Collapse

Don't look down.

The cartoon characters Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner were created in 1948 for Warner Brothers by Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese. The characters first appeared in 1949 and starred in dozens of theatrical cartoon shorts as well as television cartoons.

In each cartoon, Wile E. Coyote always cooked up an intricate plan to catch the Road Runner, failing every time. At one point in each cartoon, Wile E. Coyote would run off a cliff chasing the Road Runner, but wouldn’t fall until he realized he wasn’t on solid ground anymore. In most cases, he doesn’t fall until he looks down.

That’s a metaphor!

After a recent essay I wrote, a reader challenged me to talk more about collapse, noting that in his opinion, some in the degrowth community (maybe myself included) weren’t being honest enough with people about the state of the collapse of our civilization. He said:

"While I agree with the broad goals of degrowth, the specific vision championed by most degrowth advocates relies on an egalitarian distribution of industrial goods. It calls for “modern housing, healthcare, education, heating/cooling, transit, washing machines, refrigerators, induction stoves, sanitation systems, computers, mobile phones, internet, etc. for all 8.5 billion people.”

I disagree somewhat with this characterization. I don’t believe that degrowth promises all of those things for 8.5 billion people, but his point that collapse needs to be addressed is valid. Degrowth does argue for a downsizing of our economies, but it doesn’t often talk about collapse.

That is understandable. Collapse is a bummer.

Collapse is beyond the “hope” part of the movement, and I can see that many people don’t want to talk about collapse because they feel that it may lead people to give up, to tune out, and to conclude; “What’s the point? Things are too far gone already.” I looked back at what I’ve written in this space, and while I do talk about collapse every now and then, I haven’t written an essay on collapse itself, so I will do so here.

Our civilization is Wile E. Coyote after we have run off the cliff. We just haven’t looked down yet.

Don’t lose hope. But hope is not a strategy.

A NASA study from about a decade ago found that there have been at least 32 advanced civilizations that have collapsed in human history.

1. Why is NASA doing this research?

2. That number seems low.

If you are a fan of ancient civilizations and want to nerd out on some civilization collapse porn, I recommend the book, 1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed, by Eric Cline. You can also check out lectures by the author on the topic if you are pressed for time, but the book goes into greater detail. Cline is an engaging archeologist and tells the story of how the collapse of multiple societies was brought about around 1177 B.C. by multiple and interconnected problems including war, earthquakes, drought, famine, trade disputes and other causes.

The civilizations of the Myceneans, Minoans, Hittites, Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Canaanites, and Cypriots were all thriving at about that time. They all intermingled, traded with each other, and depended on each other through that trade and cultural links. At around 1177 B.C. many of the cities of these civilizations came to an end. The civilizations collapsed. No one knows exactly how it happened but these civilizations that were highly interconnected all came to an end about the same time. Cline surmises that natural disasters and the interconnectedness of these civilizations likely played a role, and that things likely didn’t happen in a linear fashion. It wasn’t likely a domino like set of events, such as a drought followed by famine, followed by earthquakes, etc. It was likely messier than that. It is likely that there was overlap from some of these events, so trade didn’t collapse all at once, but was likely harmed by famine, as well as wars, and other challenges at the time.

That sounds familiar. Multiple challenges overlapping. There was a polycrisis back in 1177 B.C. as well. It just didn’t engulf the whole planet.

We have pushed past 6 of 9 planetary boundaries that serve as our life support system, and our politics, our law, our investment decisions and our collective culture just shrugs. Many know collapse is coming, but it isn’t profitable to address it, and if you do address it, you will likely fall behind your neighbor, who is carrying on with growth. So the cultural, political, and economic messages we all get are: “don’t worry about it. Make hay while the sun shines”.

What will collapse look like?

Collapse won’t happen on a Tuesday. It won’t happen in a day, a week, or in a year. Sure, things may collapse in those abbreviated timeframes, but our civilization will collapse gradually in terms of years, but quite abruptly in the decades and centuries that tend to be how historians will look at things in the far future. Think back to Cline’s book title: 1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed. Things didn’t just collapse in 1177 B.C. There were events and changes that led up to that year, and things that happened after. If some historian writes a book titled 2029 - The Year Civilization Collapsed, about a collapse that happens that year, we know that the stage will have been set for that collapse long in advance - and the destructive echoes of 2029 will continue far into the future.

Collapse is simply a steep decline from what came before. That doesn’t mean on Monday everything is fine, and that everyone dies on Tuesday. What it will mean is that things get worse year over year. There will be less water, less food, less fuel, less cooperation, more conflict, more refugees than our system can handle, more extreme heat and extreme weather, less ability for mankind to cope, more abandonment of the niceties and luxuries of our current way of living, lower stock markets, lower populations, less hope for a bright future.

This collapse has already started. Our environment is collapsing as we are in the 6th mass extinction on Earth, and our ecosystems are pushing past the point where they can support us. Our law, culture, politics and other human endeavors of social organization will break down more each year as we work in reverse to unravel the civilization we have built. Things that we now take for granted will become luxuries, and luxuries will fall away.

What to do?

I suggest speedrunning the 7 stages of grief and getting straight to acceptance. We don’t have time for shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and testing. Get to acceptance. It would have been better if we didn’t run off the cliff in the first place. But we did.

Now look down and prepare for impact. If you have the materials to quickly knit a parachute on the way down, that would be helpful.

Learn what you can. Do what you can. Help others. In the words of @tristansykes, who wrote me that note last week:

“#JustCollapse seeks partial and relative measure of socio-ecological justice in a collapsing world. Through our collective efforts, the #TalkCollapse campaign continues to grow that community. Thanks for your efforts in that regard - everybody has the right to know.”

Collapse is already happening. It will not go away if you close your eyes to it or refuse to look down. Degrowth will not stop it. The idea is that it can cushion the blow.