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Page added on March 7, 2016
Entropy and the collapse of civilizations
When we discuss the impending crisis of our civilisation, we mainly look at the resources our economy need in a growing quantity. And we explain why the diminishing returns of resource exploitation pose a growing burden on the possibility of a further growing of the global economy. It is a very interesting topic, indeed, but here I suggest to turn 180 degrees around and take a look at the “other side;” that is to what happens where the used resources are discarded.
Eventually, our society (as any other society in history) is a dissipative structure. It means that it exists only because it is able to dissipate energy in order to stock information inside itself. And there is a positive feedback: more energy allows more complexity; and more complexity needs but also permits a larger energy flow. This, I think, is a crucial point: at the very end, wealth is information stocked inside the socio-economic system in different forms (such as livestock, infrastructures, agrarian facilities, machines, buildings, books, the web and so on). Human population is peculiar because it is a large part of the information stocked inside the society system. So, from a thermodynamic point of view, it is the key part of “wealth”, while from an economic point of view people can be seen as the denominator of the global wealth.
The accumulation of information inside a system is possible only by an increment of entropy outside the same system. This is usual with all the dissipative structures, but our civilisation is unique in its dimension. Today about 97% of the terrestrial vertebrate biomass is composed of humans and of their symbionts and we use about the 50% of the primary production (400 TW?), plus a little less than 20 TW we have from fossil fuels and other inorganic sources.
At the beginning, our modern civilisation performed in the same way as all the others in history: appropriating energy forms such as food, livestock, commodities, slaves, oil, carbon and so on. And throwing entropy to into the biosphere in different forms such as pollutants, ecosystems transformations, extinctions, heat and so on; while throwing entropy into other societies such as war, migration, etcetera.
As the industrial economy overruled and substituted all the others, it became the only one economy in the world. And so, necessarily, it found it more and more difficult to dissipate energy outside itself. In practice, sinks become problematic before wells do. But remember that in order to implement its own complexity, a dissipative system needs a growing energy flow, that is it needs cornucopian energy wells.
Today, both global pollution and massive immigration into the more industrialized countries evidence that our system is no more able to expel entropy out of itself. But if entropy is not discharged out of the system, it necessarily grows inside it. And when there is more energy, there is more entropy in a typical diminishing returns dynamic. Maybe, we can see here a negative feedback which has stopped the economic growth and that will possibly crash the global economy in some decades.
If this reasoning is correct, the political and the economic crisis, social disruption and, finally, failing states are nothing less than the visible aspect of the growing entropy inside our own meta-system. Eventually, global society is so large and complex and is contained in many correlated sub-systems, and we are managing so far to concentrate entropy inside the less powerful ones: some yet problematic countries, lower classes and, especially, young people. But these phenomena produce political shifts, riots and mass migrations to the core of the system. This means that also the elites have lost the capability to understand and/or control the internal dynamic of the global socio-economic system.
In the meantime, the overloading of the sinks is starting to cause the deterioration of the wells. It is evident, for instance, with air and water pollution, ocean acidification, mass extinction, ecosystems disruption, and much more. In the end, as the economy grows, the global system necessarily loses the capability to dissipate energy, condemning itself to disruption.
We can find the same phenomenon at smaller scales, such as for a single organism such as a single human being. If a good energy flow is available in the form of food and heat, a baby can develop into a strong and healthy adult. Good flows of energy during adult life mean a better life and the possibility to develop culture, skills, art, science and a to keep one’s health for a long time. Insufficient energy means starvation and illness. But it is also true that if the body absorbs a quantity of energy larger than its capability to dissipate it, then we have are problems such fat, illness, obesity and, finally, a bad life and premature death.
We found the very same phenomenon at larger scales as well. The Earth as a whole is also a dissipative, complex system. It does not have any problems with its main energy well: the Sun. We can be sure that the 86.000 TW that we receive from the sun on the average are not going away, although they will gradually increase over very long time spans. But the whole biosphere is collapsing in one of the most serious crisis it has ever faced during the 4,5 billions years of its history. This crisis is the result of the human activity that reduces the capability of the ecosystem to dissipate the energy input, in particular as the result of the greenhouse effect caused by the combustion of fossil fuels. So the internal entropy grows with the consequence of harming even more the ecosystems and reducing complexity, possibly leading to a global disaster at a geological scale.
