MIT Predicts That World Economy Will Collapse By 2030

The solution, if there really is a problem, is the colonization of the solar system.

"If there really is a problem"? Wow.

I'm all for space exploration, but our problems don't disappear with the colonization of anything. Besides that, what planet in our solar system is even worth colonizing? Mars is about the only one worth consideration, isn't it? Even that would take extraordinary effort. Terraforming is far, far beyond our capabilities, much less transporting several billion people.

I heard a similar speech on TED called the "earth is full" that talks about this same issue. Except he says that it is possible to fix. If anything, its not going to be an easy problem, especially with the depletion of natural resources.

I'm not a world economist, nor do i even be so bold as to claim to have all the answers. But what i can do is bring something to the conversation.

I feel that of course we have set the world on a path to destruction, but before it fails utterly, we can unite and struggle for a better future for all of mankind. I'm only a crane operator but id be willing to put forth the effort to build a new future in a new way for the betterment of mankind.

What i hope to see humanity do in my lifetime is unite under a common goal of saving not only the planet but also humanity itself. We have the technological know-how to do a great many things right, after we have done things so wrong for so long. Humanity must get over its fear of change and look for a new way of thinking and doing things.

Some of the people that read this article may, or may not be aware of projects like the one run in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory with Liquid Thorium nuclear reactors, but that in and of itself could be a big step toward a future that we don't kill ourselves in.

Another project for just such a venture has been initiated and been trying to find funding for some time now, known as the Venus Project. It is literally building and striving for a future that we design with the application of the scientific method so that we can live in harmony with nature, and still be able to flourish as a race. There are no utopian societies, only a society ever trying to make itself better.

In many ways, especially socially, we have stagnated, but we can fix this.

Trojax, you my sir are one smart crane operator.

I totally agree with Trojax. We really are at a stagnate point in society and also in philosphy. Alot of the movies and tv shows nowadays are remakes or reruns, or new shows that are just spin off ideas. If we look around we can see alot of things are in limbo. However, I feel that we can change, especially now that its so easy to communicate an idea and have it spread. I can't say it wont be hard but its doable.

As trojax said I am not really in a position to make any profound judgements on the subject. However, I personally feel that we (especially those of us in the US) will be fine.

This is for several reasons. I think that vertical farming and genetic engineering will make sure that there is enough food. There is enough food produced now so that no one should starve but much of it is wasted. The US is a major food producer so most of us should not starve.

Also, wind power is expected to reach unsubsidized grid parity in 2016, while solar costs are rapidly dropping. I think a combination of renewables and safer nuclear power will supply the world with plenty of power.

Most importantly, many developed countries have level or decreasing population levels, while engineers will continue to improve the efficiency of society and amaze us with new inventions we have never dreamed of.

Here's the same thing from another source: www.youtube.com/watch?v=umFnrvcS6AQ

Bob, while in general I do find it likely that the US would survive such a collapse, there's something else you neglected regarding population size.

First world countries aren't growing rapidly. It's the third world countries that are and those that are developing now that they have limited access to modern medicine. If they can reign in their growth, I think we'll be okay, but that would be difficult. I'm not saying that they should instill laws mandating a child maximum, but something needs to happen.

Even if we (the first world) advance past our destructive ways and advance towards things like solar, wind, and thorium, the third world likely won't be able to afford these and will likely build their growth upon our outdated technology. Presuming the prediction is correct, we shouldn't just do what we can to stop our consumption and lower our dependence on things like oil. We'd have to drastically lower the price of the alternatives so that the developing countries don't do what we've been doing.

Who says growth is absolutely essential? Why can't we have a flat population and economy. People will still be born and die. We will still consume products and food.

