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Collapsology

![The Earth seen from Apollo 17.jpg][float-right] Collapsology is a transdisciplinary field that investigates the prospective collapse of industrial civilization through the lens of converging crises, including ecological degradation, resource depletion, and socioeconomic instability.^[1] Emerging in France during the mid-2010s, it gained prominence through the 2015 book Comment tout peut s'effondrer by agronomist Pablo Servigne and systems engineer Raphaël Stevens, which compiles interdisciplinary evidence to forecast systemic breakdown rather than isolated failures.^[2] The approach integrates historical analyses of past societal collapses—such as those in Jared Diamond's Collapse—with forward-looking models like the MIT World3 simulation from Limits to Growth (1972), which projected resource-driven economic halt around 2030 if trends persisted, a trajectory some recent data validations partially corroborate through indicators of stagnating growth and environmental strain.^[3] Proponents emphasize causal chains from overshoot to cascading failures, advocating psychological and communal preparation over denial or techno-optimism.^[4] However, critics contend that collapsology often veers into speculative determinism, underweighting empirical demonstrations of human adaptation, substitution effects in markets, and historical resilience against doomsday forecasts, as evidenced by the literature's identification of multiple scholarly debates on collapse preconditions lacking consensus on inevitability.^[3]^[5]

Origins

Etymology and Definition

The term collapsology (French: collapsologie) is a neologism coined in 2015 by French researchers Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens in their book Comment tout peut s'effondrer: Une insurrection pour l'ère post-effondrement (translated as How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for Our Times).^[6]^[7] It derives etymologically from the English "collapse" (itself from Latin collapsus, past participle of collabi, meaning "to fall together" or "to tumble down") combined with the suffix "-logy" (from Greek logos, denoting "study" or "discourse").^[8]^[9] This formation emphasizes systematic inquiry into processes of systemic failure, distinguishing it from mere prediction or alarmism.^[10] Collapsology is defined by its originators as a transdisciplinary field examining the risks, causes, mechanisms, and potential aftermath of the collapse of industrial civilization, integrating insights from ecology, economics, anthropology, and complex systems theory to assess vulnerabilities such as resource depletion and cascading failures.^[7]^[11] Servigne and Stevens describe it not only as an analytical framework but also as a process involving emotional and existential adaptation to the possibility of abrupt societal breakdown, potentially around mid-century, urging preparation for post-collapse scenarios rather than denial or unfounded optimism.^[6]^[12] While proponents frame collapsology as a pragmatic response to empirical indicators of unsustainability—drawing on historical precedents and current data trends—its scope extends beyond strict empiricism to include philosophical reflections on resilience and human limits, setting it apart from narrower disciplines like risk analysis or futurology.^[13]^[4] This holistic approach has been critiqued for blending science with speculative elements, yet its definitional core remains rooted in causal analysis of interconnected global systems.^[14]

Intellectual Precursors

Thomas Malthus's 1798 An Essay on the Principle of Population introduced the concept of population growth outpacing subsistence resources, predicting periodic crises of famine, disease, and war as corrective mechanisms when exponential population increases exceed linear food production. This framework, rooted in empirical observations of agricultural limits, framed resource scarcity as an inherent driver of societal instability, influencing subsequent analyses of overpopulation and carrying capacity.^[15] The 1972 Limits to Growth report, commissioned by the Club of Rome and authored by Donella Meadows and colleagues, employed computer modeling to simulate interactions between population, industrial expansion, resource depletion, and pollution, forecasting a potential global societal collapse by the mid-21st century absent policy interventions to curb growth rates. Drawing on system dynamics pioneered by Jay Forrester, the study highlighted feedback loops and overshoot dynamics in finite systems, providing an early quantitative basis for warnings of industrial civilization's unsustainable trajectory.^[3] Joseph Tainter's 1988 The Collapse of Complex Societies advanced a theory of diminishing returns, arguing that societies accrue complexity—through bureaucracy, technology, and specialization—to address challenges, but eventual marginal costs exceed benefits, eroding problem-solving capacity and precipitating rapid simplification. Analyzing cases like the Western Roman Empire and the Maya, Tainter emphasized internal economic exhaustion over singular catastrophes, offering a parsimonious explanation applicable to modern states facing escalating maintenance demands.^[3] Jared Diamond's 2005 Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed synthesized archaeological and environmental data to identify recurrent factors in historical failures, including deforestation, soil degradation, climate shifts, trade disruptions, and inadequate societal responses, as seen in the Anasazi, Easter Islanders, and Greenland Norse. Diamond's five-point framework stressed elite decision-making failures in exploiting natural capital, bridging historical patterns with contemporary risks from global resource strain and ecological feedback.^[3] These works collectively transitioned collapse studies from philosophical speculation to evidence-based inquiry, integrating economics, ecology, and history to dissect causal chains of decline, which collapsology later extended to probabilistic assessments of industrial modernity's resilience.^[3]

