Social collapse in the rear-view mirror (Long post, lots of information)

[GliderGuider]

The world has been in the throes of a "human overuse catastrophe" for the last 65 years, since after the end of WWII. The situation has been understood clearly since about 1970, for the last 45 years. In that time we have seen natural systems around the world erode at accelerating rates.

Now, it's true that we don't fully understand social collapse, as Prof. Ugo Bardi points out in this book review:

The fall of the Mediterranean society during the bronze age: why we still don't understand civilization collapse

Cline's book is good evidence of how difficult it is to understand these phenomena. A whole chapter, the last one, is dedicated to explore the reasons for the collapse, but it doesn't arrive to any definitive conclusion. As it is almost always the case when discussing societal collapse, we see different proposed reasons piling up: some experts favor external causes: invasions, droughts, earthquakes, volcanoes, or similar. Others seek for internal causes: rebellions, institutional decline, political struggle, and more. And some, including Cline himself, favor a combination of several causes. He writes:

"There probably was not a single driving force or trigger, but rather a number of different stressors, each of which forced the people to react in different ways to accommodate the changing situation(s).... a series of stressors rather than a single driver is therefore advantageous in explaining the collapse at the end of the Late Bronze Age."

In examining this issue, a basic point is that societies are complex systems, and need to be understood as such. Unfortunately, the knowledge about complex system has not yet permeated the study of societal collapse, as it is amply demonstrated by the discussion in the last chapter of Cline's book. Several authors have apparently tried to explain the collapse of the Bronze Age society in terms of what they call "complexity theory". But I am afraid they didn't understand the theory very well. Just as an example, in the book we read a sentence taken from the work of Ken Dark who says ""The more complex a system is, the more liable it is to collapse." Now, this is simply wrong if it is applied to human organizations as complex systems, such a companies, or civilizations. And you don't need to be an expert in complex systems to note that large and very complex systems tend to be more resilient than small ones. Compare, for instance, IBM with the large number of small upstart companies in information technologies that appear and quickly disappear. So, you just can't invoke "complexity" as a mumbo-jumbo to explain everything, as Cline correctly notes in the book.

A lot of confusion in this area has arisen from the variability of the definition of "complex system;" there is not just one kind of complex system, there are several (and that is something you would expect since they are, indeed, complex!). One kind of complex system that has had a lot of success in the popular imagination is the "sandpile", proposed by Bak, Tang, and Wissental, a model that shows a series of small and large collapses. The problem is that the sandpile model is valid for some systems, but not for others. It works nicely for those systems which have only simple, short term interactions: the financial system, for instance. But it doesn't work at all for systems which base their complexity on stabilizing feedbacks: civilizations, for instance. The difference should be clear: the financial system was never built with the idea that it should be stable. The opposite is true for a civilization or a large company, both have plenty of feedbacks designed to keep them stable or, if you prefer "resilient". Large organizations are often more resilient than small ones simply because they can afford more stabilization feedbacks.

Then, what can bring down a feedback-stabilized complex system? The answer is "a forcing that is strong enough." The term "forcing" is used in the study of system dynamics and it has the same meaning of the "stressor" employed by Cline in his discussion. A forcing is an external factor that affects the system and forces it to adapt by changing some of its parameters. If the forcing is really strong, the adaptation can take the shape of a fast and disastrous reduction in complexity; it is what we call "collapse". So, it is starting to appear clear that civilizations tend to collapse because they lose access to the resources that created them and allowed them to exist; often as the result of overexploitation. Over and over, civilizations have been brought down by soil erosion and the loss of agricultural productivity. Then, some civilizations have collapsed because of the depletion of the mineral resources that had created them, an example is the collapse of the modern Syrian state that I was describing at the beginning of this post. Another example is the collapse of the Roman Empire, It showed a lot of symptoms that we could call "stressors:" rebellions, corruption, wars, invasions, depopulation, and more. But they all originated from a single cause: the depletion of the gold mines of Spain which deprived the Imperial government of its fundamental control system: gold and silver coinage.