First you have to remember: whenever you start in an economics class, the first thing they teach you is, that economics is "not an exact science" so whatever the man writes is at best thumb suck. Very educated thumb suck perhaps, but still thumb suck. Could he sell a book that predicts nothing is going to change, and everything is going to stay hunky dory? By the way, there seems to be a similar scenario around AGW. So, like Trojax and Bob Clementine neither I nor Graham Turner can make any statement that would be more accurate than the Gypsy's with the crystal ball.
Continued economic growth at the scale seen in the last 100 years must stop and pause every so often. I think we will have more and more conflicts around the world about access to resources. Some of the recent conflicts, could already be classed as "oil wars". The situation could well escalate to another world war. Or will China, India and some others be happy to become first class economic powers and stay second class political powers?
Population growth in many nations has fallen to close to zero, and even become shrinkage. That and a saturation of personal possessions has led to a shrinking in economic growth. Some countries boast 5 or 10% growth, but none of them is a fully developed and established with a generally wealthy population. My shares and other (minute) investments in Germany e. g. have not really done anything in years. Some (minute as well) investments I have in Africa are doing much better. So I don't think anybody should be really worried, but if you read the predictions of Nostradamus and others like him, this book is probably for you.

Everything is so wrong! Our laws are plain stupid.
Politicians dont care about building a better society, they just want power and money in their circles.

Stupid religion is keeping people (sheep herds) ignorant. The media is owned by the same ambitious morons that just want to keep peoples stupid. They will hide important info that could affect their companies. The FREE internet is in danger, because Neanderthals are in power.

Class war will be an inminent result of all the bad decisions politicians are making these days! The stupid morons dont see the economic imbalance they are creating right now, will catch them sooner or later. (No , I will not sell you my last piece of bread for a million bucks!)

Scientists are not being heard, false stupid preudoscientists are selling their souls for money and telling lies. Giant food companies will soon own every piece of agricultural land and will control the food offer and destroy the small farmers.

I have a vision and the future SUCKS!

Scarcity in some instances is manufactured, it keeps prices high. Think diamonds.
Money only has value because we place value in it. Ever try to eat a one-hundred dollar bill?
GMO/Monsanto is not the answer/cure you should be looking for.
Don't let the potentially interesting science blind you to the potentially irreversible disaster.
In a global economic collapse, no place is safe...no place.
Maybe it's what we need...
:p

Trojax and PRsurfer are right, this is mainly a political problem rather than a technical one.
To summarise, I think the path to destruction is a collusion between three groups:

1. ORDINARY PEOPLE in the West, who live in wilful ignorance, hand-to-mouth, who don't believe they have any responsibility for the future and are content to blame the other two groups.

2. POLITICIANS who only care about growth during their 4 or 5 year electoral cycle, and are content to placate the other two group's short-term interests.

3. CAPITALISTS who want to make their pile as quickly as possible, believing that they'll be rich enough to buy their own protection when it all hits the fan. They'll do anything for short-tern gain, pushing consumer tat to the people and weaponry to the politicians.

Any amount of forward thinking can conclude that ALL these groups depend on a stable society to function. But will it be too late before they all realise...

Did anyone even look at the source data linked in the article? How can anyone with more than a 8th grade education (let alone someone at MIT) think that the predictions are "depressingly prescient"?

First, the data only covers the period of 1970-2000, so there is no recent information on which to draw. Next, food and services per capita are higher than predicted over that time period, while pollution is lower. Most importantly, what little data there is for "non-renewable resources remaining" suggests that the model is far too pessimistic. Finally, the model somehow calls for drastic changes in all the measured areas in 2025 or so, somehow linked only to "non-renewable resources." But since 1) non-renewable resources don't look like they are going to run out any time soon (at least according to the data displayed) and 2) non-renewable resources are not the only option of energy-generation available to us, this assumption seems highly circumspect.

A great story, sure. But bad science. If you showed me this hypothesis, data, and conclusion without telling me where it came from, I'd probably assume it was a bad science fair project done by the child of some neo-environmentalist.

bah! the economy in America has a minor "collapse" every 4 years with a major collapse much,much less often. by major i mean the type of thing that makes your grandparents say they had it so much worse than you. but so far this hasnt caused any problems

Imagine one day science does create an endless power source that does not pollute, I can only imagine as the population continues to grow, we humans will still kill ourselves via the other things we produce in wants and needs.

Until we create an artificial environment and deal with the byproducts we produce so they are not hazards to ourselves and all other living things around us we are doom. Yes we need to establish ourselves in outer space and face these problems head on.