Core Concepts

Definition of Societal Collapse

Societal collapse is characterized by a rapid, significant decline in a society's sociopolitical complexity, often accompanied by substantial reductions in population, economic productivity, and institutional organization. Joseph Tainter defines it as occurring when a society experiences "a rapid, significant loss of an established level of sociopolitical complexity," where complexity encompasses hierarchical structures, specialized divisions of labor, information networks, and energy mobilization capacities that enable adaptation to challenges.^[16] This loss typically spans a considerable geographic area and persists over decades or centuries, distinguishing collapse from gradual decline or temporary disruptions.^[17] Jared Diamond complements this by framing collapse as "a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time," emphasizing that such events frequently involve the breakdown of central authority, trade networks, and technological infrastructure.^[18] Key indicators include sharp drops in settlement sizes, abandonment of urban centers, and reversion to subsistence economies, as evidenced in historical cases like the Western Roman Empire's fragmentation after 476 CE, where administrative control eroded amid fiscal insolvency and invasions.^[3] Unlike mere regression or transformation, collapse implies a failure of the adaptive system to sustain prior energy flows and coordination, often yielding fragmented polities with reduced per capita resource access.^[16] In the context of collapsology, this definition extends to industrial civilizations, where collapse would manifest as the systemic failure of globalized supply chains, fossil fuel dependency, and just-in-time logistics, potentially triggered by cascading failures in energy production or financial systems.^[19] Proponents argue that modern complexity amplifies vulnerability, as interconnected systems propagate shocks rapidly, though empirical analysis reveals collapses are rarely total extinctions but rather decentralizations allowing localized resilience.^[3] Tainter notes that while complexity yields initial benefits, sustained investments eventually face diminishing marginal returns, eroding societal solvency and precipitating simplification.^[20] Diamond adds that elite mismanagement of environmental feedbacks can accelerate this process, as seen in the Mayan lowlands' depopulation around 900 CE due to deforestation and drought amplification.^[18]

Identified Causal Factors

Collapsologists emphasize polycrises—interlinked disruptions across multiple systems—as the primary mechanism driving potential societal collapse, rather than isolated events. This framework, articulated by Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens, posits that modern industrial civilization's high complexity and globalization amplify vulnerabilities, where failures cascade unpredictably.^[6] Drawing on empirical indicators like planetary boundaries and limits to growth, they argue that systemic thresholds, once crossed, lead to irreversible declines in energy availability, economic function, and ecological stability.^[21] Environmental degradation forms a core causal domain, including climate change-induced phenomena such as droughts, wildfires, and biodiversity loss. These factors erode food production, trigger mass migrations, and strain infrastructure, with biodiversity collapse reducing ecosystem services essential for human survival. Servigne and Stevens highlight how such ecological tipping points interact with human pressures, accelerating resource scarcity.^[22] Economic and financial instabilities constitute another critical vector, characterized by unsustainable debt accumulation, inequality, and elite resource hoarding. The HANDY model, referenced in collapsology literature, illustrates how unequal wealth distribution depletes societal resource bases, precipitating collapse even under moderate consumption levels. Institutional lock-in—rigid structures resistant to reform—exacerbates this by hindering adaptive responses to fiscal bubbles and market failures.^[22]^[21] Energy and resource depletion, particularly of fossil fuels, undermine the foundational inputs of industrial systems, leading to declining returns on investment and supply chain disruptions. Social factors, including unrest, overpopulation strains, and loss of institutional trust, act as amplifiers, with events like pandemics serving as proximate triggers that expose underlying fragilities.^[6]^[22]

Ecological: Biodiversity erosion, chemical pollution, climate extremes.
Economic: Debt crises, inequality-driven elite overconsumption.
Energetic/Resource: [Fossil fuel](/page/Fossil fuel) exhaustion, trade disruptions.
Social/Political: Migrations, unrest, institutional erosion.
Acute Triggers: Pandemics, resource wars, terror.

These factors are not deterministic but probabilistically convergent, with collapsology urging scrutiny of empirical data over optimistic narratives from growth-dependent institutions.^[21]

Scientific and Empirical Basis

Evidence from Historical Collapses

Historical analyses of societal collapses, such as those examined by Joseph Tainter, emphasize that complex societies often succumb when investments in administrative, economic, and technological complexity yield diminishing marginal returns, rendering them unable to address escalating stresses like resource scarcity or external threats. Tainter's review of over two dozen cases spanning millennia identifies collapse not as sudden catastrophe but as rapid simplification, with reduced specialization, stratification, and centralized control, often triggered by unsustainable energy or resource investments.^[23] Empirical patterns across these instances include environmental degradation intertwined with sociopolitical factors, though outcomes vary and rarely involve total annihilation, as populations typically persist at lower scales.^[24] The Classic Maya collapse in the Central Lowlands around 800–900 CE exemplifies hydrological and ecological stressors amplifying internal vulnerabilities. Lake sediment cores and speleothem records indicate megadroughts from approximately 800–1000 CE, with precipitation reductions up to 70% in some periods, correlating closely with the abandonment of major centers like Tikal and Calakmul, where populations declined by 90% or more. Archaeological evidence of intensified slash-and-burn agriculture and deforestation reduced soil fertility and water retention, exacerbating drought impacts, while epigraphic records and fortified sites suggest warfare and elite competition hindered adaptive responses.^[25] However, northern Maya regions persisted, indicating regional variability rather than uniform civilizational failure.^[26] In the Western Roman Empire's disintegration by 476 CE, economic contraction and institutional rigidity provide evidence of complexity's limits under multifaceted pressures. Fiscal records show debasement of currency and tax revenues falling from 1.5–2 billion sesterces annually in the 3rd century to unsustainable levels by the 5th, amid barbarian migrations and civil wars that fragmented administrative control over 4–5 million square kilometers.^[27] Climate data from tree rings and ice cores reveal cooling episodes around 400–500 CE, contributing to agricultural shortfalls, though primary drivers included military overextension—with legions shrinking from 400,000 to under 200,000 effectives—and elite hoarding that widened inequality.^[28] Over 220 proposed explanations underscore causal complexity, rejecting monocausal narratives like moral decay in favor of systemic interactions.^[27] Recent re-evaluations of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) challenge simplistic ecocide models, highlighting adaptive resilience despite deforestation. Pollen and obsidian hydration analyses indicate palm loss by 1650 CE, yet genetic studies of 15 ancient individuals show no pre-European population crash, with continuity to 2,000–3,000 inhabitants upon Dutch contact in 1722, contradicting estimates of decline to dozens.^[29] Resource management shifts, including rock mulching for agriculture covering 10–15% of arable land, sustained viability amid isolation, though intertribal conflict arose later from European-introduced diseases and slave raids.^[30] This case illustrates how environmental depletion need not precipitate irreversible collapse if sociotechnical innovations mitigate effects.^[31] Cross-case syntheses, including 12 stressed societies from a 2012 study, reveal no universal predictors but recurrent themes: elite mismanagement, population pressures exceeding carrying capacity, and failure to innovate under compounding variables like climate shifts.^[24] For instance, Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean polities circa 1200 BCE collapsed amid drought, trade disruptions, and migrations, with urban sites showing 50–90% depopulation.^[3] Such evidence supports collapsology's emphasis on precautionary analysis but cautions against deterministic analogies, as survivability often hinges on diffusion of knowledge or external aid absent in isolated systems.^[32]