At this point, we can conclude that, most likely, there never were a combination of parallel stressors that brought down the Bronze Age Civilization. Rather, there was some basic factor that generated the various catastrophes that we observe today in the archaeological record. The problem is that we don't know what this forcing was. There are elements showing that climatic change played a role, but we lack sufficient evidence to be sure that it was "the" cause of the collapse. So, perhaps it was mineral depletion that brought down this civilization? Maybe, and we can note how the defining term for this age is "bronze" and in order to have bronze you need to alloy copper with tin. And we know that there was plenty of copper available from mines in the Mediterranean region, but no tin; it had to be transported from a long and probably precarious supply route from the region we call Serbia today, or maybe from the Caucasus. If the people of the Bronze Age used bronze as currency, then their commercial network would have been badly disrupted by an interruption of the supply of tin. So, they might have been destroyed by the equivalent of a financial crisis.

There is of course plenty of evidence that societies have collapsed in the past. Not just Bronze Age Mediterranean civilization and the Roman Empire, but a whole host of them, large and small:

> The Old Kingdom of Egypt (extended drought)
> Indus Valley civilization (possible climate change, possible tectonic changes to river courses)
> The Greenland Norse (climate change, environmental damage, loss of trading partners, irrational reluctance to eat fish, hostile neighbors and most unwillingness to adapt in the face of social collapse)
> Easter Island (a society that collapsed entirely due to environmental damage)
> The Polynesians of Pitcairn Island (environmental damage and loss of trading partners)
> The Anasazi of southwestern North America (environmental damage and climate change)
> The Maya of Central America (environmental damage, climate change, and hostile neighbours)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed

Jared Diamond lists 12 environmental problems facing humankind today. The first eight have historically contributed to the collapse of past societies:

1. Deforestation and habitat destruction
2. Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses)
3. Water management problems
4. Overhunting
5. Overfishing
6. Effects of introduced species on native species
7. Overpopulation
8. Increased per-capita impact of people

Further, he says four new factors may contribute to the weakening and collapse of present and future societies:

9. Anthropogenic climate change
10. Buildup of toxins in the environment
11. Energy shortages
12. Full human use of the Earth’s photosynthetic capacity

The root problem in all but one of Diamond's factors leading to collapse is overpopulation relative to the practicable (as opposed to the ideal theoretical) carrying capacity of the environment. The one factor not related to overpopulation is the harmful effect of accidentally or intentionally introducing nonnative species to a region.

Diamond also states that "it would be absurd to claim that environmental damage must be a major factor in all collapses: the collapse of the Soviet Union is a modern counter-example, and the destruction of Carthage by Rome in 146 BC is an ancient one. It's obviously true that military or economic factors alone may suffice".

Here's a (very partial) list of what's been going on recently:

► 99% of Rhinos gone since 1914.
► 97% of Tigers gone since 1914.
► 90% of Lions gone since 1993.
► 90% of Sea Turtles gone since 1980.
► 90% of Monarch Butterflies gone since 1995.
► 90% of Big Ocean Fish gone since 1950.
► 80% of Antarctic Krill gone since 1975.
► 80% of Western Gorillas gone since 1955.
► 60% of Forest Elephants gone since 1970.
► 50% of Great Barrier Reef gone since 1985.
► 50% of Human Sperm Counts gone since 1950.
► 80% of Western Gorillas gone since 1955.
► 50% of Forest Bird Species will be gone in 50 years.
► 40% of Giraffes gone since 2000.
► 40% of ocean phytoplankton gone since 1950.
► Ocean plankton declines of 1% per year means 50% gone in 70 years, more than 1% is likely.
► Ocean acidification doubles by 2050, triples by 2100.
► 30% of Marine Birds gone since 1995.
► 70% of Marine Birds gone since 1950.
► 28% of Land Animals gone since 1970.
► 28% of All Marine Animals gone since 1970.
► 10,000 years ago humans and livestock were a mere 0.01% of land-air vertebrate biomass.
► Humans and livestock are now 97% of land-air vertebrate biomass.
► Our crop and pasture lands caused 80% of all land vertebrate species extinctions.
► 1,000,000 humans, net, are added to earth every 4½ days.
► We must produce more food in the next 50 years than we have in the past 10,000 years combined.
► We need 6 million hectares of new farmland every single year for the next 30 years to do this.
► We lose 12 million hectares of farmland every single year due to soil degradation, depletion and loss.
► Humanity has only 60 years of farming left at current world soil degradation rates.
► We already passed world peak production growth-rates in 2006 for wheat, soy, corn, wood and fish.
► IMPORTANT: All IPCC mitigation, sequestration and adaptive strategies assume m-o-r-e farmland is available.
► In 10 years, 4 billion people will be short of fresh water, 2 billion will be severely short of fresh water.
► One billion humans now walk a mile each day for fresh water.
► Humans and livestock eat 40% of earth's annual land chlorophyll production.
► We are running out of cheap, accessible potassium and phosphates.

