NASA Funded Study on Civilisation Collapse linked to Inequality
I found this article below interesting as in the previous article on Indonesia I was reflecting on the land seizure by the Indonesian Government of indigenous lands. I was reflecting on the superiority and inequality the Government clearly felt which justified for them the need to take 70% of the land. This was then leased to elite corporations to exploit resources. This lead to the palm oil industry which ripped out natural forests and replaced it with monoculture cropping. The emergence of more wealthy elites impacted governments as corruption escalated in alignment with business interests marketed as growing wealth for the country. A scenario played out across the world by many governments justifying economic activity over human rights and natural rights (planet). Here in Australia Aboriginal lands were leased, built on, pastoral leases issued and the indigenous people rounded up and placed in missions run by Christian missionaries. Even the religious aspect, in my view feeds into the same vibration of superiority (our God is the real God) rather than respecting diversity and allowing them their own spirituality, given many state God is love. Conquerors over time have all just taken what they wanted without respect for those they harm. I see this today in behaviours of bullying and lack of empathy. So how far have we come? I would also go further and see a connection to males being disconnected from family as they went to work and lost their nurturing feeling of parenthood and community. So the industrial economic system has silently encouraged greed, disconnection, classes and superiority through the acquisition of wealth, gender divides and so on. What is interesting to me today is that I am really seeing the connection between our inner states of being and the outer reality playing out in the world. I see a connection with the conflicts (outer) and the inner inequalities and insecurities that parade as security and control paradigms. In Paris they are coming together for the climate change conference but I feel quite sure that they haven’t made the link to the recent violence and how that connects to the environment. Can people see the inequality in the world playing out in violent acts? Can nation states see their own violence as the teacher and example to others as to how you get what you want – power and resources? I am mindful of the blind spots when fingers are pointed (1 out, 3 inward) but I wonder how many actually sit down and really reflect on the idea that the inner world creates the outer world? That what we see in our world reflect us. There is a likeness in fear and the desire for control as we feel vulnerable. How many recognise that the conflict in Syria has its roots in the serious drought there and that people were asking for Government help, they received none? Was there reflection on the fact of corruption in governments cause social discord and revolution? That power corrupts as the false sense of superiority and making the rules for some and not for others applies. So I feel there is much soul searching that has to happen globally where truth must be told and that we are all in this together. It is created by all of us. Speaking truth is a form of purification spiritually speaking. Our negative and violent thoughts and behaviours reflect the toxicity in the system generated through grievances, victim mentalities, superiority and refusal to take responsibility for impacts. I have come to learn more about powerlessness that pervades those who dominate and those who feel persecuted. So powerlessness is one of the areas of focus if we are to really look into rebalancing the environmental situation. We have to understand from childhood our direct and fundamental connection and integration in nature, not separate from it as appears to be the case in cities.
Is it too late? Not at all. Einstein speaks of “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” It is time to make room for different ideas about god and life that the knowing of which will change everything. We have to come to this with an open mind for new ideas and solutions and indeed seeing. We are amazing creators and we can undo what has been done. Moreover, there are surprises awaiting us in the future when we decide to take responsibility for our planet and own our fear based weaknesses that have been hidden in false bravado and aggression. The real power is in love and yes the rising feminine which is part of both men and women. It is time to start to see and think differently as clearly the way of business-as-usual, mercantilism, trading, agriculture etc. hasn’t worked in respect of sharing equally and homestasis with the planet. Self interest does not produce best interest. War does not create peace. Religious righteousness (superiority) does not create harmony, material superiority does not create equality or happiness. There are many modus operandi that we have taken for granted and it appears it is time to pay the piper.