Of course, I read the other day humans have been using fire for over 1 million years and by past archeology; past human societies have come and gone. Perhaps we human will just hit a wall, become 1% population on earth again, and then begin again.

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense, i.e. facts.
Religion sees beyond the senses, i.e. faith.
Open your mind and see!

@ Volt Grid parity means it costs consumers the same as conventional sources. Developing countries are investing in renewables as it is often even cheaper for them than it is for us. Many do not have mature electric grids, so off grid applications are often cheaper then extending the grid.

The one thing I forgot to mention is water. Expect usable water to be much more scarce in the future. However, that is really not very scary as wasteful people will use much less water than they use to as it will be much more expensive. Also worse comes to worse you can always desalinate salt water.

Just fire up the gate and move some of us to Alpha site- problem solved :)

Here are some interesting links and comments about the future.

http://ircamera.as.arizona.edu/NatSci102/NatSci102/text/extplaydice.htm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1301482/Human-race-colonise-space-face-extinction-warns-Stephen-Hawking.html

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense, i.e. facts.
Religion sees beyond the senses, i.e. faith.
Open your mind and see!

Daniel A. Mercer
Back in 1971 I took a course called "The Limits Of Growth" at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Our textbook was photocopied pages from the as yet unpublished "Limits of Growth". The professor had built the computer model whose predictions were featured in the book. One of the concepts they introduced was Global Warming. Aluminum, for instance, was supposed to be depleted in the 1990's because the ore used as an electrolyte in processing, cryolite, was only available from Greenland. Indeed, cryolite was depleted ahead of schedule in 1987 - but by the the Aluminum industry had switched to an artificial cryolite produced from the much more common fluorite. Aluminum, despite the prediction, remains not only abundant but actually cheaper - thanks in large part to recycling. This despite a vast increase in usage.

The problem with the predictions then, and I argued this at the time, was that there was no factor for economics in his equations. As something becomes rarer it becomes more expensive which in turn makes it more valuable which leads to the use of either different materials or to the location of different sources or to the development of different processes. An increase in expense in one substance - oil - leads to the adoption of different materials in another area - the use of aluminum in automobiles or the use of carbon fiber in airplanes.

Our "final" consisted of a project - produce a card deck (did I mention it was 1971) that could be submitted as data to his model demonstrating some aspect of his thesis. I Kobayashi Maru'd it by putting together a deck that in some cases should a decreasing demand for some materials and in other cases showed an increasing supply. My model showed us never really running out of anything. I was pretty proud of it when I got an 'A' until I went to talk to talk to the prof about. A few seconds into the conversation it was obvious he hadn't looked at anyone's results, you got an 'A' if you submitted a deck and it actually ran. Even when I tried to talk to him I could tell my points about economics were falling on deaf ears.

Of course, since 1971 they've had to revise their book several times because of its failed predictions. Much like a Rapturist religious cult having to constantly reset the date of Armageddon.

the know the problem with mining space?

wev won't be ready by 2030, just over 17 year from now, not even close to being ready. we're taslking 25 to 30 years min if we started this second and more like a good 50 plus to be in full swing.

the numbers don't add up to me unless we change to give us more time.

my only hope is maybe we'll wake up as me get closer unlikely but I can hope.

@D13
If you look at the population growth rates of first world ntations, you'll see a birth rate that's actually below the 2.2 children/woman needed to maintain the population.
The U.S. only gains in net population from immigration, for example.
There's a few explainations for this, and all of them probably have some influence:
* The liberalization of women--permitting (young) women to have something besides being "barefoot and pregnant" until menopause
* Energy Production per capita--when people have more efficient ways of accomplishing things, this leads to...
* GDP per capita--...more national wealth. If you made a graph of population growth vs. GDP per capita, almost all nations fall into either less than a GDP of $5000 per capita, or less than 2.2 children per woman, which is an inverse relationship. (meaning more GDP per capita implies less children)

This means we (as a society) should be pursing better ways of producing energy, so that the entire world can be brought up to first world energy levels (something like 5x the current world energy production for 7 billion people). There is research in this--but it requires everyone to be willing to take a chance--the chance that there is a way to harness nuclear power safely, we just need to figure out how. I think taking a chance is better than doom & gloom.