So, let's recap.

> We know that civilizations can collapse, because we have historical evidence.
> We know that most of those collapses had as a proximate cause human overpopulation and overactivity relative to the capacity of their environments to deal with the consequences.
> We know that a similar situation has been developing on a global scale since the end of WWII.
> We have created the largest, most complex, interconnected, feedback-stabilized civilization in the history of the world, by several orders of magnitude.
> However, in the process we have created stressors that are as powerful as the feedback mechanisms that resist them.
> We know that the alarm bells have been ringing since 1970, yet little has been done to de-stress the planetary systems on which we depend.

Given all this evidence that is now visible in the rear-view mirror - none of it very difficult to find, understand or connect - I stand by my diagnosis of the cognitive deficits required to ignore, deny or minimize the events and their probable consequences. Those cognitive defects include a tightly linked chain of normalcy bias, cognitive dissonance and motivated reasoning.

This chain of dysfunction underpins the thinking of entire American Republican party, most of the fossil fuel industry, and, frankly, a lot of the so-called environmentalists on the public stage. The facts are so overwhelming, the consequences so brutal, and the actions needed to avoid a worst-case outcome so unthinkable, that such a retreat from reason is totally understandable.

However, such a retreat from reason is still an unforgivable act of intellectual and moral cowardice.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. That list of what's disappeared and how quickly should be shocking to anyone.

And perhaps the only good news on it for any other species is the drop in viable human sperm, if it continues long enough to make human reproductive rates drop below replacement.

[hatrack]

2. But remember! Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever ever EVER

. . . mention population.

Because Technology!

Or something.

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. +1000000

[mountain grammy]

4. The only positive on that list; 50% of Human Sperm Counts gone since 1950.

might slow down our extinction for a year or so..

[happyslug]

8. I thought that report was rebutted years ago.

Last edited Wed Dec 9, 2015, 03:44 AM - Edit history (1)

The report of a drop in sperm count was the result of two studies. One in the 1950s and one more recently. The problem was the first study used exclusively males from urban centers, the later tried to get a better balance between rural and urban areas.

This was important for males produce more sperm in the presences of more males. Thus males in urban areas produce more sperm than males in non-urban areas. This is believe to be the result of "sperm-competition" of different males in the days before Proto-humans embraced pair bonding. Such "sperm-competition" still occurs among chimpanzees. Chimps live together as a band and do not fight over mates. This lead to females getting pregnant by the male who ejaculated into her the most sperm.

The more sperm produced the more likely to reproduce. This appears to be the case of Chimps to this day. Chimps have the largest testicles of any creature, larger then elephants. You only need to produce one sperm to get a female pregnant and most creatures males compete on getting exclusive access to females thus large testicles and large sperm counts do not matter to them.

Humans were on that same evolutionary tract as chimps till homo erectus adopted pair bonding, then it was no longer advantageous to produce more sperm. On the other hand there was no advantage to produce less sperm so male's sperm production stayed the way it was when bonding became the norm. This includes the tendency to produce more sperm in areas with high density of males snd less sperm in areas with less males.

Just a comment that the drop in sperm count appears to be the result of change in the makeup of the members of the pool being tested then any actual drop in sperm counts.

