Will economic collapse save us from climate catastrophe?

[GliderGuider]

I've yammered on before about how only rapid global economic collapse would save the planet from the ravages of human-induced global warming. I seems I now have some company out here in left field.

Deus ex Machina: Will economic collapse save us from climate catastrophe?

Summary: A new paper by NASA’s James Hansen suggests that immediate and drastic declines (ca. 6% annual) in industrial CO2 emissions are required to avoid catastrophic climatic destabilization. As no realistic political solution exists for such immediate CO2 reduction, prospects for a livable future have now become dependent on a single back-breaking option: rapid global economic collapse. And in ‘Deus ex machina’ style, we may get it just in time.

Fossil energy – and particularly conventional oil -- is the ‘food’ for the voracious beast that is our economy, and oil production is about to fall off a cliff. As Chris Martenson writes persuasively, “It’s official, the economy is set to starve.” (http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/economy-set-starve/48474)

In fact, ALL our industrial energy inputs have approached (or are very close to approaching) their earthly limits and are nearing collapse – oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, biomass – all of it. (See energy references above.) But as even a leveling off of energy input would send the economy down the tubes of collapse, we’re more than primed for a classic Wile-E-Coyote moment – followed by the terrible, nourishment-deprived convulsions of “The Beast that Consumes the Earth.”

Dan Allen provides references out the wazoo, along with a clean, clear and complete understanding of the dilemma and its most probable resolution. We are out of pretty much everything we would need to solve this problem: political will, technological capability, money and time. At the same time, the arrival of Peak Oil signals an end to growth, which in turn will precipitate economic collapse, since that's the way we built the system.

If you thought we were going to get away with it after all - by building windmills or nuclear plants or changing policies or anything else - you owe it to yourself to read this.

[Warpy]

1. They will likely be twin collapses

and population collapse is not going to be fun, the living envying the dead.

However, what is left when the dust clears might support a much smaller human population.

If there is no collapse, we're likely to make the planet largely uninhabitable except for things that thrive on heat, like cretaceous era ferns.

[grasswire]

2. I have wondered that too

Not in an scientific kind of wondering, but it had crossed my mind. I thought that with peak oil, too, that eventually manufacturing would have to come back to America. Won't it?

And how can they transport such things as jars of pickles and crates of apples here from the other side of the world if oil is scarce?

[Ganja Ninja]

3. Not by itself.

Only a major reduction in global population will restore the balance. Since we can't correct the imbalance climate collapse is going to be the mechanism of self correction.

[GliderGuider]

8. It's going to be interesting to see which one wins:

Climate change, economic collapse or population collapse.

My bet is on it unfolding like this:

• The debt crisis and Peak Oil combine to trigger economic collapse.
  
• Economic collapse slows global industrial output significantly, and the falling output forces the economy even lower, creating a downward spiral.
  
• The drop in industrial output is accompanied by a sharp drop in CO2 production.
  
• Due to temperature hysteresis and a methane tipping point, the drop in CO2 production makes no difference - global warming continues along uninterrupted.
  
• Peak Oil pushes up the price of food.
  
• Climate instability triggers crop failures that reduce supply and drive food prices even higher.
  
• The market allocates the scarce commodity (food) to those who can pay (the rich).
  
• Poor nations begin to starve first.
  
• Population drops.

The end result is a warming world with a falling human population and a collapsed civilization.

Nobody promised us a rose garden.

[Ganja Ninja]

11. It's really going to be a mixed bag of things that will take place.

We'll see intermittent crop failures combined with inland flooding from sea level rise combined with unprecedented snowfalls (triggering more flooding like we have in the midwest) combined with mass migrations and wars and famine and disease. I think the least of our worries is peak oil.

[GliderGuider]

12. The reason I give PO pride of place (alongside the debt crisis)

Is because PO will trigger and/or exacerbate both economic troubles generally and food prices in particular. A global economic depression could start as soon as the end of this year, much faster than any climate effects except maybe crop failures. It's OK, though, all the Horsemen will have a role to play in the years to come...

[Nederland]

4. Depends on the answer to some key questions

What is your timeframe for economic collapse? Do you see the global economic collapse coming in the next 5, 10 or 20 years? Also, what is the magnitude of the collapse? Do you envision a worldwide GDP decline of 10%, 50% or 90%?

