Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CXCIII—Societal Collapse, Abrupt Climate Events, and the Role of Resilience
Tulum, Mexico. (1986) Photo by author.
This Contemplation comments upon and summarises two short archaeology articles on societal collapse.
The first raises the increasing evidence of abrupt climate events being a precipitating factor in societal collapse over the past dozen millennia.
The second discusses the possibility of identifying Early Warning Signals that indicate declining societal resilience and could be used to suggest when preparations for ‘collapse’ would be advisable.
Summaries of both of these articles follow my introductory comments directly below.
Climate shifts happen. Not only do we have evidence that these shifts occurred long, long before our hominid species evolved (100,000-300,000 years ago) but have been occurring with regularity since we appeared. The planet’s orbit around our star, its geology (tectonic plate shifts and volcanic activity), and solar radiation fluctuations have all contributed to past climate changes.
The last dozen millennia have tended to be seen as a period of relatively stable climate which helped to give rise to large, complex human societies. However, there is increasing evidence suggesting that this is not so and that abrupt climate shifts occurred and contributed to both the emergence of these societies and their eventual collapse.
The argument that relatively sudden climate shifts during the past dozen or so millennia may have been more significant in leading to societal collapse than some acknowledge is interesting on a number of levels, not least of which is the concern over the speed with which our current climate system appears to be shifting.
Archaeologist Joseph Tainter argues that complex societies themselves emerge as a result of our problem-solving strategy of increasing complexity. The innovation of sedentary agriculture, around 12,000 years before present (BP), is perhaps one of our species’ more significant ones. It has been theorised that the main impetus to this particular adaptation was a changing climate–people migrated from drying environments, gathered in more suitable areas (particularly in terms of water availability), and these denser populations eventually led to groupings requiring food production innovations and organisational complexities.
The research evidence presented in the first article argues that, regardless of where and when during the past dozen millennia, abrupt climate shifts have served to disrupt this relatively new food acquisition technique to the extent that prehistoric societies that depended upon it were unable to adapt and subsequently collapsed–settlements were abandoned with populations dispersing or dying off.
While the article focuses upon possible disruptions to food production for those that continue to engage in subsistence and small-scale agriculture (a still substantial number on our planet) and the consequences for them, it fails to consider the negative impacts for those in modern complex societies.
Rather than an abrupt climate event being problematic for modern, industrial societies, the authors conclude that they have an advantage over past ones and current small-scale agriculturalists of being capable of tracking and thus predicting potential deleterious environmental changes that would negatively impact food production and thus respond appropriately.
What ‘appropriate responses’ might be is not delved into by the authors but rather they close with the suggestion that strategies be designed to minimise the impacts for those areas to be impacted by impending climate events.
Without getting into the psychological mechanisms that suggest such a proactive and widespread shift in human behaviour and action in the face of impending environmental shifts is unlikely (the second article touches on some of these), complex systems by their very nature are virtually impossible to predict with much accuracy–particularly with regard to timing–and thus why some dismiss modelling predictions of climate change as mostly fear mongering. So there’s this not unsubstantial hurdle.
And, even if we could predict where and when such impacts may occur with precision there may not be adequate time nor capacity for adaptation–particularly given the significantly increased population densities of our modern world and lack of fertile, arable lands to shift to as some past societies did–and, of course, there are some models that suggest that future climate shifts will be of an amplitude that is unadaptable.
The past practice of simply migrating our food production system to suitable areas for agriculture is not only inhibited by political borders and vested interests, but humanity has already leveraged all the best food production regions of the planet and there is little, if any, in the way of rich, arable lands to shift to should significant and/or abrupt climate shifts disrupt currently-used regions.
The standard option of increasing complexity via technological innovation is also problematic given the limits that such an approach has encountered in terms of resources–especially energy–but also the tendency to experience diminishing returns on the investments made: innovations are becoming ever more costly and less effective.