[Dustlawyer]

5. The OP leaves the responsibility of corporate Democrats out of the mix and lays it all

at the feet of the Republicans. We must look one level deeper than our corrupt politicians to the root cause, corporate control of everything! It is the reason that the biggest threat to mankind is rarely talked about. The recent revelations about Exxon's cover up of global warming is Exhibit "A"!

We must address the root cause of the corruption of our government, judicial branch and the media, which is the ability of the rich and powerful to buy our politicians and control policy and the message. America should be leading this fight instead of attempting to control the world militarily.

We have the opportunity with this election to turn things around and cut off the ability of TPTB to control us. Only then can we begin to address the damage that has been done and make some hard choices.

The thing that concerns me the most in the OP's list of extinctions is the loss of Phytoplankton by 50%. Phytoplankton provides the vast majority of our oxygen, somewhere between 80-90% if I recall correctly. We have turned the oceans into a sewer and the warming of the oceans spell disaster for many reasons, but the most important of which is the loss of the phytoplankton. We really don't have much time left to solve these problems.

Do you think Hillary will do what is necessary given who her biggest financial supporters are? Feel the Bern, please!

[GliderGuider]

10. Lots of Democrats are deniers and minimizers.

Just not all of them. Democratic minimizers also tend have the good grace to hide it most of the time, and not act like it's a virtue.

Problem is, even looking the ugly truth square in they eye doesn't buy you much. The damage is long since done. What we are working for now is mostly self-respect.

[DhhD]

6. Planned parenthood is needed around the world.

[starroute]

7. I would blame the Bronze Age collapse on globalization and income inequality

Bronze Age aristocrats were almost godlike. Their wealth depended on long-distance trade in metal and other precious items carried on with their fellow aristocrats in other cities, and they were almost completely cut off from the people they ruled. They developed a glittering international civilization between about 1400 and 1250 BC, but it was insecurely founded.

The societies that emerged after the collapse were far more egalitarian. They used iron, which was based on locally-sourced raw materials, rather than bronze, and much of their wealth was agricultural. Their kings were willing to get their hands dirty when it came to getting in the harvest or resolving local disputes.

Environmental factors do appear to play a role in these collapses, but it's the elitism that makes them deadly. Here's a recent account of the collapse of the Mayan civilization:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-did-the-mayan-civilization-collapse-a-new-study-points-to-deforestation-and-climate-change-30863026/?no-ist

In the first study, published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Arizona State University analyzed archaeological data from across the Yucatan to reach a better understanding of the environmental conditions when the area was abandoned. Around this time, they found, severe reductions in rainfall were coupled with an rapid rate of deforestation, as the Mayans burned and chopped down more and more forest to clear land for agriculture. Interestingly, they also required massive amounts of wood to fuel the fires that cooked the lime plaster for their elaborate constructions—experts estimate it would have taken 20 trees to produce a single square meter of cityscape. . . .

Because cleared land absorbs less solar radiation, less water evaporates from its surface, making clouds and rainfall more scarce. As a result, the rapid deforestation exacerbated an already severe drought—in the simulation, deforestation reduced precipitation by five to 15 percent and was responsible for 60 percent of the total drying that occurred over the course of a century as the Mayan civilization collapsed. The lack of forest cover also contributed to erosion and soil depletion.

In a time of unprecedented population density, this combination of factors was likely catastrophic. Crops failed, especially because the droughts occurred disproportionately during the summer growing season. Coincidentally, trade shifted from overland routes, which crossed the heart of the lowland, to sea-based voyages, moving around the perimeter of the peninsula.

Since the traditional elite relied largely upon this trade—along with annual crop surpluses—to build wealth, they were sapped of much of their power. This forced peasants and craftsmen into making a critical choice, perhaps necessary to escape starvation: abandoning the lowlands. The results are the ornate ruins that stretch across the peninsula today.

[happyslug]

9. That can explain the fall of the Roman Empire

Since the days of the Republic, Rome had a problem in regards to its peasants. The problem was the taking of lands from the peasants and giving them no other way to live but as slaves or one step above slaves. This lead to all types of riots under the late Republic and the Empire, but by itself was NOT enough to lead to the collapse of the Empire. In my opinion it is what killed the Empire but it needed help.