In conclusion, I suggest that, in the coming decades, entropy will be a much challenging problem than that of the energy supply. Only a drastic reduction in the energy input could save the biosphere. But this is a high price to pay because a reduction of energy flow means necessarily a reduction of complexity and information stored inside the human sub-system. It means misery and death for the human population, although it means also hope for the future one (assuming that it will exist, but humans are too adaptable and resilient to go extinct as long as a functioning biosphere exists) So, new civilizations will appear but, in order for that to occur, the present civilization will have to collapse fast enough to leave a livable planet to our descendants.
28 Comments on "Entropy and the collapse of civilizations"
Pennsyguy on Mon, 7th Mar 2016 5:54 pm
More brilliant analysis from Dr. Bardi. Part of me realizes that rapid collapse would be a blessing for any future life, but my selfish half wants the system to last for another 20 years or so since I’m living pretty well.
sunweb on Mon, 7th Mar 2016 6:07 pm
Jacopo Simonetta wrote the article.
Davy on Mon, 7th Mar 2016 6:37 pm
He is a tad bit exaggerated at the end. Humans may very well be less adaptability and resilient than we want to believe. If the dinosaurs could talk I am sure they thought they were adaptable and then they were not. It is likely some small niche creature will out last humans. We may work through our coming bottleneck but it will not be without dangers of extinction.
GregT on Mon, 7th Mar 2016 7:15 pm
“(assuming that it will exist, but humans are too adaptable and resilient to go extinct as long as a functioning biosphere exists)”
A functioning biosphere is exactly what a runaway greenhouse event would destroy.
His last sentence is not worded correctly;
“So, new civilizations will appear but, in order for that to occur, the present civilization will have to collapse fast enough to leave a livable planet to our descendants.”
Should read;
In order for new civilizations to appear, the present civilization will have to collapse fast enough to leave a livable planet to our descendants.
ghung on Mon, 7th Mar 2016 7:17 pm
Few people, especially in the developed world, have a clue as to the rather obscene surplus of energy and other resources required to keep out civilization going as it is. Mention things like entropy and their eyes will glaze over. The good news is there’s a lot of fat that can be cut out of our systems, though many folks don’t understand it’s the fat that provides their standards of living and many incomes.
Conservation inevitably leads to contraction, on any scale that matters, so humans will consume their way to ‘prosperity’ as long as they can. When things get serious, they’ll be stunned by how much entropy will interfere with their ability to cope. If I try to tell people that 70% of the energy they pump into their cars gets wasted, most think I’m fucking crazy.
GregT on Mon, 7th Mar 2016 7:17 pm
The article would appear to be somewhat poorly translated.
http://www.jacoposimonetta.it
geopressure on Mon, 7th Mar 2016 9:36 pm
Internal combustion engines are far from ideal…
& yet they are still a marvel – Invented over 1.5 Centuries ago & yet still the mode of transportation of choice…
IFuckYouOver on Mon, 7th Mar 2016 9:58 pm
The fact the combustion engine have not change much other that adding computer to manage the engine combustion show that the human have run out of imagination and ideas.
Something invented 1.5 centuries ago is still widely used proves me point.
Overall human life and progress is totally depend on available energy mainly in form of heat.
GregT on Mon, 7th Mar 2016 10:05 pm
Children (still) playing with fire.
Haven’t grown up yet, and probably won’t ever get the chance.
Homo Sapiens – smart, but not so wise.
theedrich on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 2:43 am
The enemy of the current global state of affairs is time. Most people’s mnemonic awareness is perhaps two weeks, before which nothing much of concern happened outside of their personal circles (except for the Chosenites’ “Holocaust” event, with which the media unrelentingly bombards the masses). As a result, the public awareness of change from past conditions, especially in America, is minimal.
The fact is, however, that America’s glory days are over. Under no circumstances can the national clock be turned back to, say, the 1950s. Among many other things, too many other states have nuclear weaponry with which to defend themselves from the American megalomaniacs in the corridors of D.C.