We are different from the natural wildlife in that we make choices and we have ego’s (sense of identity, self). Until we master ourselves we cannot affect real change. Self mastery is a higher evolved awareness that what we do to others we do to ourselves, that we create our reality, that we are responsible for all of it, we are all one, we choose between fear and love and that only love is real. Only one real choice actually. These are just a few ways to see differently. Today I realise if I have a conflict or problem that I have drawn it to me for a purpose (natures way of rebalancing). There is a life lesson in it and I look for any discord I feel and deal with it. I may inquire into my negative thoughts and turn them around (realising projection) and look at myself not others. So when I focus negatively and consistently this drawing to me occurs through the law of attraction, what I think about I attract. The law of attraction is a universal law of nature. For example if I keep focusing on what is wrong with the planet, terrorism, crime, corruption etc. I will overtime attract it in some form or hold it in place through my attention. If this is done collectively, catalysed through the media, then we draw it to ourselves faster and this creates the ties we move through, we are not powerless. So even the concept of a collapse can be facilitated through the consciousness of humanity based on its fear of collapse. However, if people collectively start to envisage balanced homeostasis with nature, self reliance, self sufficiency, smaller communities, organic foods, mindsets that everyone is a brother and sister rather than enemy mindsets, that the real wealth is in universal values that produce unity. That self love and love of others is the purpose of humanity. Our test is to learn to love under all conditions. This does not mean condoning negative events or actions, it means bringing love to solutions. This is the birthplace of creativity, it creates the space for awareness and allows inspiration to surface from an intelligence that created the world as we know it. Science would agree that intelligent design is at play here. The natural system is brilliant and proves that it is not happenstance. This intelligence has no thought, it is aware and love is the natural state of being. This is true nature.
True happiness occurs when in alignment with our inner truth. All conflict if analysed down comes from anger at self, unquestioned beliefs, fears, people feeling vulnerable and the betrayal of their own values. You can see in people’s faces when they have compromised their truth, their eyes are not happy (shining, alive) and there is a wall there. I’ve seen it many times, like an inner darkness descending as they know they have lied or cheated to get what they thought they wanted. That will disappear as people speak the truth to themselves and others, without aggression with an intention for solutions and real peace. So this environmental/civilisation collapse in my view comes from the egoic consciousness from humanity and the solution will arise through a spiritual transformation felt as awareness (without thought). Truth always moves us to unity, it never divides, only fear as ego divides.
I use the word ‘love’ as much as I can as we have been trained to avoid it and use professional language in conveying messages, this is the business paradigm which cuts the emotions and feeling world out of the game, as people are harder to control and decisions are less profit oriented when love is the basis, people naturally give when they feel connection to others. As we naturally share with each other. In community and through a shared sense of love and belonging it is natural for us to give to each other. The economic system actually encourages what we are not by encouraging taking through wheeling and dealing with each other, wanting more (othes have less) – greed, regarding professionalism as tough and uncompromising to reach objectives, when life is really not about objectives it is about process, it is about the journey we are on. We have become so disconnected from the natural life that we think life is working in an office, spending a few hours with family and trying to live it up on weekends. We are not present with ourselves. To thine own self be true comes to mind.We do not not what has truly been lost to us in our lives and our attachments to systems that were originally designed to serve us but became the master. Again, ego is at the centre, the desire for an expanded sense of self, the ego identity rather than the spiritual reality of oneness with life. We are on our way and these crises are here to teach us to reclaim who we are and live naturally, this does not mean barely surviving, it means designing life intelligently where there are win/win’s with no harm done.
The planet of course is a living being (Gaia) and yes it is conscious of our discord as it starts to rattle and shake in order to re calibrate with a new trajectory that is sustainable. The whole natural system is programmed for homeostasis. If it doesn’t find balance then the system recalibrates and species die. In truth the planet will not die it is the species on the surface that will. However, if we change our consciousness (higher frequency) to mirror nature, unity consciousness is that harmonic in atunement, then our activities will dramatically change. This new frequency or resonance harmonises with nature, it feels gentle, loving, peaceful, sovereign and lives in the moment without fear. There is a cosmology around this that takes time to understand as it is indeed a paradigm shift. Some call it awakening. Awakening is really many aha moments, it is like growing up into maturity. No longer fighting like children, taking more than our fair share, but sitting back, reflecting and feeling responsibility for reality. This in my view is not a choice it is happening without humanities direction. It is taking place as the planet is harmonising. The negativity (separation consciousness) is responsible for discord and imbalance on the planet.
