Are we on the road to civilisation collapse?

Great civilisations are not murdered. Instead, they take their own lives. So concluded the historian Arnold Toynbee in his 12-volume magnum opus A Study of History. It was an exploration of the rise and fall of 28 different civilisations. He was right in some respects: civilisations are often responsible for their own decline. However, their […]

Global predictions for 2019

* Global predictions for the world economy are less optimistic than in 2018. * Many countries also expect public unrest in the coming year. * After a hot 2018, most expect global temperatures to continue to rise. The latest Ipsos Global Advisor poll was carried out in 31 countries around the world at the end […]

Chris Martenson: Collapse Is Already Here

Many people are expecting some degree of approaching collapse — be it economic, environmental and/or societal — thinking that they’ll recognize the danger signs in time. As if it will be completely obvious, like a Hollywood blockbuster. Complete with clear warnings from scientists, politicians and the media.  And everyone can then get busy either panicking […]

Peak Oil Theory’s No Good Terrible Very Bad Week

Just when you thought continued belief in any of the various brands of “Peak Oil” theory could hardly become less sustainable, you get a week like this one. No matter whether you come at Peak Oil from the supply side or the demand side, several events this week would have had to put you in […]

Why do Societies Collapse? Diminishing Returns are a Key Factor

  In 1988, Joseph Tainter published a fundamental study on the collapse of societies, proposing the existence of a common cause, diminishing returns, for the fact that all past empires and civilizations had eventually collapsed. Recently, myself and my coworkers Sara Falsini and Ilaria Perissi performed a system dynamics study that confirms Tainter’s ideas and […]

2019 Collapse Survey Results – The 500: Who are the Kollapsniks?

  Notes from RE: 1- Although the title says 500, I actually took this snapshot of the Stats when the numbers were between 430-435.  They are now at 525 as I publish this article.  I chose 500 because it sounds good and it’s right between the 300 of Thermopylae and the 600 of the Light […]

Collapse Something or Other …

Discuss this article at the Economics Table inside the Diner   The Christmas present nobody wants sits under the tree: a worldwide finance crisis along with an establishment that appears to be coming apart at the seams. The status quo is unraveling from all sides, at the top especially, where managers cannot conceal their panic: […]

What’s Coming In 2019? Global Thinkers Make Big, Bold Predictions

At the beginning of 2018, we made predictions about what the year in global health and development might look like in the countries we cover. The pundits we interviewed forecast that 2018 would bring a decline in the number of health workers around the world, inspire more humanitarians to share their #MeToo stories and see […]

The struggle over water in India and China

ON THE LAST day of 1956 Jawaharlal Nehru, first prime minister of an independent India, took Zhou Enlai, his Chinese counterpart, to visit the Bhakra dam, on the Sutlej river in the north of the country. “These are the new temples of India, where I worship,” he told his visitor. Both young governments saw managing […]

2019: Are you Ready for a New World War?

  Detail from Picasso’s “Guernica” – 1937 With the end of 2018, also the centennial of the end of the Great War (or WWI) is past. It passed remarkably in silence: a few celebrations, but little or no discussion of the reasons and the consequences of that war, supposed to be the one that would […]

The Dark Places of the Future

Over most of the last decade now, I’ve watched celebrations of the New Year become more and more muted, and I think it’s far more likely than not that this trend will continue when 2018 gets hauled off to the glue factory a little less than a week from now. No doubt plenty of people […]

The Top 10 Energy Stories Of 2018

As 2018 comes to a close, it’s time to review the top energy stories of the year. This year there wasn’t an overwhelming choice for the top story as we have had in some previous years (e.g., the Deepwater Horizon spill), but many of the year’s biggest developments impacted oil prices. Here are my picks for the stories […]

Richard Heinberg: The Big Picture

Humanity has a lot of problems these days. Climate change, increasing economic inequality, crashing biodiversity, political polarization, and a global debt bubble are just a few of our worries. None of these trends can continue indefinitely without leading to a serious failure of our civilization’s ability to maintain itself. Taken together, these metastasizing problems suggest […]

I’m Burned Out On Collapse And I Bet You Are Too

The Hidden Psychological Toll of Living Through a Time of Fracture   It was around Thanksgiving that I noticed that all I wanted to do was sleep. And it wasn’t the leftover turkey. My mind felt bruised to a livid purple welt. Just thinking felt — disturbingly — painful. My bones felt as weary as dust. And that fine dust […]

Crossing the Rubicon

Looking for an article that Mike might have written on GHWB, guess what I came across on the CIA website From Jenna Orkin  