The population crash will happen within a year...if the predicted solar flare occurs on dec 21.

Just a few problems, starting with it's completely WRONG. There is nothing "prescient" about "The Limits to Growth" unless you ignore, well, reality. It's predictions are based on the same incorrect assumptions that Malthus made back in 1798, and uses the same flawed math (but updated to include "increasing" resource use over time--brilliant!).

Humans are remarkably intelligent at adapting to shortages and figuring out ways to use alternate resources or use the ones they've got more efficiently. None of these things are accounted for in the calculations of the depressing tribe of doomsayers from Malthus to Turner.

Here's one example. The U.S. population has increased by 36% since 1980 but oil consumption has only increased by 10%. That means we're using less oil per person than we were 30 years ago. We're using it more efficiently. But oil is running out so it doesn't matter if we're using it more efficiently, right? We're using MORE of a decreasing resource. Actually, the proven, economically accessible oil reserves are several times LARGER now than they were in 1980 because we keep finding more of it and the petroleum industry invents better ways to extract it.

Did you know that in every modern industrialized nation the air and water is cleaner than it was 40 years ago and that pollution is decreasing? Did you know that the U.S. has more forest cover now than it did 75 years ago? Despite a larger population?

Do we need even stricter environmental controls to continue the same trend? Absolutely not. In fact in post-industrial nations we've long since reached a point of diminishing returns on all kinds of pollution restrictions.

Did you know that use of energy and resources becomes more efficient each year pretty much everywhere? Know why? Because it's cheaper to do so. Governments have nothing to do with it. The free market does it all by itself without any help from wannabe policymakers like our dour environmentalists.

If you want to have some fun, compare the estimations of "The Limits to Growth" with Paul Ehrlich's predictions in "The Population Explosion" (1968) and read up on the famous bet Ehrlich lost to Julian Simon about the price of commodities and their scarcity. Ehrlich was wrong, The Club of Rome is wrong, and Graham Turner is wrong.

And for all your population worriers, note that birthrates and populations are in decline in most post-industrial nations. The rest of the world is predicted to follow suit in the next 50 years, peaking around perhaps 10 billion; and by 2100 the world population will decline.

The only reason economies will collapse is because there won't be enough taxpayers to sustain the explosive growth of government spending on social programs. It's an impending crisis CREATED by policy makers.

I must disagree with MIT as this can easily be avoided and doing to right things could enable an economic boom during that time.
It is pretty much common sense stuff.

First fund some aggressive family planning in the third world.
Ironically one of the most effective is educating women.

Second the economic race to the bottom is a race no one wins.
The type of predatory and environmentally destructive business practices that have become so popular the last 20 years where companies choose to operate in countries with the cheapest labor and most laxed environmental laws needs to come to an end.
Companies that behave in this manner need to be punished.
Next clean energy including fission from thorium which is extremely safe just search for molten salt reactor.

Then we must colonize space as there's 50 times more available mineral wealth in the inner solar system then there is on earth.
Plus solar power sats could enable nearly limitless energy.

Both China and India have a rough estimate of 1.3 billion people each. Together they are going on almost 40% of the worlds population. In my opinion....Either tell those countries to stop having so many children, start moving Humans to live on other planets, build up into the sky, or build down beneath the ground.

more closer to 36 or 37%...but getting there.

Seeing statics like this almost makes you think that war, plagues, etc. are a necessary part of humans survival! Maybe before 2030 we will experience a nuclear holocaust or a new plague that will curb this problem. Think of say 100 years in the future or 500 years, what will our population be like then if we dont experience a massive source of death? Not that this wouldn't be a tragedy, but death is apart of humanity, and if we are multiplying faster than we die, it makes sense that we must kill and be killed to survive, right? what do you guys think?

originquest,
you're right. the world is an illusion, what it needs now is a stark reality check.

Besides humanity killing itself, we could always have the "Noah-event". Meaning something else extreme comes along destroys humanity. I am not trying to bring religion into this, only that most people are familiar with one great even destroyed humanity.