I will give you an example from my own life. I am a trained economist and analyst. I dreamed I was teaching peace which changed my whole reason for being or if you like, paradigm. Overtime I focused on happiness only not going for the money. As time went on things started to drop out of my life, even friends, job opportunities as I started to recalibrate to a new way of seeing. I no longer valued the working life, material possessions, being accepted by society, but instead spent more time alone reflecting, started working on peace education, started clowning on the streets (opening the heart) and writing poetry. So I moved from the left brain (analytical) to the right brain (creative). It can be seen as a shift from the inner masculine to the inner feminine, which was my natural disposition. I am an artist naturally. It wasn’t easy at first as the feeling of uncertainty plagued my life and I felt I should be working (protestant work ethic). I had to confront inner insecurities as programmed fears. I was mindful of how society viewed me and that only a few friends walked with me. There was a point where I felt happy no-one was ringing me as I saw it as dropping dependency on friends for a sense of self worth and turning inwards for love. Moving away from neediness towards being the source of love. I became more spiritual (lighter). I grew up atheist so religion and God was not programmed in. I had nothing to unlearn. In fact what happened as spiritual experiences occurred and I started to put light on people (naturally, positivity) and feel enormous love for strangers I saw the world as family increasingly and felt this inner sense of joy welling up. I focused on what I loved and for 17 years worked for peace for mostly nothing. I did it out of joy and a sense of adventure. As I opened my mind, life opened its arms to me. So I wrote peace education programs (values based – universal), I taught as a clown in schools this work, I saw it effective with kids. I clowned in Russia with Patch Adams and saw clowning as peace in action. In truth I was learning unconditional love and what the real sense of freedom was really like (true happiness). I observed that a great weight lifted off my shoulders (social conditioning) as I hugged people, trees, jumped on benches like a statue (for fun) and generally played with the families and passersby. Patch Adams speaks of friendshipism and surrender to life (letting go). I had flashes that this was what true community would feel like, relaxed, happy and care-free. Now some would say I should work, well this was my work and I was exploring real freedom which is not in concepts of democracy but pre-date the human language. I was exploring new pathways where life supports me. I was homeless for 2 years and went without money for 3 months to see if life supports me, or nature supports me (interrelationships). I was feeling life streaming through me and an endless energy. I saw my connection with the planet. I actually had a moment driving down the road where I felt a knowing that everything was now, was one. Today I see no mistakes or coincidences and I do not fear the wars. I see them as old paradigms playing out and I feel a movement for change occurring as people connect worldwide and the veils come down. The key for people is to start to focus on what you want, what makes you happy not the doom and gloom peddled by the media. It is not true. I know as a market analyst if you were to random sample life we would find much more good going on then bad, it is a negative media that peddles the fear which feeds into the continuing problems. We must start to look to what we want and make the inner changes. If you truly want peace in the world you must look into your negative thoughts, judgements, anger, unexpressed and unresolved issues, and start to clear out your consciousness of anything that inhibits your happiness and freedom. You start to help people without agenda, you ‘be the change you want to see’. If you want to protect the planet then start to grow organic food, get solar panels, don’t buy unnecessary stuff and don’t teach your kids that happiness is in things. Teach them the deep and profound love of family and that caring is sharing and that giving is the real having. Teach love in how they see themselves, in values, in caring for nature as ourselves. We can give our time, compassion, friendship, joy these are the real treasures of life. iPhones are not friends or self worth, they are distractions away from the inner self. They can be used as tools but they cannot replace relationships or the importance of quiet moments alone. When you are present with yourself not attaching to things outside, you will deal with your sorrow. What is your joy but your sorrow unmasked and The deeper sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain (Kahil Gibran). You will no longer seek out drugs to fill gaps, you will face your pain and transcend it. That is courage and love and that is what truly heals. Drugs and medicating oneself can’t do it for you. All this is intrinsically linked to the planet as you are not separate you are one with the planet. so as you think and feel the planet absorbs this and we can see what it overtime is producing toxins in nature. So that is the example I wish to lead with.