Furthermore, if the production of an i-phone costs the Apple Corp. $7 in China (never mind the technical personnel required to build it), versus, say, $70 in the U.S., there is zero chance that Apple will move its production back to the United States. Ditto for a jillion other products.
Next, the federal government has become a snakepit of parasites and vampires. The money sluicing in from every quarter, including corrupt foreign governments (e.g., Saudi Arabia) to politicians (such as Hotflash), has made paralysis the order of the day, regardless of political blather. It is simply no longer possible to attend to nationwide infrastructure maintenance before major catastrophes and the resulting, useless finger-pointing occur.
On top of this is the disastrous illegal immigration and visa-overstaying which is crushing the social system. Anyone knowing a little Spanish who has been to Mexico and talked with relatively educated people there (teachers, doctors, etc.) or visited some of their historical museums is aware of just how much elite Mexican hatred there is against the gringo. Mexico has three main sources of income: oil (from Cantarell, etc.); tourism (mainly from Gringoland); and narcotics exportation to the exploding U.S. narcotics pandemic. There is no chance the Mexican government will change its policies or stop offloading its human fecal matter onto us. Besides, the freebies afforded by the Affordable Care Act make the country to their north all the more attractive. Similar magnets attract Indians and other Asiatics. Although because of government coverups it is hard to get accurate numbers on the illegals already here, the best estimates one can find (from sources the establishment hates) circle around 60 million illegal aliens currently resident in the U.S.
These problems, and many more, have changed America drastically, and are growing by the day. The political criminality at the top is maintained by a massive system of lies, fraud and subterfuge (never mind the delusional, suicidal system of myths called Christianity), enforced by law and even extralegal violence when deemed necessary by the powerholders. The aim is to keep the masses comatose and diverted while expanding the corruption.
The howls of pain that even a minor correction would evoke (see the current establishment onslaught on Trump, a very mild correctionist) is beyond the ability of the system to bear. Hence time will bring the system crashing down. And not all the king’s horses nor all the king’s men will put it together again.
Davy on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 4:27 am
“Basic Income Experiment”, I think this is a great idea but for the wrong reasons. This is not going to improve the economy. Nothing can improve the economy at this point. It is in a deflationary destructive trend with momentum of deleveraging from a period of excessive debt and malinvestment. This in a backdrop of overpopulation hitting limits with diminishing returns of efficiency and growth.
This “basic income” is a good policy on the fairness level because the less wealthy should get income redistribution at the expense of the rich who already got huge income support from the past policies of ZIRP and QE. The rich have the markets rigged for their support. It is time to adjust that excess. This may sound socialistic but the reality is crisis management. This is a descent paradigm policy that will mitigate some of the worst of descent for a time. It will help only temporarily and may even hasten the end of the status quo but it is right to help those most disenfranchised.
The problem with all this micro managing of economic activity is all people want more, the same, and or less of a drop. No one wants to drop to where reality says we should be. Lifestyles are dropping and set to plummet for multiple reasons. We should be accepting this and preparing for this. The reality of this drop is crisis yet we continue to play the business-as-usual game of normal. “Basic Income” policies are nothing more than bread and circuses we saw as the Roman Empire began to collapse.
“Helicopter Money Comes To Canada: Ontario Pledges “Basic Income Experiment”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-07/helicopter-money-comes-canada-ontario-pledges-basic-income-experiment
“The pilot project will test a growing view at home and abroad that basic income could build on the success of minimum wage policies and increases in child benefits by providing more consistent and predictable support in the context of today’s dynamic labour market. The pilot would also test whether a basic income would provide a more efficient way of delivering income support, strengthen the attachment to the labour force, and achieve savings in other areas such as health care and housing supports. The government will work with communities, researchers and other stakeholders in 2016 to determine how best to implement a Basic Income pilot.”
Davy on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 4:32 am
“China Trade Balance Plunges To 11-Month Lows As Exports Crash Over 25%”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-03-07/china-trade-balance-plunges-11-month-lows-exports-crash-over-25
“Worse than expected is an understatement. Things are not getting better in China as Exports crashed 25.4% YoY (the 3rd largest drop in history), almost double the 14.5% expectation and Imports tumbled 13.8%, the 16th month of YoY decline – the longest ever. Altogether this sent the trade surplus down to $32.6bn (missing expectations of $51bn) to 11-month lows.”