Application to Contemporary Society

Collapsologists apply analytical frameworks from historical collapses—such as resource overexploitation, environmental degradation, and social stratification—to contemporary global industrial society, arguing that interconnected systems heighten vulnerability to cascading failures. Proponents identify ecological overshoot as a primary indicator, where human resource consumption exceeds planetary biocapacity, evidenced by metrics like the global ecological footprint surpassing regeneration rates by over 70% annually as of recent assessments. This mirrors patterns in past collapses, like the Maya civilization's deforestation-driven decline, but amplified by modern globalization, where disruptions in one region propagate worldwide.^[3] A seminal application draws from the 1972 Limits to Growth model, which simulated interactions among population, industrial output, food production, resource depletion, and pollution; Gaya Herrington's 2021 empirical update compared World3 model outputs to real-world data from 1972–2020, finding the closest alignment with the "business-as-usual" scenario, projecting sharp declines in population and economic activity around 2040 due to unmet resource demands and accumulating pollutants. This scenario assumes continued growth priorities without systemic shifts, consistent with observed trends like stagnating per-capita resource availability amid rising extraction rates. Collapsologists contend this validates warnings of near-term systemic stress, particularly as industrial production indicators have begun plateauing in line with model predictions.^[33]^[34] Social and political dimensions receive similar scrutiny through cliodynamic models, which quantify cycles of instability driven by elite overproduction and intra-elite competition. Peter Turchin's structural-demographic theory, applied to modern datasets, highlights rising inequality—such as U.S. Gini coefficients exceeding 0.41 in 2023—and youth unemployment as fuels for polarization and unrest, akin to preconditions in Roman or pre-revolutionary France. Contemporary manifestations include the 2020–2022 wave of protests, supply chain breakdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, and energy shortages from the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict, interpreted as empirical previews of fragility in complex, energy-dependent societies.^[3] Economic applications emphasize debt accumulation and financialization as accelerators, with global debt-to-GDP ratios surpassing 350% by 2023, creating brittleness to shocks as seen in the 2008 crisis's near-systemic contagion. Proponents like those in collapsology literature link these to causal chains where diminishing returns on energy investments—evidenced by declining net energy return on fossil fuels from 100:1 in the mid-20th century to under 10:1 today—erode adaptive capacity, potentially triggering feedback loops of inequality and conflict. While adaptations like renewable transitions mitigate some risks, collapsologists argue empirical trajectories favor contraction over indefinite growth.^[35]^[3]

Methodological Critiques

Critics argue that collapsology's transdisciplinary approach, while ambitious in synthesizing fields like ecology, anthropology, and economics, often results in an unstructured eclectic method lacking the rigor of established scientific disciplines. Proponents such as Pablo Servigne and Yves Cochet emphasize intuitive reasoning alongside empirical data, but this blend introduces subjectivity without standardized protocols for hypothesis testing or data validation, rendering analyses more speculative than systematic.^[36] Jean-Pierre Dupuy, a philosopher at Stanford University and École Polytechnique, has described the framework as "irrational" and "conceptually false" due to its failure to adhere to falsifiable predictions or probabilistic modeling, instead favoring broad probabilistic assertions of inevitable decline that evade empirical disconfirmation.^[6]^[36] A core methodological flaw lies in collapsology's handling of complex adaptive systems, where it posits heightened fragility from globalization and interconnectedness without adequately accounting for inherent resilience mechanisms observed in systems theory. Dupuy contends that collapsologists overestimate vulnerability by ignoring how complexity fosters redundancy, feedback loops, and adaptive capacity, as evidenced in historical and contemporary networks that have withstood shocks without total failure.^[6] This selective emphasis on downside risks bypasses quantitative simulations or agent-based modeling common in complexity science, leading to deterministic narratives that undervalue emergent stability.^[6] Theoretically, collapsology is critiqued for lacking a robust framework explaining societal cohesion or the dynamics of modern institutions, particularly capitalism's capacity to innovate amid crises. Richard Hames argues that traditional collapsology treats economic systems as static aggregates of environmental pressures, neglecting a political economy of collapse that integrates institutional evolution and class dynamics, resulting in methodological indeterminacy over what constitutes causal evidence.^[37] Without a delineated theory of social structure, analyses devolve into fragmented listings of stressors—such as resource scarcity or inequality—devoid of causal hierarchies or counterfactual testing.^[37] Empirically, reliance on historical case studies, like the fall of the Roman Empire or Easter Island, is seen as methodologically limited for extrapolating to a global industrial context, as these localized collapses involved unique contingencies not scalable to interconnected planetary systems. Hames notes that such analogies isolate tendencies without integrating systemic feedbacks, such as technological diffusion or policy responses, which have historically mitigated analogous pressures.^[37] Furthermore, the absence of peer-reviewed longitudinal data or controlled comparisons undermines claims of near-term inevitability, positioning collapsology closer to narrative synthesis than hypothesis-driven inquiry.^[36] Critics like Dupuy highlight how specific timelines, such as Yves Cochet's projection of collapse by 2030, risk falsification through non-occurrence, yet the framework's vagueness allows retroactive adjustment without methodological penalty.^[6]

