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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