Obviously feel free to pick numbers other than the ones I suggested :)

[GliderGuider]

9. I thought about this just last night.

The depression is likely to start late this year, but people won't recognize it as a permanent decline until 2013 or 2014. Peak oil should be evident by the end of 2012, but until the end of 2013 or 2014 most people will still be blaming speculators or Bilderberg or something. The whole ball of wax will likely be rolling downhill and picking up speed by 2015.

In terms of how fast it unwinds, a lot depends on how deep the debt rot runs. An ongoing average global GDP decline of -3% annually wouldn't surprise me. I expect the GDP will bottom out at about 20% of what it is today, though it might take until the end of the century for that to happen - roughly in line with the decline in population.

[kristopher]

14. That reminds me of something, now what was it...

Oh, that's right, it reminds me of Harold.

http://newsone.com/nation/newsonestaff4/october-21st-end-of-world-harold-camping/

[GliderGuider]

15. While predictions are risky business, at least mine don't require supernatural intervention

If we just keep on keeping on, we'll get there.
It would require supernatural intervention to keep this from happening IMO...

[damntexdem]

5. Well, it might save the world. Whether we survive is another matter.

In any case, seen from today's POV, we will not benefit.

[pscot]

6. It's already too late

Economic collapse will make it worse. Civilization is just a veneer.It won't stand up to the weather Think 16th and 17th century Europe. Bad weather and population growth led to wars of all aganst all. We've gotten soft with teepee living. We've lost our edge, but we'll get it back. We have a genius for slaughter.

[CJvR]

7. No.

There is no power cheaper than coal. If the money runs out you can forget wind and solar before coal.

[GliderGuider]

10. If it was just electricity we were concerned about, in the short run you'd be right.

However, oil depletion trashes the essential transportation infrastructure of the globalized economy, and also pushes up food prices. Coal doesn't help with that.

So we'll run short of oil and wreck the economy while burning more and more coal to try and keep the lights on. The best of all possible worlds...

[DemReadingDU]

13. Can anything be saved from collapse?

We humans have engineered so many technological advances that have ravaged the economy, our natural resources, even people in other countries. Most of us today think this tech world is 'normal'. But the complex model we have been living, is unsustainable. Eventually, it will implode. Then whoever is lucky to survive, will be living a much simpler life.

[GliderGuider]

16. At 50% overshoot and climbing, the smart money says, "No."

Civilizations are ecologies, and run in adaptive cycles:



We are currently near the top of the "Exploitation" phase and are either entering or already in what will probably be a fairly short "Conservation" phase.

Eventually every ecology enters a Release phase, which is probably a better term than "collapse". In some places the Release phase of our civilization/ecology will look like an outright collapse right from the beginning, but in most places the early stages of it will most resemble John Michael Greer's "Catabolic Collapse". Catabolic collapse looks/feels like a long slow squeeze with bumps and drops, as we desperately try to stay in the Conservation phase by catabolizing our accumulated asset base. At some point a threshold will be passed when there isn't enough furniture left to burn, and the collapse will accelerate towards free-fall.

Following the Release phase every previous civilization has entered a Reorganization phase, in which social and physical systems were reformulated and reconstituted, either in situ or, if the original location was too damaged, in a different place. It will be much more difficult this time, since the energy and material that's been available to support past reorganizations has been so thoroughly dissipated by our continued exploitation during overshoot. The fact that our civilization has been globalized means that there are few undamaged places left to move to. That situation pretty much guarantees that the next cycle of civilization will be much smaller materially simpler than this one was.

Luckily, humans don't need all that much in the way of material goods to be happy. So once we get past the necessary phase of population contraction we're likely to do just fine for a long time.

[DemReadingDU]

17. Agree. It's a matter of when

Oh, I look around, and see things are already declining. I read JMG's blog and a regular follower of The Automatic Earth. But everyone around me is still living in the bubble and clueless about what's coming. My toddler grandbabies will definitely have a simpler life going forward, assuming they survive.

[jimlup]

18. Thanks - Important article...

This year I'm taking advice from counterpunch.com and gardening like my life depends on it because in a few short years, it might.