GregT on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 4:34 am
The “economy” is killing the planet. Our species can survive without an economy, but will not survive without a healthy, biodiverse, natural environment. We cannot have both.
makati1 on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 7:58 am
GregT, The world economy/capitalism should collapse tomorrow and maybe enough resources will be left for our kids and theirs to have a decent 3rd world life. But it appears that it will go until there is nothing but death left for them and theirs.
I am as prepared as possible for that event, but it appears to still be a few months or maybe a year way at this point. At least, I hope it is not longer than that for their sake.
shortonoil on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 9:09 am
“Eventually, our society (as any other society in history) is a dissipative structure.”
Because something is a “dissipative structure” doesn’t really tell you very much? A tree is a “dissipative structure”; as the tree grows the entropy of the tree goes down, as the entropy of the environment goes up. The Second Law tells us that the combined entropy of the tree and its environment must increase. If it were not for the continual supply of energy provided by our sun the tree growing process would have come to its conclusion a long time ago.
All processes are “dissipative” by their very nature, in as much, as any process produces entropy, and must do so to go forward. That again doesn’t tell one very much unless there is a way to measure the rate of entropy production. The Etp Model is a means to measure the rate of entropy production in the Petroleum Production System. If one views the world’s petroleum resource as a non rechargeable battery (which it essentially is) the rate of entropy production in the system can be used to calculate when the process will come into equilibrium with the environment. When it will stop. That is, all that is needed to be known is the rate of entropy production to determine how much of the world’s resource can be extracted.
Translating the above process to the entire scope of civilization is a little more problematic. With oil we have very good information about its physical properties, and pretty good information about its historic production rate. That is not true of general environmental degradation. Those values are qualitative, not quantitative; they don’t fit into an equation without it losing most of its precision. In essence, we don’t have a very good way of determining when we have exceeded the world’s carrying capacity, like we have a way of evaluating the world’s petroleum supply.
We are playing a game of global crap shoot, and the existence of any future civilization, and probably this one, depends on seven, or cat’s eyes. It is a pretty stupid way to run a planet! We have about a decade, at best, of petroleum but how long for the rest? That will depend on the throw of the dice; but the dice say that if you play long enough you are going have a very bad, long losing streak – sooner or later.
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/
joe on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 9:35 am
Good theory mixed with misleading politics.
Entropy didnt cause failed states. 9-11 happed because of the politics of Afghanistan, the US relationship with jihadists and misunderstanding of who was playing who.
The US has toppled the government’s of about 10 countries since 9-11, each coup has not succeded except where guns are absent and jihadism has grown in power and appeal. That has nothing to do with oil or economics, both of which have grown in the last decade.
Entropy happens no matter what, and our current global reality is an explosion, which is stable, in the sense we are consuming more and more. Whats wrong is the means of our success, literally war. We fight, we take over, we put in guys friendly to us, we undermine the enemies no matter who or how, so far our only red line is reluctance to use nukes which im sure is only becausd our enemies have them as well.
Historically collapse has meant replacement by somthing else. Revolutions driven by people no longer feeling part of or wishing to continue under the system. Weather it be a dream of an atheist workers paradise as nearly happened in the 1970s-80s or an anti – western Caliphate, the people no longer want the superpowers imposing their views. So far the US has responded with provoking jihadists and supporting wahabbis and zionists, but none of these will succeed.
Dredd on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 12:19 pm
According to the once most-often-quoted historian, there is one stark commonality in the history of civilizations:
““In other words, a society does not ever die ‘from natural causes’, but always dies from suicide or murder — and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown.””
(Choose Your Trances Carefully – 6).