I don't discount that Daniel A. Mercer was able to propose a "card deck" that produced a stable scenario. In practice, however, the recent scenarios that have unfolded, or are still unfolding, have been highly unstable. One explanation for Daniel's "final" project might be his capacity for designing a systemic long term fundamental solution "card deck." Similarly, one explanation for today’s emerging reality is that there are too many non-systemic short term symptomatic solution decision makers. Maybe W. Edwards Deming was right when he wrote that "... we are living under the tyranny of the prevailing style of management" and added that "The route to transformation is what I call Profound Knowledge. The system of profound knowledge..." I guess that the prevailing style of management has evolved as the worst kind of corruption, an environment of systemic corruption around key systems, like energy, water, health, etc.

PRSurfer is correct, what the world need is a new economic system. I think this is the only solution, a Resource Based Economic System. Check this out www.TheVenusProject.com

Another attempt to resurrect the fallacious Limits to Growth. I do not know why anyone would take this seriously.

The anti-humanist Club of Rome's erroneous Malthusian thinking which has been shown to be fallacious time and again since Malthus himself was alive. Here is Malcolm Gillis and Jeffrey R. Vincent on some of the false predictions of Limits to Growth Report:

“Perhaps the most dramatic projections in The Limits to Growth were the estimates of the number of years until reserves of nonrenewable resources would be exhausted. That study made its projections by dividing estimates of global reserves (identified resources that can be profitably exploited at the current prices and technology) by annual global mine output. It adjusted the latter for projected future output growth, set equal to post-war trends. According to such projections, gold should have been exhausted by 1979, silver and mercury by 1983, tin by 1985, zinc by 1988, petroleum by 1990, copper and lead by 1991, and natural gas by 1992.”

- Malcolm Gillis and Jeffrey R. Vincent, “National Self-Interest in the Pursuit of Sustainable Development” in Sustainable Development: The Challenge of Transition (2000), p. 24.

All their predictions turned out to be false.

We can look at the earlier work of the fabulist Paul Ehrlich, which influenced the Limits to Growth and see even worse Malthusian predictions:

“The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”
“Four billion people—including 65 million Americans—would perish from famine in the 1980s.”
“In ten years [i.e., 1980] all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.”
“I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” (1969)
By 1980 the United States would see its life expectancy drop to 42 because of pesticides, and by 1999 its population would drop to 22.6 million.” (1969)

All proven to be not just wrong, but fantastically wrong.

Of course someone is going to "just because they were wrong in the past does not mean [insert catastrophic prediction here] is wrong now". Well the problem is Malthusian thinking is fundamentally flawed and because of that these cassandras will be wrong again and again.

RSA - Here is why the Venus Project supercomputer fantasy will not work from here whakahekeheke.tumblr.com/post/4268105740/my-libertarian-response-to-a-stubborn-long-winded

1. Information: The information individuals possess regarding their own preferences and resources is not only subjective but usually tacit, until it is revealed marginally by voluntary human action. And when marginal utility is revealed by action, it is always (a) relative and (a) ordinal. This means that (a) choices for economic action are always expressed relative to preference for everything else at that moment and (b) are expressed in an ordinal scale, not a cardinal function (i.e. I prefer X to Y means X is above Y on my value scale, not that I prefer X to Y by a degree of 4.0934 utils or any cardinal number). Thus I cannot fill out a survey or ballot accurately expressing my preferences for the future in the same way I can when I choose to engage in economic action at the time and thus reveal my values marginally. E.g. If you were to just vote for how much land you wanted, it wouldn’t be an informed decision in the same way that the action of buying or homesteading land in the moment would be.

2. Calculation: Economic order is the result of bottom-up human action, not top-down human design. Order is emergent. It is not possible to calculate optimal economic order top-down through a supercomputer or any other instrument. Because revealed preference scales are ordinal, they cannot be optimized before the fact through cardinal optimization functions. In fact, they cannot be scientifically compared at all. This is known in economics as the impossibility of interpersonal utility comparisons and it is absolutely standard. Every undergrad economics student who has paid attention in class knows this. And specifically, majority rule doesn’t work for social optimization as Kenneth Arrow won the Nobel for logically proving. E.g. When your imaginary supercomputer has the votes for land rights, it has no rational means of comparing or aggregating them… unlike a market emergent, bottom-up, from voluntary human action.

