Are we seeing the beginning of the end of this global civilisation?

Why is global civilisation likely to fail?

1. Mining requires large quantities of petroleum and will therefore slow as petroleum prices rise; even if coal is seen as a substitute for petroleum (at the cost of higher rates of greenhouse carbon dioxide production) the cost of mining the coal will be higher in the future. Modern farming is energy intensive, because of the machinery used and the heavy use of fertilizer, the manufacture of which is also energy intensive. The declining supply of petroleum will force food prices up.

   We are running out of petroleum, the evidence is suggesting that peak petroleum production has past, yet governments and industry are taking little action.
   
   
2. While world population continues to rise World food production has peaked and is on the decline. This decline will accelerate as fertiliser prices rise with declining petroleum supplies and more land is used for energy production to replace petroleum and the coal that we must try not to burn.
   
   
3. An increasing number of states seem likely to fail, apparently because of reduced access to food and, perhaps, the rise of Sharia law in states with Muslim majorities or substantial Muslim minorities.
   
   

4. Energy price trends, from the World Coal Institute Net Site. The fact that the price of coal is increasing demonstrates that current efforts to reduce greenhouse gas production are half-hearted and ineffectual.

   Climate change will cause massive disruption, environmental disasters, mass migrations and wars; yet not a single government is doing enough to reduce greenhouse gas production; most are doing next to nothing. For every one degree Celsius rise of temperature above the norm, wheat, rice and corn yields fall by 10 percent. (Scientific American, May 2009)

Our civilisation is unsustainable

1. Our civilisation is heavily reliant on petroleum, yet the supply is declining.
   
   
2. Habitats are being destroyed at record rates.
   
   
3. Wild foods, especially fish stocks, are being destroyed; trawling is damaging the sea-bed.
   
   
4. The oceans are becoming more acidic (their pH is falling) due to increasing atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide (with climate change). This is detrimental to all those oceanic invertebrates that have calcium carbonate skeletons, such as corals, molluscs and many planktonic species.
   
   
5. Temperatures are rising due to climate change:
   • Rising ocean temperatures are causing coral reefs to die, sea ice to melt and sea levels to rise.
   • Rising temperatures on land are causing declines in agricultural productivity.
   • Mountain glaciers are retreating; this is particularly serious for those rivers that have their sources in the Himalayas and are heavily relied upon for irrigation in South and East Asia.
   
   
6. Biodiversity is being lost at record rates.
   
   
7. Forest is being cleared and not replaced.
   
   

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8. The area of land available for food production, and its productivity, is decreasing due to:
   • Soil is being lost to erosion;
   • Fertility is being lost due to loss of plant nutrients and soil carbon;
   • Soil productivity is being destroyed by salinisation.
   • Land is being taken out of production for the construction of housing and roads, etc.
   • Productivity in a number of areas is declining because of declining rainfall (with climate change), in some areas previously productive land is turning to desert;
   • Coastal land is being lost due to rising sea levels, this is particularly important in the world's great river deltas;
   • Land-use is being changed from food production to fuel production.
   
   
9. Modern mechanised agriculture requires large quantities of cheap (petroleum) fuel; in some cases the energy in the crops produced is little greater than the energy consumed to raise the crops. To be sustainable agriculture must produce crops containing far more available energy than is consumed in the total production process.
   
   
10. Fresh water resources are greatly over-committed, and in many areas are declining due to climate change. Water is being drawn from many of the world's major aquifers at rates much greater than they are being recharged by natural processes; many are failing or will begin failing in the near future. Much of the world's food production depends on irrigation, but the water available for irrigation is decreasing.
    
    
11. Humanity is approaching the 'photosynthetic ceiling'. Soon there will be little photosynthetic capacity on earth that is not dedicated to man's direct use.
    
    

    Morocco has control of about 40% of global phosphate reserves. Most of this phosphate is actually in Western Sahara, a nation that was annexed by Morocco in, I think, the 1990s. The UN has made efforts to allow the Sahrawis a referendum on the sovereignty of Western Sahara, but the Moroccan government is not moving. Morocco has a poor record on human rights. China has the second largest phosphate reserves on earth and just as poor a record on human rights as does Morocco.

12. Phosphate supplies for the production of fertiliser are running out. Phosphorus is one of the three most important plant nutrients; without phosphorus fertilisers the "Green Revolution" in agriculture would not have been possible. Scientific American (June 2009) called the world's phosphate supply "a looming crisis" and said that if action is not taken now "future agriculture will collapse".
    
    
13. A huge range of chemicals are being released into natural environments with unknown long-term effects.
    
    
14. Alien species: weeds, pests and pathogens that humanity has spread around the world are having a steadily increasing effect.
    
    
15. World population continues to rise, especially steeply in many poorer states.
    
    

16. Economists and governments still believe that a growing economy is the only healthy economy, while the absurdity of this argument is obvious to anyone capable of seeing that one finite planet is incompatible with permanent exponential growth.

    The environmental impact of the average person is increasing, due to rising living standards. For example, people with more money to spend are demanding more meat, the production of which is more environmentally expensive than vegetable-based foods.
    
    

17. People with access to enough land to significantly supplement their needs will do so, but modern city and suburban blocks are so small that their owners will not have this option.

    Our mega-cities are not compatible with a steeply declining supply of petroleum. Carting food and other materials from where they are produced into cities, and carting wastes out, requires a lot of fuel. As the loss of petroleum makes mechanised agriculture less viable and as food prices rise due to shortages, more labour will be required to maximise food production; that labour is living in the wrong place at present. Modern cities and suburbs have been developed to suit the private car.
    
    
18. The private car, as it is, is incompatible with declining petroleum supplies and the need to reduce greenhouse gas production; its use must be greatly reduced if societies are to become sustainable, but there is no indication of reduction as of 2009.
    
    
19. The populations of most countries are aging. Apart from the aged, the proportion of the populations of Western nations in particular who are incapable of, or unwilling to, work is increasing (single mothers, disabled, unemployable, etc.) This is placing an increasing load on the shrinking proportion of the population that has to support the economies.
    
    
20. Superstitions and fundamentalist religions, particularly Islam seem to be rising at a time when what the world needs is a carefully thought-out and reasoned response to the problems listed above. How many people are expecting a non-existent god to fix all our problems rather than acting themselves?