Throw on top of these basic impediments that our current industrial system of food production is destroying the present environments and ecosystems it is using via significant water drawdown of underground aquifers and application of massive amounts of petrochemical-based products, and our societies are in even more of a dire position with regard to feeding everyone in the present let alone at a future time that may experience an abrupt climate shift.
To say we are on a knife’s edge with regard to our global food production systems being capable of adapting to significant environmental disruptions is not hyperbole, particularly in the face of a growing global population and increasing geopolitical turmoil as we encounter limits to growth and resource extraction–especially of our master resource: oil.
The ability to adapt successfully to such changes raises the issue of resiliency, which the second paper discusses. It suggests using Early Warning Signals (EWSs) to identify periods of low resilience in a society so that preparations for impending collapse can be made proactively.
While a commendable suggestion, the roadblocks to the successful widespread adoption of such preparations are in all likelihood insurmountable–for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the vast chasm of disagreement over the recognition or acknowledgement of low societal resiliency and impending ‘collapse’.
It is quite likely our modern, complex societies are well into a low-resilience regime and there exist a number of EWSs that could confirm this. It is also likely that the recognition of and ‘preparations’ for impending and widespread collapse should have begun decades ago.
Instead, as I have argued previously, we have pursued a doubling/tripling of our propensity to pursue more complexity via investments in technological innovations and institutional growth rather than consider the alternative of choosing less complexity and avoiding the pursuit of perpetual growth.
Regardless, in a somewhat hubristic and narcissistic manner, many humans in today’s societies hold on to the notion that our species stands above and separate from Nature, and that we can conquer and control what is for all intents and purposes a completely unpredictable and chaotic world–including threats to our food production systems from a changing climate. There is, then, no need for heeding any warning signals nor preparing for impending collapse through any kind of resilience building nor simplification. For some, the entire ‘impending collapse’ narrative–especially as it concerns resource limits–is a conspiracy by the world’s elite to maintain and extend control over the masses.
For those that perceive there are no limitations to humanity’s increasing prosperity, it is through the pursuit of greater complexity via human ingenuity, technological innovation, and institutional growth that humanity will ‘solve’ any potential societal stresses. The issues of finite resource limits and ecosystem destruction are for all intents and purposes meaningless in this worldview: should resource limits hinder our progress and forever-increasing prosperity, we will simply leave this planet for others.
Perhaps, rather than expending resources and time to identify low-resilience regimes as the authors suggest (that I would argue we are well into), we might be ahead by identifying what constitutes high-resilience behaviours and actions, encouraging the widespread adoption of these at this point in our journey, and attempting to ensure these are maintained in perpetuity. I know, I’m dreaming in technicolour here but it does align somewhat with what I’ve been advocating for some years now.
The best one might do given the circumstances of our existence is to encourage and facilitate the increasing need for one’s local community to be as self-sufficient/-reliant as is possible. Particularly in terms of food production, potable water procurement, and regional shelter needs.
We have no agency in what is happening globally, nationally, and/or province-/state-wide. Probably not even much, if any, in one’s local community depending upon its size and/or the people who compose it. Most people are caught up in day-to-day struggles and don’t even ponder the issues raised in this post. And in our so-called ‘advanced’ economies, the majority hold tightly to the mainstream belief that human ingenuity and technology will ‘solve’ our more pressing issues and predicaments, and they have no interest in simplifying their lifestyles or pursuing self-sufficiency.
The denial, bargaining, and purposeful ignorance among many in our complex societies is astounding…but not surprising given the human proclivity to suppress anxiety-provoking thoughts.
Only time will tell how this all unfolds but there’s nothing wrong with preparing for the worst by ‘collapsing now to avoid the rush’ and pursuing self-sufficiency. By this I mean removing as many dependencies on the Matrix as is possible and making do, locally. And if one can do this without negative impacts upon our fragile ecosystems or do so while creating more resilient ecosystems, all the better.
Building community (maybe even just household) resilience to as high a level as possible seems prudent given the uncertainties of an unpredictable future. There’s no guarantee it will ensure ‘recovery’ after a significant societal stressor/shock but it should increase the probability of it and that, perhaps, is all we can ‘hope’ for from its pursuit.
