, yes, really, it's terrible.


Except there was no "NASA study" that said "Civilization is going to collapse".

NASA funded a study (NASA funds lots of things, believe it or not!) that asked the theoretical question if civilization could collapse, and it is being hyped, not surprisingly, and grossly misrepresented, by professional end-timers.





* yep, nailed it

[snappyturtle]

31. ++1000 nt

[abelenkpe]

32. I simply copied and pasted the articles title

And understand from reading the article that it was merely funded by NASA. The only connection between the article posted yesterday and the one today is that they both touch on how important it is to return to a society with broad based prosperity vs one with increasing wealth disparity. You don't get there through austerity which makes the situation worse, not better. This is the exact opposite of Ron Paul buy gold every man for themselves nonsense.

[Warren DeMontague]

33. Point is, and I'm not laying all this at your feet- the study has rapidly been "telephoned" through

several iterations.

To wit, it has gone from

Theoretical NASA-funded study asking whether modern civilization could collapse as previous civilizations have --->

NASA Study saying "Civilization: Collaspsing?" --->

NASA STUDY! Civilization Will Collapse! --->

"NASA Says Civilization TO Collapse, Probably in the next few decades!"

It's not helped by the fact that EVERY article trumpeting the alarmist "conclusions" the study never came to, links back not to the study itself but again to this Nafeez Ahmed, who is by any objective account, like I said, a professional end-timer.

As for the rest of it, wealth disparity and the like, I agree 100%-- although it's worth noting that globally, the past few decades have seen an unprecedented rise OUT of poverty for billions of people. A global middle class where there wasn't one before. That's not to say that wealth disparity hasn't increased in THIS country- it has- but overall the past few decades have been remarkably positive in terms of addressing global poverty, although to be sure plenty of work still needs to be done.