Now let’s turn to how the world views what is happening and the links to inequality. Observe and make changes in your own life, that is the key. Do not fight to save humanity, love to give to humanity and then allow life to recalibrate. You are not in control in truth.
Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for ‘irreversible collapse’?
A new study partly-sponsored by Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.
Noting that warnings of ‘collapse’ are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that “the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history.” Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to “precipitous collapse – often lasting centuries – have been quite common.”
The independent research project is based on a new cross-disciplinary ‘Human And Nature DYnamical’ (HANDY) model, led by applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei of the US National Science Foundation-supported National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, in association with a team of natural and social scientists. The HANDY model was created using a minor Nasa grant, but the study based on it was conducted independently. The study based on the HANDY model has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal, Ecological Economics.
It finds that according to the historical record even advanced, complex civilisations are susceptible to collapse, raising questions about the sustainability of modern civilisation:
“The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent.”
By investigating the human-nature dynamics of these past cases of collapse, the project identifies the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilisational decline, and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely, Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy.
These factors can lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial social features: “the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity”; and “the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or “Commoners”) [poor]” These social phenomena have played “a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse,” in all such cases over “the last five thousand years.”
Currently, high levels of economic stratification are linked directly to overconsumption of resources, with “Elites” based largely in industrialised countries responsible for both:
“… accumulated surplus is not evenly distributed throughout society, but rather has been controlled by an elite. The mass of the population, while producing the wealth, is only allocated a small portion of it by elites, usually at or just above subsistence levels.”
The study challenges those who argue that technology will resolve these challenges by increasing efficiency:
“Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use.”
Productivity increases in agriculture and industry over the last two centuries has come from “increased (rather than decreased) resource throughput,” despite dramatic efficiency gains over the same period.
Modelling a range of different scenarios, Motesharrei and his colleagues conclude that under conditions “closely reflecting the reality of the world today… we find that collapse is difficult to avoid.” In the first of these scenarios, civilisation:
“…. appears to be on a sustainable path for quite a long time, but even using an optimal depletion rate and starting with a very small number of Elites, the Elites eventually consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society. It is important to note that this Type-L collapse is due to an inequality-induced famine that causes a loss of workers, rather than a collapse of Nature.”
Another scenario focuses on the role of continued resource exploitation, finding that “with a larger depletion rate, the decline of the Commoners occurs faster, while the Elites are still thriving, but eventually the Commoners collapse completely, followed by the Elites.”
In both scenarios, Elite wealth monopolies mean that they are buffered from the most “detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners”, allowing them to “continue ‘business as usual’ despite the impending catastrophe.” The same mechanism, they argue, could explain how “historical collapses were allowed to occur by elites who appear to be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory (most clearly apparent in the Roman and Mayan cases).”
Applying this lesson to our contemporary predicament, the study warns that:
“While some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory ‘so far’ in support of doing nothing.”
However, the scientists point out that the worst-case scenarios are by no means inevitable, and suggest that appropriate policy and structural changes could avoid collapse, if not pave the way toward a more stable civilisation.
The two key solutions are to reduce economic inequality so as to ensure fairer distribution of resources, and to dramatically reduce resource consumption by relying on less intensive renewable resources and reducing population growth:
“Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion.”
The NASA-funded HANDY model offers a highly credible wake-up call to governments, corporations and business – and consumers – to recognise that ‘business as usual’ cannot be sustained, and that policy and structural changes are required immediately.
Although the study based on HANDY is largely theoretical – a ‘thought-experiment’ – a number of other more empirically-focused studies – by KPMG and the UK Government Office of Science for instance – have warned that the convergence of food, water and energy crises could create a ‘perfect storm’ within about fifteen years. But these ‘business as usual’ forecasts could be very conservative.
Dr Nafeez Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development and author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation: And How to Save It among other books. Follow him on Twitter @nafeezahmed
- This article was amended on 26 March 2014 to reflect the nature of the study and Nasa’s relationship to it more clearly.