3. Incentives: This is the biggest one. Even if you could accurately express your preferences for land through voting and even if your supercomputer could compare and aggregate them in a sensible way, it still wouldn’t work. This is because (a) you are incentivized to overstate your demand when there is no cost, unlike on a market; and (b) you are not incentivized to entrepreneurially take risks and invest in more efficient ways to utilize land and thus drive economic progress, unlike in a market; and (c) the programmers and maintainers and interpreters of the supercomputer - the state - have an incentive to use their ideologically legitimized monopoly power to help the people they personally know (as opposed to doing what is optimal for “society” at large) and to input their own ideological presumption into the necessarily biased program.

Laurenra, you bring up the point if efficiency which is an excellent argument for being able to use less resources. On the flip side however efficiency can also cause the opposite effect in the consumption of other resources. You see because we can use oil more efficiently we can extract more of other resources for less cost.

It sounds counterintuitive, but under current conditions, increasing efficiency will end up increasing consumption by lower prices, consumption of precious resources.

Now Malthus never forsaw phosphate fertilizers, and its quite possible that genetic modifications could allow us to maintain crop yields, or we could find other solution. The idea that we could ever support infinite consumption is just wrong, no matter how efficient we get.

I guess my main point is that this study is very correct *assuming* that we continue increasing (as it is currently) our consumption of ecology and alteration of natural cycles beyond boundaries from which they cannot return. This is far more than Malthus simple calculation's that we will not have enough land to grow enough food. What is being predicted is really the destruction of the global economy, not the local economy, the global north will cut off the global south when things start getting stretched thin, we may even move in and commandeer their farm lands. Does it mean civilization will end? No but it will mean that we can expect a massive (and not positive) reorganization of the world economy that will be catastrophic to certain at risk regions (ie poor).

In order to avert this outcome, it is necessary to do two things, we much not only increase efficiency, but cut our consumption of all resources (especially those which have the greatest negative ecological impacts resulting from their use). This idea is called sufficiency, taking what you need, and no more.

The government should allow the public to vote on all local and national issues via the internet. Let the people have say on all bills presented within the House of Congress. Google's algorithm should be able to make this possible by now.

"The limits we discuss here are the ones science happens to know most about. There is no guarantee that they are in fact the most limiting. The technologies we mention are evolving. They will certainly be improved in the future. There will be surprises ahead, pleasant and unpleasant..."

Taken from chapter 3, "he Limits: Sources and Sinks," of the book "Beyond the Limits: confronting global collapse - envisioning a sustainable future," by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers.

I think a lot of people are missing the point, even if we want to fix the world problem, for many parts of the world including the United States. Religion will get in the way, you can't have 40% + believing that the ends are near or in their lifetime or that their version of a deity will fix the problem and think your going to fix anything as long as that trend continue.

Maybe in the next two decades that will change as even the USA is hit with enough natural disasters as well as small economic crashes to swing that part of the population in a more rational and scientific way of thinking, but I am not going to hold any believe it will.

Here are some things to think about.

High School teens reading at 5 grade level.
www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/22/top-reading_n_1373680.html

Number going down on those that understand and believe in Global Warming
www.environmentalleader.com/2009/12/04/just-51-of-americans-believe-in-global-warming-down-from-71-in-2007/

Percentage believing in one book is all they need to know
www.gallup.com/poll/27682/onethird-americans-believe-bible-literally-true.aspx

Maybe 2 more decade will change things, but I be stocking some non perishable food just incase that does not come to pass. I don't see the whole country going south but problems causing major issue in big city as well as economic crashes with very slow recovery now that I do see coming.

Technology is going to have have a big jump in the next decade or two and not just for us here in the States for it to even have a chance of doing muse.