Modern Development

Foundational Works and Proponents

Collapsology emerged as a distinct intellectual framework through the 2015 publication of Comment tout peut s'effondrer: petit manuel de collapsologie à l'usage des générations présentes by Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens, which introduced the term and outlined its core methodology as a transdisciplinary effort to analyze the risks of industrial civilization's collapse due to interconnected ecological, energetic, and socioeconomic pressures.^[38]^[39] Servigne, an agronomist focused on agroecology, and Stevens, an engineer specializing in complex systems, drew on empirical data from fields like ecology and thermodynamics to argue that modern societies exhibit vulnerabilities akin to historical collapses, emphasizing probabilistic forecasting over deterministic predictions.^[40] Their work, translated into English as How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for Our Times in 2020, sold over 100,000 copies in French by 2020 and spurred a broader discourse on societal fragility.^[41] A follow-up by the same authors, Un autre fin du monde est possible (2018), expanded on practical responses, advocating mutual aid and resilience-building while critiquing techno-optimism as denial of biophysical limits.^[42] Key proponents include Yves Cochet, a former French Minister of the Environment (1997–2001) and Europe Écologie–Les Verts politician, who integrated collapsological ideas into his 2011 book Préparez-vous à l'effondrement (Prepare for the Collapse), forecasting a rapid decline in global population and economic output due to resource overshoot by the 2030s.^[6] Cochet, who chairs the Momentum Institute—a think tank assessing environmental risks—has positioned collapsology as a pragmatic extension of peak oil and climate analyses, urging degrowth and self-sufficiency based on indicators like declining energy return on investment (EROI) for fossil fuels, which fell from 100:1 in the early 20th century to under 20:1 by 2010.^[4]^[41] Other early contributors, such as Agnès Sinaï, co-founder of the Momentum Institute, have collaborated with Cochet to frame collapsology within geopolitical risk assessment, publishing reports since 2010 that quantify collapse probabilities using metrics like biodiversity loss rates—exceeding 1,000 times natural background levels per Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) data—and soil degradation affecting 33% of global land by 2015.^[6] These works prioritize causal chains from overexploitation to systemic failure, distinguishing collapsology from precursors by its explicit focus on near-term industrial-era endpoints rather than cyclical historical patterns.^[4] Collapsology emerged in 2015 through the work of agronomist Pablo Servigne and systems consultant Raphaël Stevens, who coined the term in their book Comment tout peut s'effondrer, framing it as a transdisciplinary effort to examine the potential systemic breakdown of industrial civilization due to interconnected ecological, economic, and social pressures.^[38] Initially rooted in French intellectual circles, the concept gained momentum by 2017–2018, with endorsements from figures like former French environment minister Yves Cochet, who integrated it into policy discussions on sustainability limits and resource depletion.^[6] By 2020, the English translation of the book as How Everything Can Collapse facilitated international dissemination, coinciding with heightened public interest amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which some proponents viewed as an early indicator of fragility in global supply chains and governance structures.^[41] The movement's evolution shifted from theoretical analysis to practical orientations, including the formation of local networks focused on self-reliance, agroecology, and mutual aid. In rural France, communities inspired by collapsology have established off-grid settlements emphasizing permaculture and low-tech solutions to anticipated disruptions, as documented in ethnographic accounts of anti-capitalist environmentalist groups.^[6] Online platforms and portals, such as collapsologie.fr, emerged to aggregate resources on collapse risks and adaptation strategies, fostering global dialogues among researchers and activists.^[43] This applied phase drew on historical case studies of past collapses to inform contemporary resilience planning, though it remains decentralized without formal institutional backing.^[4] Related movements include Jem Bendell's Deep Adaptation framework, introduced in a 2018 paper that posits near-term societal collapse from climate impacts as likely, advocating the "4 Rs" of resilience, relinquishment, reconciliation, and restoration to navigate ensuing disruptions.^[44] While collapsology emphasizes causal analysis of polycrises, Deep Adaptation prioritizes psychological and communal preparation, with overlapping communities engaging in scenario planning for food, energy, and social instability.^[45] Both intersect with broader environmentalist currents like degrowth advocacy, which critiques endless expansion but differs by seeking deliberate societal contraction rather than accepting inevitable rupture; however, collapsology's fatalistic undertones distinguish it from optimistic transition initiatives.^[5]

