When one looks at other critical earth ecosystems, the danger is equally apparent. Soil is being destroyed.4 Fresh water shortages are wracking several continents and leaving billions of people without reliable access to clean drinking water.5 Fish stocks are plummeting.6 Oceans are clogged with plastic garbage.7 Biodiversity is disappearing at an alarming rate.8 In the face of this full-spectrum ecological assault, a growing number of scientists have been saying that the collapse of civilization is now unavoidable.9
Stopping the destructive effects of industrial, capitalist civilization has now become the defining challenge of our age. If we don’t radically change our society’s course within the next 30 years, then a deep collapse and protracted Dark Age are all but assured. In order to confront this challenge, we need to understand what is causing civilization’s crisis, and most importantly, how the crisis can be resolved. At stake is nothing less than a viable future on this planet.
The Five Horsemen of the Modern Day Apocalypse
In my book, Radical Transformation: Oligarchy, Collapse, and the Crisis of Civilization, I argue that industrial civilization is being driven toward collapse by five key forces – related to terminal dysfunction within its ecological, economic, socio-cultural, and political sub-systems:
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