Plus we still have not really dealt with the population growth that is not slowing down. Or has no one been reading what some politician will keep pushing for, that could lead to use doubling the population of our own country. Does anyone really think the USA can deal with a population of 700 million?

@Killjoy I hardly think religion is the problem here. You think that all religious people see the end is tommorrow so live it up? The most non religious people I know are the ones who seem most like the live for now when I die that's the end grab what you can now attitude. The most religious believe take care of things now, or you'll pay the price later here or somewhere else. At least in my experience. And the fact is the end could be tommorrow no religion needed, haven't you been reading about iran, nukes, israel, china etc.? That's not an unreasonable fear now that we have weapons that actually can end the world.

I haven't read about some politicians plan to double the population, what is that about?

"bah! the economy in America has a minor "collapse" every 4 years with a major collapse much,much less often. by major i mean the type of thing that makes your grandparents say they had it so much worse than you. but so far this hasnt caused any problems" I think you should hit up the dictionary.

a collapse, depression, and recession are all different words. And surprise they all have different definitions.
When you put a word in quotes like you did, you are only meaning that your use of the word has a somewhat ambiguous meaning. but the artilce does not put quotes around the word collpase, so I am pretty confident they mean COLLAPSE not recession like you are inpliny.

Let me ask you
would you rather be standing in a room when a building collapses on you, the wall recedes a bit, or there is a giant depression in the ground. Pretty darn clear to see in order of worst to least worst the situation you would rather be in. I suppose you could put quotes around those words but then that just implies you are implying a different meaning completely. whereas no one else in the study or article or comment section was.

After contemplating collapse for years and looking at our collective predicament from every angle I could find, my conclusion is this: The current dominant control system is big money, existing for its own sake, fed by profits, building sparkly glass monoliths full of depressed cubicle monkeys, and justifying itself through stories of strong and free individuals working hard to earn shiny toys. As the system also owns the media and their message, there is virtually no chance to wake the sheeple and affect the massive change in the collective conscious/unconscious necessary and soon enough to evoke a paradigm shift powerful enough to turn the ship around.

And while it’s tempting to dream about a grand idea, technology or leader coming along to save us, ultimately there is no boss at the top. At the top of the pyramid sits the logic of the pyramid itself. And that logic is basically a big fire that consumes everything and finally burns out. Like a forest fire with a strong backing wind, the present system is fundamentally destructive and unstoppable. The best we can do is to channel the destruction so that people who are Paying Attention will have a good chance to survive. Better yet, we can help guide the system through its collapse, so that people who are determined to avoid industrial toxins, to grow their own food, to move outside the money economy, to take responsibility for their own health, safety and comfort are able to do so.

We would be wise to prepare for a non-industrial future while we still have some resources with which to do it. If we marshal the resources, stockpile the materials that will be of most use and harness the heirloom technologies that can be sustained without an industrial base, then we can stretch out the transition far into the future, giving us time to adapt.

I think there have always been warlike tribes, and there always will be. A society that turns its energy to war and conquest will always defeat a society that lives in peace, because it can fight better; but then, a peaceful and cooperative social order will always defeat a violent and repressive social order, because it's a better way to live. These two systems have existed in balance since the beginning of time, the violent systems sweeping through the peaceful systems and burning out like fires.

Only when grain agriculture released the energy of topsoil, and industry released the energy of oil, did the fire of the violent tribes rise to engulf the world. Now that the fuel is running out, we are indeed entering a “new age”. In the world that’s coming, happily, it will be impossible to build any kind of enduring large system. Our path, instead, will be to continually break down the repressive systems, dodge the conquering systems, and rebuild good systems through the cracks, forever. Actually I think that will be more fun than Utopia. Still, it may also seem like an endless white knuckle ride for those who survive.

P.S. It has been estimated that fossil fuel energy provides each US citizen with the equivalent of 300 slaves. Most people take for granted how much energy is contained in a single gallon of gas and have the audacity to believe 10$/gallon is too much and will crash the economy. For a lesson in appreciation of just how much energy a gallon provides; imagine pushing your (average) car for ~25 miles. Personally, after that ordeal, I’m guessing nothing less than $100/gallon would phase me. Would $100/gal gas save the planet? It may be wise to get there soon, however, our species epitaph could very well be, “too clever to be wise”?