Revi on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 12:21 pm
I see it as a race between peak oil and climate change. If we achieve the 80% reduction in fossil fuels we need in time to keep the planet under 2 degrees of warming we will be able to survive. We are not going to impose this kind of a restriction on ourselves, so it’s up to Gaia. She will save us by creating a peak oil recession that will keep our descendants alive. Or maybe not…
penury on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 1:32 pm
Revi, it is too late,the planet already this year exceeded 2degrees C of warming. And I disagree that it is a race between peak oil and climate change, those races have been lost. Gaia will not save Homo Sapiens, as a home owner if you have an invasion of warring,filthy noxious pests you would not try to provide them a better condition to live under. As G. Carlin said: we are going away.
GregT on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 1:41 pm
Revi,
The original agreed upon upper limit set by the scientific community was 1 degree C. The 2 degree C limit was set by neoclassical economist W.D. Nordhaus.
“Beyond 1 degree C may elicit rapid, unpredictable and non-linear responses that could lead to extensive ecosystem damage.”
A temperature increase of 2ºC was viewed as “an upper limit beyond which the risks of grave damage to ecosystems, and of non-linear responses, are expected to increase rapidly.”
Source– United Nations Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases -1990
http://www.theartofannihilation.com/part-1-expose-the-2º-death-dance-the-1º-cover-up/
Non-linear = a runaway greenhouse event. AKA, TEOTWAWKI
GregT on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 1:52 pm
Also, the agreed upon upper safe limit of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to keep warming below 1 degree C was 350 ppm. We are currently at 404.01 ppm and rising.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html
Apneaman on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 3:15 pm
The Denial of Climate Scientists and Experts
Climate change can’t be stopped or reversed. So why are climate scientists sounding so hopeful?
http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-denial-of-climate-scientists-and-experts-wcz/
Apneaman on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 3:20 pm
Glenn Greenwald
“Just curious: is there anyone who still doubts that the U.S. is well into late-stage imperial collapse?”
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/705736437275172865
Apneaman on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 3:28 pm
Chinese exports plunge 25% in February
“Chinese exports have seen their sharpest drop in almost seven years, adding to concerns over the health of the world’s second largest economy.
Exports dropped sharply by 25.4% from a year earlier, while imports fell 13.8%.
The weak data comes on the heels of Beijing registering the slowest economic growth in 25 years.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35751586
Apneaman on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 4:49 pm
U.S. Has its Warmest Winter on Record; Major Deluge Coming to TX, AR, LA
“he contiguous U.S. just experienced its warmest winter on record, said NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information on Tuesday, with the three-month meteorological winter period of December 2015 through February 2016 coming in tops for the 121-year period of record that began in 1895.”
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/us-has-its-warmest-winter-on-record-major-deluge-coming-to-tx-ar-
Apneaman on Tue, 8th Mar 2016 5:47 pm
Wanna see what happens when you rely on the fossil fuel sector and slash taxes? Check out Louisiana
“Louisiana is not the only state experiencing this. Declining oil prices have forced Alaska to cut $1 billion in spending from its budget over the last two years. Now it faces a $4 billion deficit. And low coal and natural gas prices have West Virginia facing a $466 million budget gap.
Whole countries are feeling the same pinch. Russia, which depends heavily on gas and oil exports, is looking at a national budget that will be shorn of over $38 billion in income.”
http://grist.org/politics/wanna-see-what-happens-when-you-rely-on-the-fossil-fuel-sector-and-slash-taxes-check-out-louisiana/
Battered by drop in oil prices and Jindal’s fiscal policies, Louisiana falls into budget crisis
“Louisiana stands at the brink of economic disaster. Without sharp and painful tax increases in the coming weeks, the government will cease to offer many of its vital services, including education opportunities and certain programs for the needy. A few universities will shut down and declare bankruptcy. Graduations will be canceled. Students will lose scholarships. Select hospitals will close. Patients will lose funding for treatment of disabilities. Some reports of child abuse will go uninvestigated.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/04/the-debilitating-economic-disaster-louisianas-governor-left-behind/?wpisrc=nl_draw2
Alpha9 on Wed, 9th Mar 2016 9:38 am
Gee, it’s like someone hasn’t seen the new Chevy VOLT and the BMW i3.
Or that solar is Exploding world wide, especially in China and India.
Joe D on Wed, 9th Mar 2016 12:37 pm
Wiz, it’s like someone has no understanding of physics and the concept of ENERGY.
Or that carbon dioxide and methane are Exploding world wide.