Richard Heinberg: Foreword to Oil, Power and War

Come and listen to my story ’bout a man named Jed A poor mountaineer barely kep’ his fam’ly fed And then one day he was shootin’ at some food And up through the ground come a-bubblin’ crude. Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas tea. Well the first thing you know old Jed’s a millionaire. The […]

You think 2018 is the worst year ever? Try the real dark age: 536

It may seem amid the maelstom that is 2018 that it’s a pretty bad time to be alive. There’s the terrible and accelerating effect of climate change, the rise of fascist and “alt-right” politics, violent conflict, millions of stateless refugees, a looming Brexit crisis and political turmoil in many other directions. But there have been […]

Oil, Power, and War by Matthieu Auzanneau

Oil, Power, and War: A Dark History By Matthieu Auzanneau Originally published in 2015 as Or noir, by La Découverte Translated from the French by John F. Reynolds 672 pp, hardcover. Chelsea Green Publishing. – Nov 2018. $35.00. In Oil, Power, and War, French journalist Matthieu Auzanneau presents a comprehensive, provocative history of humankind’s relationship […]

The Geopolitics of Petroleum

Petropolitics Presentation by G. Chia to ReNew/ATA group on 27/9/18:   ADDENDUM: I mentioned the main feature of capitalist banking is that it charges interest on debt. The other key feature is that it creates money (for new loans) out of nothing, the so-called fractional reserve banking system.   ERRATA: APOC was the abbreviation for […]

True Revolution

A radical change in human behavior away from its patterns of oppression, exploitation, war and ecocide will necessarily involve a drastic transformation in humanity’s relationship with thought. I’ve been saying this over and over again in different ways for a long time now, and yet I still get criticisms saying that I have useful insights […]

Economic Meltdown Worse than Great Depression Coming

Renowned trends researcher Gerald Celente is making a big change to his 2018-2019 economic forecast. What is the timeline for this coming market meltdown? Celente says, “The timeline is tough, but look . . . all you need is one major failure or one major hedge fund pulling out because that’s who is running the […]

12 Reasons Why People Refuse To Address The Idea That We’re Headed For Near-Term Societal Collapse

The starting point for a generative discussion of the deep adaptation agenda is a difficult one. Because to begin to rigorously and imaginatively discuss this topic first requires us to accept the likelihood of near term societal collapse. By which I mean that within ten years, in whatever society we are living in, that we […]

The Next Pandemic Will Be Arriving Shortly

Deadly diseases like Ebola and the avian flu are only one flight away. The U.S. government must start taking preparedness seriously. There are plenty of security threats that could keep a former homeland security advisor awake. There is the possibility of a terrorist attack, a cyber-cataclysm, or any number of natural disasters—all threats that are […]

Dealing With Collapse: The Seneca Strategy

The ruins of the Egyptian Pyramid of Meidum, perhaps the first large building to collapse in history (*). The collapse of large structures is part of a fascinating field of study that we may call “Collapsology.” I already wrote a book on this subject, titled “The Seneca Effect” (Springer and Oekom 1917), available in English […]

Ponzinomics

“Tolerable parasites are those that have minimum pain and cost to the host.“   DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AT THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY: In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country. America is so thrilled. (LAUGHTER) I did not expect […]

Preparing for Collapse, A Few Rants

For a while now I been promising that when I got some other things out of the way, I’d actually talk about preparing for collapse. And that is just what I’m going to be doing in this and the next few posts. Unfortunately, my crystal ball isn’t any better than anybody else’s, probably worse than […]

The problem with models…is getting stuck on just one

Alfred Korzybski, the father of general semantics, first uttered what must now seem like a well-worn phrase: “The map is not the territory.” And yet, I don’t think this view has yet been well-incorporated into human culture. In a time when social media outlets are trying to sort what is “fake” from what is “genuine” […]

What Comes Next?

Previews of the coming reckoning… All things have a beginning, a middle and and end. And now, more than 3,480 days into the current bull market, the longest in history, we can say with high confidence we are very close to its end. Why? For manifold reasons that are multiplying fast. So many, in fact, […]

Richard Heinberg: Human Predators, Human Prey – Part 3

6. “Disease organisms” (revolutionaries), “parasites” (criminals), and “immune systems” (law and punishment) in times of growth and release In his brilliant 1976 book Plagues and Peoples, historian William H. McNeill explored how infectious disease has shaped human societies through the ages. A remarkable paragraph on page 84 of the Anchor paperback edition has stayed with […]

The world’s not as bad as our brains would have us believe

Even highly educated people have gross misconceptions about state of the world, says the book “Factfulness.” On many fronts — economic, health, mortality, — the real picture is a lot brighter than people think. Chimpanzees are better at answering questions on the state of the world than Nobel Prize winners, according to a book I’ve […]

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