What Drives Societal Collapse?
H. Weiss and R.S. Bradley
Science, Jan. 26, 2001, New Series, Vol. 29, No. 5504, pp. 609-610
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3082228
The authors argue that there is a significant amount of archaeological evidence demonstrating rather quick collapse of past societies. While social, political, and economic factors have traditionally been identified as the root cause(s), increasing research and improved techniques are pointing the finger at abrupt climate events being a precipitating factor.
They cite several examples from across the planet and throughout the past 11,000 years where sudden changes in environmental conditions due to a changing climate led to settlement abandonment. They assert that “[m]any lines of evidence now point to climate forcing as the primary agent in repeated societal collapse.” (p. 610)
The climate during the past dozen or so millennia has tended to be viewed as relatively stable but paleoclimatic data is now showing this not to be true and that there was significant instability. This unstable situation appears to have repeatedly disrupted food production with societies unable to adapt to the rapidity, amplitude, and duration of the changing conditions.
Models of future change suggest that modern societies may face environmental shifts of even greater magnitude as a result of human activity and for a greatly increased and more dense population. And despite modern technology and industrial agriculture, many communities in the world continue to live as subsistence or small-scale agriculturalists who may be greatly affected by such changes.
The habit-tracking adaptations of past societies and communities will not be an option in our increasingly crowded world. Modern societies may have some advantage in their capacity to track these changes and possibly predict where issues may arise. The authors conclude by suggesting that data be used to design strategies to minimise the impacts of these shifting conditions otherwise unprecedented social disruptions are likely to occur.
The more detailed summary notes for this article can be found here.
Anticipating Societal Collapse; Hints From the Stone Age
M. Scheffer
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 113, No. 39 (September 27, 2016), pp. 10733-10735
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26471823
New research has demonstrated that just prior to collapse prehistoric societies exhibit reduced resilience. Several examples are cited where growing societal stress caused by a variety of factors builds over a number of years/decades. This reduces the resilience of the society with a sudden stressor tipping it into a fairly abrupt collapse.
The author wonders if there may be indicators of such a loss of resilience that might signal that collapse is imminent and thereby provide some time to prepare.
This research is based upon systems theory that proposes subtle changes occur in a complex system’s dynamics as it approaches a tipping point. Systems naturally experience fluctuations in their conditions with fairly quick recovery when their resilience is high, but when their resilience is low recovery is much slower. When this occurs near a tipping point, the chances of “an avalanche of self-propelling change” increases. Tipping points, therefore, may be signalled by a noticeable loss in resilience. See Figure 1.
A 2016 paper by Downey et al. claims to have found evidence of such signalling about 8000 years ago. Agricultural societies that spread out from the Tigris-Euphrates region showed rapid growth followed by collapse with population densities just prior to collapse showing rising variance suggesting declining resilience. The data further shows a cyclical boom-bust cycle lasting 400-1000 years.
If it is a case of a user-resource cycle, the declining conditions should have alerted communities to alter their economies and institutions to adapt prior to collapse. However, a number of factors led to societies resisting the necessary change to avoid a crash (i.e., sunk-cost effect, bystander effect, vested interests). These factors may actually become stronger with a more complex and elaborate society.
It may be impossible for a society to avoid collapse via adaptation, if it is in a low-resilience situation. Identifying resilience indicators and scanning for them to determine a society’s level and vulnerability may be a useful endeavour.
The more detailed summary notes for this article can be found here.
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Released September 30, 2024
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword by Erik Michaels and Afterword by Dr. Guy McPherson, authors include: Dr. Peter A Victor, George Tsakraklides, Charles Hugh Smith, Dr. Tony Povilitis, Jordan Perry, Matt Orsagh, Justin McAffee, Jack Lowe, The Honest Sorcerer, Fast Eddy, Will Falk, Dr. Ugo Bardi, and Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
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