Reception and Debates

Academic and Scientific Responses

Academic scholars in fields such as philosophy, sociology, and systems theory have largely characterized collapsology as a transdisciplinary endeavor situated at the periphery of established science, rather than a formal scientific discipline. It draws selectively from empirical data on ecological limits, resource depletion, and historical precedents—such as the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth report (1972), which modeled potential overshoot and decline scenarios based on exponential growth versus finite resources—but integrates these with intuitive, holistic, and metaphysical elements that deviate from scientific norms of falsifiability, peer-reviewed hypothesis testing, and predictive modeling.^[46] This synthesis, while acknowledging overlapping crises like climate change and biodiversity loss documented in IPCC reports, lacks the rigorous reasoning required for scientific validity, often blending verified data with untestable narratives of inevitable industrial collapse.^[47] Philosopher Jean-Pierre Dupuy has critiqued collapsology as "irrational catastrophism," arguing it exhibits conceptual vagueness and inconsistencies, such as conflating systemic complication with true complexity, which overlooks how interconnected modern societies may enhance resilience through adaptive feedbacks rather than guaranteeing fragility.^[48] Dupuy further contends that collapsologists' tendency to forecast specific timelines for collapse, such as Yves Cochet's projection around 2030, invites a predictive fallacy: success in averting disaster via awareness would discredit the prophecy, while failure reinforces fatalism without causal mechanisms for intervention.^[6] Similarly, economists like Bruno Deffains emphasize the absence of deductive reasoning, noting that while collapsology assembles scientific facts, it fails to construct models accounting for human innovation, policy responses, or historical recoveries from crises, rendering claims of inevitability empirically unsubstantiated.^[47] In environmental philosophy and ethics, Catherine and Raphaël Larrère highlight methodological flaws in collapsology's global-scale focus, which they argue promotes a myopic dismissal of localized adaptations and incremental reforms, unsupported by granular causal analysis of how societies have mitigated past stressors like the 1970s oil shocks through technological substitution.^[48] Broader literature reviews in archaeology and futures studies distinguish collapsology from empirical analyses of historical collapses—such as those by Joseph Tainter on diminishing returns to complexity—which rely on archaeological data and econometric proxies rather than prospective intuition. These reviews identify collapsology's premises as echoing valid concerns from peer-reviewed work on planetary boundaries (e.g., Rockström et al., 2009) but critique its holistic approach for lacking quantifiable thresholds or probabilistic scenarios, potentially amplifying defeatism over evidence-based risk assessment.^[3] Despite these reservations, some scholars in sustainability science view collapsology as a heuristic for integrating transdisciplinary evidence on systemic risks, though they caution against its non-falsifiable assertions that prioritize emotional preparation over verifiable forecasting.^[46]

Criticisms of Alarmism and Defeatism

Critics of collapsology argue that its projections of near-term societal collapse often veer into alarmism by amplifying outlier scenarios and feedback mechanisms beyond empirical support from mainstream climate science. For example, claims of inevitable runaway effects, such as amplified Arctic methane releases dominating global warming, have been rebutted for overemphasizing natural tipping points while underplaying anthropogenic emissions as the primary driver, as detailed in IPCC special reports on ocean and cryosphere changes.^[49] ^[50] This alarmism is compounded by selective sourcing from non-consensus figures, leading to flawed conclusions that erode public trust in environmental advocacy. Analysis of related frameworks like Deep Adaptation, which draws on collapsological premises, highlights reliance on discredited predictors and logical fallacies, such as extrapolating localized data to global inevitability without accounting for variability in climate models.^[49]^[51] Defeatism arises as a core critique, with collapsology's fatalistic framing accused of inducing psychological paralysis and reducing motivation for collective action. Surveys involving over 50,000 respondents show that perceptions of unstoppable climate impacts correlate with lower support for mitigation policies, as individuals internalize helplessness rather than pursuing adaptive reforms.^[49] Such pessimism distorts evidence by prioritizing collapse narratives over evidence of societal resilience, including historical recoveries from resource strains and modern transitions like renewable energy scaling, which demonstrate capacity for navigation without total breakdown. Critics contend this overlooks unpredictable social dynamics and policy innovations, fostering eco-anxiety that hampers solidarity and transformative efforts.^[52] In broader terms, these elements undermine urgency for verifiable interventions, as alarmist defeatism justifies passivity—e.g., questioning the rationale for civil disobedience if collapse is deemed inescapable—potentially stalling progress on emissions reductions tracked at 1.1% annual declines in advanced economies by 2023.^[49]

Optimistic Counterperspectives

Critics of collapsology, including economists and data-driven analysts, contend that predictions of imminent global societal collapse overlook historical patterns of human adaptation and innovation, which have repeatedly averted Malthusian traps. For instance, the 1972 Limits to Growth report forecasted resource depletion and economic collapse by the mid-21st century due to exponential population growth outstripping finite supplies, yet subsequent decades saw agricultural yields double through the Green Revolution and technological advances, preventing widespread famine.^[53] Similarly, Paul Ehrlich's 1968 predictions of mass starvation by the 1980s were disproven as global food production rose 2.5-fold between 1961 and 2019, lifting absolute poverty rates from 42% of the world population in 1981 to under 10% by 2019.^[54] These outcomes underscore how market incentives and scientific progress, rather than inherent limits, drive resource efficiency; for example, despite population tripling since 1950, per capita food availability increased by 30%.^[55] Empirical indicators refute claims of systemic overshoot leading to irreversible decline, with global trends demonstrating sustained improvements in human welfare and environmental metrics. Life expectancy worldwide rose from 66 years in 1990 to 73 by 2021, while child mortality fell 59% in the same period, reflecting advances in medicine and sanitation that collapsology often dismisses as unsustainable.^[56] Forest cover in wealthy nations has stabilized or expanded due to agricultural intensification and reforestation, countering narratives of perpetual deforestation; Europe's forest area grew 10% since 1990.^[54] Bjørn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, argues that such data invalidates apocalyptic models by showing how economic growth enables environmental stewardship, as evidenced by declining air pollution in developed economies post-industrialization.^[57] Steven Pinker, in analyzing long-term datasets, posits that Enlightenment values of reason and humanism have yielded compounding gains, with violence rates dropping 90% over centuries and prosperity decoupling from resource consumption via dematerialization.^[56] These metrics, drawn from sources like the World Bank and UN, highlight causal mechanisms—innovation and trade—over deterministic collapse trajectories. Proponents of resilience emphasize that interconnected global systems enhance adaptability, mitigating risks that felled isolated pre-modern societies. Unlike historical collapses, such as the Maya or Easter Island, modern institutions facilitate knowledge diffusion and substitution; for example, hydraulic fracturing increased global energy supply by 20% since 2008, averting predicted oil shortages.^[58] Mainstream scientists assert no empirical signals indicate imminent breakdown, with engineering solutions like desalination and carbon capture scaling to address constraints.^[58] Even former collapse advocates, like Jem Bendell, have revised views, acknowledging that while vulnerabilities exist, adaptive capacity—bolstered by declining fertility rates (global total fertility at 2.3 births per woman in 2021, down from 5 in 1950)—renders total failure improbable.^[59] Critics like Lomborg warn that collapsology's defeatism diverts resources from cost-effective R&D, such as investing $100 billion annually in green innovation to yield trillions in benefits, prioritizing evidence-based prioritization over fatalism.^[60] This perspective aligns with first-principles analysis: human problem-solving, empirically validated across eras, favors incremental progress over cataclysm.