The watering out of the Spanish Silver mine was another problem. To to the watering out of the mines, Silver production peaked in the late 100s, but one solution to that drop in Silver production was inflation. All of the Emperors from Nero onward slowly debased the silver coins of the Roman Empire, this disbasement became worse after the mines watered out. This reduction in silver in coins caused inflation but inflation was NOT enough to kill the Empire but it helped.

Decline in Roman Silver production (it is estimated that Rome prior to 150 AD, prior the decline in Silver production, mined five to ten times the Silver from Spain alone then the Silver being mined Persia, to Spain to Britain in 800 AD, thus one of the reason for the collapse of the Empire was a lack of coins, for Rome never did develop the concept of paper money).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_metallurgy

Please note, the massive production of Silver from 200 BC to 150 AD in Roman Spain, brought with it massive Silver inflation, what Silver could buy in 200 BC was way more then what it could buy in 150 AD, but that reversed after 150 AD, as the production of Silver declined rapidly. This was NOT stopped till Constantine's adoption of the Gold Solidus.

Side note. Roman inflation started under Nero and continued till Constantine. It was at its worse during Diocletian, who made the first efforts to end it. Constantine succeeded by finding a new source for the Gold needed to make coins out of, that source of gold were all of the pagan temples he closed when he embraced Christianity. If a temple had no golden idols it lasted till the time of Justinian 200 years later. If a temple had golden idols it was gone by 400, as Constantine and his successors kept looting them for the gold in those temples. Thus you had no Roman inflation after Constantine, but after 400 AD the Western Empire had no other source of gold for almost all of the Pagan idols had been melted down and made into gold coins.

A third factor was the emergence of the Sassanid Persian empire. The Parthian empire had been a weak empire. That changed when that Empire was overthrown by the Persians in the early 200s. This occurred after the Romans had taken their Capital in the 197 when Emperor Septimius Severus decided the best way to replaced the Silver no longer being produced in Spain was by looting that Capital. Short term inflation was put in check, long term Rome had to increase the size of its army in the east do to the increase strength of the Persian Army.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimius_Severus

The Goths had been a minor threat prior to the 200s but grew in strength do to having to react to Roman aggression. This in turn lead to further increase in the size of the Roman Army under Septimius Severus.

In the 200s you also see the first wave of colder temperatures, making some of the marginal farmlands, no longer farmable. Temperatures would return to higher temperatures in the 300s but the revert to colder temperatures in the 400s.

The colder temperatures lead to lower population, the Roman empire of Augustus had a much higher population the the Empire of Constantine, even through the later was a little bit larger.

These problems all came together in the 400s to destroy the Empire in the West. With the Eastern Empire tied up with Persia, it could send little help to the Western Empre. What help that was sent went to the Balkans.

Or I forgot one thing, through it is more 500s then 400s, the Slavic invasions and the introduction of Chinese Iron making techniques. Unlike the Germanic and Hunnish invaders, who tended to be herders, the Slavs were farmers. With the Slavs came the Chinese Iron furnace and from it the heavy plow and the horse shoe.

When this revolution occurred is unknown, but seems to have lead to an increase in Slavic populations starting in the 400s. With the heavy plow the Slavs could farm land the Roman's with their Mediterranean farming techniques could not. Once adopted by 600 Europe center of power shifted northward. The best example of this is where the Eastern Empire sent its troops after the Moors had lifted their siege of Constantinople in 700 AD, into what is now the Ukraine.

It appears that the Slavs were the final nail in the coffin of the Western Roman Empire. It appears they produce the surplus the other barbarians needed when they moved south against the Empire. With the Roman peasant no longing carrying if he was ruled by a Roman or a barbarian, the collapse of the empire occurred quickly.

