{"id":9277,"date":"2015-06-20T07:36:48","date_gmt":"2015-06-20T12:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=9277"},"modified":"2015-06-20T07:36:48","modified_gmt":"2015-06-20T12:36:48","slug":"uk-government-backed-scientific-model-flags-risk-of-civilisations-collapse-by-2040","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=9277","title":{"rendered":"UK Government-backed scientific model flags risk of civilisation\u2019s collapse by 2040"},"content":{"rendered":"

UK Government-backed scientific model flags risk of civilisation\u2019s collapse by 2040<\/a><\/h3>\n

New scientific models supported by the British government\u2019s Foreign Office show that if we don\u2019t change course, in less than three decades industrial civilisation will essentially collapse due to catastrophic food shortages, triggered by a combination of climate change, water scarcity, energy crisis, and political instability.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before you panic, the good news is that the scientists behind the model don\u2019t believe it\u2019s predictive. The model does not account for the reality that people will react to escalating crises by changing behavior and policies.<\/p>\n

But even so, it\u2019s a sobering wake-up call, which shows that business-as-usual guarantees the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it: our current way of life is not sustainable.<\/p>\n

The new models are being developed at Anglia Ruskin University\u2019s Global Sustainability Institute (GSI), through a project called the \u2018Global Resource Observatory\u2019 (GRO).<\/p>\n

The GRO is chiefly funded by the Dawe Charitable Trust, but its partners include the British government\u2019s Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO); British bank, Lloyds of London; the Aldersgate Group, the environment coalition of leaders from business, politics and civil society; the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries; Africa Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, and the University of Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Disruption risk<\/strong><\/h4>\n

This week, Lloyds released a\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0for the insurance industry assessing the risk of a near-term \u201cacute disruption to the global food supply.\u201d Research for the project was led by Anglia Ruskin University\u2019s GSI, and based on its GRO modelling initiative.<\/p>\n

The report explores the scenario of a near-term global food supply disruption, considered plausible on the basis of past events, especially in relation to future climate trends. The global food system, the authors find, is \u201cunder chronic pressure to meet an ever-rising demand, and its vulnerability to acute disruptions is compounded by factors such as climate change, water stress, ongoing globalisation and heightening political instability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three steps from crisis<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Lloyd\u2019s scenario analysis shows that food production across the planet could be significantly undermined due to a combination of just three catastrophic weather events, leading to shortfalls in the production of staple crops, and ensuing price spikes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UK Government-backed scientific model flags risk of civilisation\u2019s collapse by 2040 New scientific models supported by the British government\u2019s Foreign Office show that if we don\u2019t change course, in less than three decades industrial civilisation will essentially collapse due to catastrophic food shortages, triggered by a combination of climate change, water scarcity, energy crisis, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[141,150,323,5427,2092,705],"class_list":["post-9277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-survival-2","tag-climate-change","tag-collapse","tag-food-security","tag-industrial-civilisation","tag-nafeez-ahmed","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9277"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9278,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9277\/revisions\/9278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}