Implications

Predicted Scenarios

Collapsologists anticipate the collapse of industrial civilization through a convergence of ecological, energetic, economic, and social pressures, resulting in a rapid or gradual reduction in societal complexity that prevents meeting basic needs such as food, water, energy, and security for a majority of the population. This process, termed "effondrement" or systemic breakdown, draws on historical precedents like the fall of the Maya or Roman empires but emphasizes modern vulnerabilities due to global interdependence and planetary boundaries exceedance. Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens outline mechanisms including peak oil, climate tipping points, soil degradation, and biodiversity loss, which could trigger cascading failures across interconnected systems.^[2]^[61] Predicted timelines vary among proponents, with former French environment minister Yves Cochet forecasting the onset of major collapse around 2030, driven primarily by climatic catastrophes that could halve the global population through famine, migration, and conflict. Servigne and Stevens avoid pinpoint dates but describe the trajectory as already underway, with potential for near-term irreversibility as energy return on investment declines and financial systems falter under resource constraints. Other scenarios include "mini-collapses" like the 2020 COVID-19 disruptions, interpreted as precursors to broader systemic unraveling involving supply chain breakdowns and governance failures.^[6]^[41]^[62] Forms of collapse envisioned range from abrupt, total breakdowns—such as synchronized failures in global trade, finance, and agriculture leading to widespread anarchy—to more protracted declines where regions experience partial resilience while others devolve into localized chaos. Servigne and Stevens categorize levels including energetic collapse (e.g., fossil fuel exhaustion), climatic (e.g., crop failures from extreme weather), and economic (e.g., debt bubbles bursting amid resource scarcity), often amplifying one another through feedback loops. Cochet's outlook stresses a "global meltdown" within a decade from 2020, encompassing energy shortages and geopolitical strife, though empirical data on past collapses indicate variability rather than uniformity in speed or severity.^[63]^[41]

Adaptation and Resilience Strategies

Collapsology proponents propose adaptation strategies that prioritize decentralized, community-based resilience over reliance on centralized systems vulnerable to systemic shocks. These approaches draw on historical analyses of past collapses and contemporary observations of crises, such as those in Syria and Yemen, where local networks enabled survival through improvised resource sharing and innovation. Key tactics include developing small-scale, self-sufficient production systems, such as hydroponic or vertical farming for food security, solar microgrids for energy independence, and water recycling to counter disruptions in global supply chains.^[19] Influenced by frameworks like Jem Bendell's deep adaptation agenda, collapsological strategies emphasize four interrelated principles: resilience, which involves safeguarding core social values and infrastructures through diversified local economies; relinquishment, entailing the deliberate abandonment of high-consumption habits and fossil fuel dependencies to avoid exacerbating resource depletion; restoration, reviving pre-industrial practices such as agroecology, permaculture, and ecosystem stewardship to rebuild degraded environments; and reconciliation, fostering psychological preparedness via collective grieving processes, mindfulness, and community rituals to manage trauma and enable adaptive decision-making.^[44] This contrasts with conventional resilience models that aim to restore business-as-usual operations, which collapsologists argue are illusory given irreversible biophysical limits like climate tipping points and biodiversity loss.^[64] Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens, foundational figures in collapsology, advocate mutual aid as a core mechanism, promoting the formation of solidarity networks for skill-sharing, bartering, and cooperative governance, often in rural or semi-rural settings where decision-making can occur rapidly without bureaucratic inertia.^[42] Their works highlight relocalization—shifting production and consumption to proximate scales—to diminish vulnerabilities from just-in-time global logistics, as evidenced by supply disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which exposed over-dependence on distant manufacturing. Sobriety, or voluntary material restraint, is positioned as both an ethical imperative and practical buffer, reducing ecological footprints while cultivating skills in foraging, basic healthcare, and low-tech fabrication.^[38] Critics within and outside collapsology note potential pitfalls, such as an overemphasis on individual or small-group preparation that may undermine broader collective action, though proponents counter that such strategies empirically align with survivor accounts from historical collapses, like the Mayan or Roman cases, where adaptive communities outlasted isolated efforts. Empirical support remains limited to localized crises rather than global scenarios, underscoring the speculative nature of scaling these tactics amid uncertain collapse trajectories.^[19]