The Eastern Empire survived for it had seen the least concentration of wealth in the Empire. Please note this excludes Roman Egypt which till it fell to the Persians and then the Arabs in the 600s saw the most concentration of wealth in the Empire. Egypt is also the most isolated part of the Empire given the deserts around it. The lands of late Roman Egypt is believed to be owned by seven or eight men, much like the Western Empire. Thus the area of the Empire that had the most land owned by peasants survived, while the area of the Empire without that group fell into non Roman hands

What causes a collapse can linger for centuries, as was the case with the Western Roman Empire, but when other problems hit, that main problems remained and caused the collapse. Thus complex societies collapse for the same reason as simple societies, but it looks complex for you first see the transfer of resources use to contain the main problem diverted to these problems till you no longer have the resources to handle the main problem.

The death of a thousand cuts but the final cut tends to be one of long standing. In the case of Rome, to high a concentration of wealth was what killed the Empire. The Empire could have survived the other problems, as did the Chinese dynasty of the same time period, if Rome had reduced that concentration of wealth (the Eastern Roman Empire did this, mostly by losing the areas where the wealth, in the days of Rome that was land, was most concentrated AND then only after the Arab Conquest).

Part of the reform or the post Arab Conquest Roman army was to make the Army more peasant based then mercenary, thus giving the peasants a stake in who ruled them. The troops were assigned to "Themes" where they could get food for themselves, their horses etc. Some parts of this started with Diocletian (284-305), but it had to wait for Maurice (582-602) and then Heraclius (610-641) before it became the wave of the Future. Please note, at one time the Theme was believed to have been Heraclius invention, but it now appears to have occurred among his successors, not as a deliberate plan but the only way to raise troops for offensive operations.

The Theme, it appears, were first set up to barrack the soldiers, then each soldier was assigned either a plot of land, or plots of lands farmed by peasants to collect food for himself and for offensive operations. Then the pre existing provincial system of governing the Empire died from neglect, as the Emperors looked to the Themes and the Theme's commanders for troops and taxes. By the time the Roman Empire lost Carthage for the last time (698), the Eastern Empire was already on its way to be an almost feudal system of land ownership. You owned land, you either served in the Army in exchange for the right to farm that land (Generally as an infantryman) or paid someone who lived among you and your fellow peasants to serve in the Army (This was a way to support Armored Cavalrymen who needed the support of several peasants to provide the food needed by the horseman AND his horses).

After the collapse of Charlemagne's empire after 850 AD, this system was adopted in Western Europe, removing all of the old owners of land (the surviving Roman elites). This replacement of the old Roman Elite seems to have been what happened in what is commonly called the Byzantine Empire after 640 AD. Thus the old provincial Government stayed on the books, till no one cared who was the provincial governor, but instead looked to the leader of the Theme they lived in.

This remained the situation in the Eastern Empire till after, when the Eastern Empire saw an increase in the concentration of wealth after the death of Emperor Basil II in 1025 AD. Thus till the Eastern Empire fell into the same trap on concentration of wealth the Eastern Empire survived.

[Boomer]

11. Emotion overwhelms reason

>> retreat from reason is still an unforgivable act of intellectual and moral cowardice.

We'd like to believe that reason is paramount and that turning away from reason is a deliberate conscious act. That feeds our notion of being superior special snowflake standing above the natural order. It's a conceit that simply can't work on a global scale.

One of the reasons I was so impressed with Jared Diamond's theories is that he shows how and when human reason can prevail... and when it can't. In societies in which there is a powerful ruler AND the entire realm can be surveyed personally (or through a very strong system of accountability), humans can acknowledge the danger of overuse of resources and react rationally to manage them appropriately.

On a national scale, much less global one, there is no powerful authoritarian leader who can dictate how to respond AND there's no direct ability to see the scope of damage. Nation states and the planet both exceed the criteria that Diamond believes to be critical for a response that saves the civilization from collapse.

We are a species structured around small tribes, our local packs. Our patterns of governance and authority, even the most draconian, can't be scaled to a global level, and neither can our perceptions of danger. We are slamming into the limits of our biology and emotional/intellectual development, which is still shaped by a hunter/gatherer ancestry. The more recent agricultural model is a bad fit and it appears we won't be around long enough to adapt well to the inter-glacial period that spurred our growth.