File: c:/ddc/Angel/BestIntentions/WhatIf.html
Date:  Fri Aug 20 21:07:15 2010
(C) OntoOO/ Dennis de Champeaux

What If?

When it comes to rare probabilities, our mind is not designed to get things quite right. For the residents of a planet that may be exposed to events no one has yet experienced, this is not good news.
(Daniel Kahneman)

The Unthinkable

What if happens in the 21st century what nobody wants to ponder: global collapse as described in various ways by Diamond, Meadows et al and Randers? We try to think here the unthinkable.

The World3 model aggregates the whole world and does not indicate where a collapse would start. The timing is fuzzy while the population peak appears to be happening after 2030.

A collapse manifests itself with a decline of the world population triggered by an earlier shortage of food. A food shortage occurs due to lack of energy for the manufacturing of fertilizer and/or due to a drop in agricultural yields as a result of pollution, soil abuse, erosion, etc. Overfishing has depleted the oceans. Pollution is caused by increasing industrial production -- me-too, catchup development by those nations that strive to imitate the material life-style of the West (while believing that they can maintain their cultural heritage). China and India are major examples of this process.

The Tragedy of the Commons rules due to a weak, quibbling UN and the inability of nations to surrender sovereignty due to the great diversity of short term losses and gains.

Assuming that international gridlock continues, where will the collapse scenario bite first and how will it impact the other regions of the world? We consider different regions in turn. We must remind that for each region we focus on, the other regions have themselves become perilous: populations beyond what a region can sustain, environmental degradation, increased pollution, etc.

China

China is a large country, US size, with a large population, which they claim to be 1.4B (2012). Arable land is only 15% yielding 924 people per km2 of arable land, which compares unfavorable with the US at 174 people per km2 of arable land. Rapid industrial development is causing air pollution, acid rain, water shortages, water pollution, deforestation (yielding mudslides), soil erosion and desertification. The population grew slowly in the 1900-1950 period from 430M to 552M. The 1-child policy of 1978 came just in time to slow down the growth of the population. Still the population is growing and is stressing the environment. It also leads to more, so-called, natural disasters due to habitation in unsafe regions. China is a candidate region where a World3-type collapse can start due to severe further environmental degradation and having already an unsustainable, large population.

Another trigger could be China's recent revolutionary past. China's social fabric has been stressed repeatedly in the preceding century with the Japanese invasion, a civil war and the upheavals of the cultural revolution. In addition, there is now the rapid increase of personal wealth differences under a 1-party dictatorship. An unfortunate combination of natural disasters with an excessive repressive response by the state may bring about an uprising with world-wide repercussion due to interconnected, globally, weakened systems.

India

India's population is still out of control with a fertility level of 2.65. Its land size is about a third of China, while its population size, 1.16B, is catching up fast to China's. Arable land is higher at 49%, but the ratio of people per square km is high at 750. The literacy level, 61%, is terrible in comparison with China's 99%, while there is also a substantial gender difference at 26%. Environmental issues are already numerous (from CIA's 2010 fact-book): deforestation; soil erosion; overgrazing; desertification; air pollution from industrial effluents and vehicle emissions; water pollution from raw sewage and runoff of agricultural pesticides; tap water is not potable throughout the country; the huge and growing population is overstraining natural resources.

A collapse in India is quite possible as a result of an environmental disaster. Whether this can cascade into a global collapse is less clear. India is quite used to a hand-to-mouth existence by its lower castes. Still, if a hindu-muslim (70%, 23%) riot is triggered and the global situation is dire enough, muslims world-wide may start acting-up causing further destabilization.

US + EU + Japan

The US has been the leader in creating affluent societies based on exploiting the planet's assets; while it has (2010) only 4.5% of the world population it consumes 22% of the world's oil consumption. The EU countries and Japan copy the US fast, although they have somewhat less energy intensive economies. This group of countries have a lifestyle sought after by everyone else. The number of people in US + EU + Japan (UEJ) is only 828M and their fertility level is below the replacement level. Hence feeding their, soon, decreasing population will be less problematic than those of China and India. China & India (and others) can, for now, make catchup, me-too progress - thereby exhausting the world's resources faster than what UEJ alone would do. It looks implausible that innovation in UEJ can keep up maintaining the lifestyle in UEJ given the "watering down" of the world's resources. Hence one can expect that the stagnation since 1973 in the US changes into a (slow, for now) decline. Japan is declining already since 1990. The EU's economy may have started to shrink in 2009. Having majorities that are economicly dysfunctional will accelerate their decline.

Defending its remaining affluence against a desperate 3rd world party could be a trigger for a massive conflagation. Then there is the anger of internal groups whose entitlements will be (slowly) dismantled. Failing to keep those sentiments under control could be another cause for a conflagation triggering a collapse.

Nigeria

Countries currently selling their natural resource are a mixed bag. Iran appears to develop nuclear energy to prepare for a future when its oil will run out. Nigeria is another extreme. It has a 150M population of which 70% is impoverished, while there is a 2% population growth rate. Oil exports may pay the bills for a few decades. Then what? A local collapse looks unavoidable. The impact on its neighbors will be substantial. Beyond that, who knows?

Alternative scenarios

Obviously there are more collapse initiating triggers in the regions selected above and involving other regions. There are also different types of root causes. Above we focussed, in essence, on the Planet's resources being challenged by their finite amount and by the still exponential growing population. Whether or not climate change is anthropogenic or not can be ignored here: it is happening anyway and is causing world wide havoc due to more 'natural disasters'. Income and wealth differences increasing within countries and between countries is yet another trigger - on top of other dysfunctions - that can cause havoc getting out of control. Ideological differences, theocracies versus non-theocracies, democracies versus non-democracies, decentralized economies versus centralized control economies, etc. can lead also to upheavals.

Then what?

A collapse in a region is not happening by itself. Some kind of (natural) disaster will be the trigger that pushes a fragile equilibrium over the edge. History teaches us what happens subsequently. A clan on Tikopia exterminated another clan around 1650. Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda killed 800K of each other in 1994. WW1 created the conditions for Germany to go berserk and massacre 6M Jews. While the Holocaust is significant, it pales against the 150+M people who died as a result of conflicts in the 20th century. The 21st century could become way worse due to the way larger world population.

Regions least developed and least dependent on modern trappings may be the least impacted by a global collapse. Thus the good news is that humanity will somehow survive. Whether it will have learned anything by then ...

References

[Meadows] Meadows, D., J. Randers, & D. Meadows, Limits to Growth, The 30-Year Update, Chelsea Green Publishing Co., 2004.

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