References

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Oct 11, 2020 · Collapsology has plenty of detractors. The philosopher Jean-Pierre Dupuy, of the École Polytechnique in Paris and Stanford University in ...Missing: definition origins
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SMOKERS' CORNER: THE CURSE OF 'COLLAPSOLOGY' - Dawn
Jan 5, 2025 · A trans-disciplinary field of study that explores environmental, economic, social and political factors that contribute to civilisational collapses.
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collapsologie - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
From Latin collāpsus +‎ -logie, coined by Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens in 2015. ... Noun. collapsologie f (plural collapsologies). (neologism) collapsology.
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Définition : Collapsologie, collapsologue - La Toupie
Oct 24, 2020 · Etymologie : de l'anglais collapse, s'effondrer, dérivé du latin collapsus, tombé, écroulé, affaissé, qui ne se soutient plus, tombé en dé ...
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Définition | Collapsologie : qu'est-ce que c'est ? | Futura planète
Dec 4, 2022 · Ce terme provient de l'anglais collapse, qui signifie s'effondrer, et du grec logos, discours. En France, la collapsologie est représentée par ...
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La collapsologie ou la théorie de l'effondrement - Greenly
Aug 12, 2025 · Issue du latin « collapsus » (qui signifie « s'écrouler ») et de l'anglais « collapse » (qui signifie « s'effondrer »), la collapsologie est l' ...
[12]
Interview with Pablo Servigne - Groupe URD
Feb 24, 2020 · He has a scientific background, and, along with Raphaël Stevens, he invented 'collapsology ... A neologism that describes a form of emotional or ...
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Collapsology: Is this the end of civilisation as we know it?
Dec 9, 2020 · Collapsology is a new term that was invented to try and bring together a number of disciplines that look at systemic risk in different areas.Missing: etymology origin
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La collapsologie à l'épreuve de la réalité - The Conversation
Apr 27, 2020 · Depuis quelques années s'est imposé en France un courant d'idées : la collapsologie. Ce néologisme a été inventé par Pablo Servigne et Raphaël ...<|control11|><|separator|>
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The Malthusian Trap of Societal Collapse - Etonomics
Mar 7, 2025 · The living standard falls to such an extent that the society arrives at a Malthusian Trap: the exhaustion of food supply engenders war and famine.
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[PDF] The Collapse of Complex Societies - Global Systemic Risk
Tainter, Joseph A. The collapse of complex societies. (New studies in archaeology). Includes index. 1. Civilization, Ancient.
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[PDF] Understanding and Predicting Societal Collapse
In this chapter we consider different approaches to understanding the risk of societal collapse. According to Joseph Tainter, collapse is a rapid and ...
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A Critique: Jared Diamond's Collapse Put In Perspective
Jared Diamond's book Collapse captivated readers with its tales of past great civilizations succumbing to dramatic cycles of decline, and among them are the ...
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How we could survive in a post-collapse world
Mar 31, 2025 · For this analysis, we adopt a definition of societal collapse as developed within the emerging field of collapsology [21]. This framework ...<|control11|><|separator|>
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“Fragile, impermanent things”: Joseph Tainter on what makes ...
Mar 12, 2025 · Tainter's theory of collapse is deceptively simple—especially when paraphrased. Collapse occurs, he argues, when the costs of complexity are ...
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Book review: How Everything Can Collapse, by Pablo Servigne and ...
Mar 2, 2020 · There's a striking moment where the book describes how a global pandemic could be a trigger for economic collapse, something that resonates in a ...Missing: summary | Show results with:summary
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A Manual for our Times” by Servigne and Stevens - Footnotes2Plato
Nov 7, 2021 · In addition to the threat of pandemics which we have all grown familiar with, Servigne and Stevens list other catastrophes that are likely to ...
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'The Collapse of Complex Societies' - resilience
Jun 7, 2023 · A complex society that has collapsed is suddenly smaller, simpler, less stratified, and less socially differentiated. Specialisation decreases and there is ...
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Critical perspectives on historical collapse - PMC - NIH
This Special Feature examines 12 case studies of societies under stress, of which seven suffered severe transformation. Outcomes were complex and unpredictable.
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Classic Period collapse of the Central Maya Lowlands
The ninth century collapse and abandonment of the Central Maya Lowlands in the Yucatán peninsular region were the result of complex human–environment ...
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New clues about how and why the Maya culture collapsed
Feb 28, 2020 · As early as 1912, archaeologists were theorizing that climate change had contributed to the decline of the Maya, said Arizona State University ...
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The Fall of Rome: What was it? Why did it happen? - Peter Turchin
Dec 10, 2016 · There are many theories of why Rome fell. A German historian, Alexander Demandt, counted more than 220 explanations, and a few dozen more ...
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Rise and Fall of the Western Roman Empire (285–476 CE)
The climate instability peaked in the 6th century, likely as a result of the spasm of volcanic activity in the 530s and 540s CE that led to widespread cooling.
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New evidence upends contentious Easter Island theory, scientists say
Sep 14, 2024 · Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, never experienced a ruinous population collapse, according to an analysis of ancient DNA from 15 former inhabitants.
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Study challenges popular idea that Easter Islanders committed ...
Jun 21, 2024 · Their population and civilization collapsed, with just a few thousand people remaining when Europeans found the island in 1722 and called it ...
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Rethinking Easter Island's Historic 'Collapse' - Scientific American
May 30, 2020 · Rapa Nui is often seen as a cautionary example of societal collapse. In this story, made popular by geographer Jared Diamond's bestselling book ...
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Overexploitation of Renewable Resources by Ancient Societies and ...
Feb 5, 2004 · The Mayan, Mesopotamian, and Polynesian societies are famous examples of collapses that were likely caused by resource depletion (Tainter 1988, ...
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[PDF] Update to limits to growth - MAHB
In the 1972 bestseller Limits to Growth (LtG), the authors concluded that, if global soci- ety kept pursuing economic growth, it would experience a decline in ...
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Update to limits to growth: Comparing the World3 model with ...
Nov 3, 2020 · This research constitutes a data update to LtG, by examining to what extent empirical data aligned with four LtG scenarios spanning a range of technological, ...
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Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided? - Journals
Mar 7, 2013 · A global collapse appears likely. Overpopulation, overconsumption by the rich and poor choices of technologies are major drivers.Do current trends portend a... · What needs to be done to... · The role of science
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Is Collapsology Legit? Why We Need a Critical Scientific Review Now!
Sep 10, 2025 · It is not yet regarded as a scientific discipline, but it could potentially evolve into one, particularly through critical studies. What is ...
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Our theory of collapse - by Richard Hames - Crude Futures
Aug 8, 2025 · We argue that it lacks a usefully political concept of collapse, lacks a clear concept of why it is societies stick together in the first place, ...
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How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for our Times - Polity books
Pablo Servigne is an agronomist with a PhD in biology. He is a specialist in questions of collapse, transition, agro-ecology and mutual aid. Raphaël Stevens is ...
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'Collapsologie': Constructing an Idea of How Things Fall Apart
Jan 21, 2020 · Sold as a policy designed to “change the behavior” of French consumers, as Prime Minister Édouard Philippe said, critics saw it as a covert ...Missing: origins | Show results with:origins
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How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for our Times - Amazon.com
30-day returnsThis book explores the possibility of a near-future collapse of civilization due to systemic instabilities and environmental challenges, and provides insights ...Missing: factors | Show results with:factors
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Is this the end of civilisation as we know it? - France 24
Apr 8, 2020 · Pablo Servigne, the ecologist and agricultural engineer who co-wrote "How Everything Can Collapse", has a more chilling take. "The big ...
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Another End of the World Is Possible: Living the Collapse (and Not ...
In this sequel, the goal is to develop a philosophical response to collapse, a “collapsosophy,” that will ostensibly help individuals and communities during ...Missing: summary | Show results with:summary
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Database of scientific articles, academic books and institutional reports on topics related to collapsology.
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Jul 27, 2018 · Such disruptions include increased levels of malnutrition, starvation, disease, civil conflict and war – and will not avoid affluent nations.
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deep adaptation - Prof Jem Bendell
Such a deep disturbance can be fertile ground for rethinking dominant ideas we received from our culture. For some, that can involve rethinking our relationship ...
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1. La collapsologie aux frontières de la science | Cairn.info
Nov 10, 2021 · Chamel, Jean. « 1. La collapsologie aux frontières de la science ». Sociétés en danger Menaces et peurs, perceptions et réactions, La Découverte ...
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« La collapsologie n'est pas une science, mais... » - Le Point
Feb 12, 2020 · L'Institut Aristoclès a mené une vaste étude pour définir la collapsologie, ce courant de pensée qui prédit l'effondrement de notre civilisation ...<|control11|><|separator|>
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Pour une étude critique de la collapsologie - The Conversation
Feb 4, 2021 · La collapsologie naît en France avec la publication en 2015 de l'ouvrage séminal des auteurs Pablo Servigne et Raphaël Stevens : Comment ...
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The faulty science, doomism, and flawed conclusions of 'Deep ...
Jul 14, 2020 · The claim that runaway climate change has made societal collapse inevitable is not only wrong – it undermines the cause of the climate movement.
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Against Climate Pessimism - Green European Journal
Jul 7, 2023 · Climate pessimists bend scientific evidence to their narrative of “collapse”, overlooking the complex, unpredictable nature of social ...Missing: critique | Show results with:critique
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Fearmongering predictions about climate change keep falling apart
Sep 15, 2025 · In 1972, “Limits to Growth” projected that food scarcity and pollution would cause global collapse. Time magazine predicted a future with a few, ...
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Environment improves as more nations prosper - Bjorn Lomborg
We are constantly inundated by dire predictions of climate catastrophe and warnings about the planet's imminent destruction.
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Lomborg: Environmental Doomsday Predictions Collapse As World ...
Sep 16, 2025 · Environmental activists' past doomsday predictions have fizzled out as the world grew richer, greener, and more resilient.<|separator|>
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Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and ...
May 28, 2025 · Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium ...<|control11|><|separator|>
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Bjorn Lomborg | Hoover Institution
Bjorn Lomborg: Is The Climate Crisis ... Bjorn Lomborg discusses climate change and advocates for constructive solutions rather than apocalyptic predictions.
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Why a collapse of global civilization will be avoided - PubMed Central
The mainstream scientific and engineering community can see nothing that suggests an imminent collapse of civilization, and it is well on track to deal with ...
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I was wrong to conclude collapse is inevitable… - Resilience.org
Apr 18, 2023 · When I concluded that societal collapse is inevitable, nearly 5 years ago, it may have been one of the reasons my Deep Adaptation paper attracted unusual ...
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Bjorn Lomborg: Fearmongering shouldn't drive climate policy
Oct 9, 2025 · As the first director of the UN Environment Program, he argued Doomsday was “very probable” unless we ended destructive economic growth.
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How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for Our Times
Feb 9, 2021 · In How Everything Can Collapse, Servigne and Stevens strongly articulate the inevitability of some type of near-term collapse of what they call thermo- ...
[62]
The current 'mini-collapse' requires a democratic response
May 12, 2020 · Yves Cochet, Pablo Servigne and Raphael Stevens describe a “process which leads to a situation in which the basic needs of a majority of the ...
[63]
How Everything Can Collapse: by Servigne and Stevens
Nov 20, 2020 · A collapse would arise from interaction of so many complex variables that its timing cannot be predicted. Models of complex systems (natural and ...Missing: causal | Show results with:causal
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Goodbye Academia - Prof Jem Bendell
Oct 1, 2024 · Discusses the concept of “adaptation delayism,” where criticism of alarmist readings of the science means delaying necessary actions to try ...