Overpopulation hype started when Thomas Malthus in 1798 plagiarized Giamarria Ortes false dictum that the population grows geometrically while food grows arithmetically. This MIT study is nothing other than warmed over Malthusian claptrap. It leave out the role of the development of whole new resources (such as nuclear fusion) via technological progress. That is to say, it leaves out of consideration the human mind. So this study by an "Institute of Technology" is nothing but a damnable and vicious fraud.

@D13, your numbers are a wonderful illustration of the bad math employed by the Club of Rome, Paul Ehrlich, et al. It's easy to create a dire scenario in Microsoft Excel by just multiplying numbers until you scare yourself silly. But it doesn't mean anything because it doesn't describe the real world.

As Volt, African Rover, and kylone have pointed out (and apparently you didn't read), population is in decline in much of the developed world. It's only in developing countries that it is still growing, but the rate of growth is slowing and will also end up declining in the next 50 years. For some inexplicable reason, humans self-regulate reproduction once they reach a certain level of wealth. It is unnecessary to implement the repugnant policy suggested here by several people to have governments limit reproduction.

So, just to re-iterate for D13, SC1ENCEGUY, Ruri, Cookies453, hatandboots, manhunter098 and Kiljoy616: population growth is not a problem. Neither is resource use as a result. Humans are wonderfully adept at solving resource problems with technology, treaties, or simply moving to where resources are more abundant.

We are all going to die.

Well, I have my chocolate, not all is lost.
Yummy! CHOMP! Mmmm! CHOMP! MINE! MINE!!!!!!

.............................
Science sees no further than what it can sense, i.e. facts.
Religion sees beyond the senses, i.e. faith.
Open your mind and see!

Any theories why only dystopian movies are apparently allowed to be made? Ever seen a utopian adventure where this problem is solved by 3d printers that recycle your waste into new things you can manufacture at home instead of an economy.

Utopian, like the Star Trek series, where issues of Earth are solved (nationalism in the first multinational/ethnic crew, economics in the "next generation")?

The simple truth is, if growth reaches a limit and complexity colapses to chaos, life will just reset.

Think of the fall of Rome due to "peak empiral exspansionism" - it only resulted in a few hundered years of darkness until there was the Renaissance and future development.

If a crash in oil resulted in a crash in food production, it would result in a crash in population and a few lost generations of post-apocalyptic chaos. Then, society would restabalize, the lost learning would be quickly Renaissanced, and humanity would begin to progress again at the new, lower pricepoint free from reliance on now-defunct oil.

The risk is never to the planet or to the species, only to the culture, governments, and the rates of progess.

A sociatal reset is never pleasent for the generation(s) involved, but in the greater picture of humanity, it is a non-issue.

We need less people on Earth. Sounds awful to say but it is the only logical answer.

@Laurena7

Nice to have a declining 1st world population i wonder how that affects our economy since it is based on growth, and not some normal regulated growth no we based on % (exponantial growth).
I think this explains the dillema politics have either keep growing population until we reach the crowed(food shortage etc) problem or let our economy fail on more and more regular bases cause there are not enough people to work and consume so our economics works fine and we all can live peacefully.

I personally think we need to get rid of the economical system entirely(especially the % is our own undoing), its is only a replacement of our trust in each other.

Srry for my typo's and one thing is for sure we do have somekind of problem even if we are not certain what it is.
Thats why half the world is complaining.

i just hope ppl get more educated and new technology arrive to prevent this collapse from happening

info: in 2030, helium will run out unless we can get from the moon (the moon has Helium-3).

The global economic growth rate for the past 12 years has averaged 3.8% a year. Using a basic calculator you can see that at this growth rate, the global economy will be approximately 40 times it's current size in 100 years 1600 times it's current size in 200 years. Anyone who thinks this is sustainable is either a fool, an idiot, a moron or a combination of the three. God help us all. By the way, to all of those who say, "We Must Save the Planet"...the planet will be fine just as it always has been. It has a remarkable ability to heal itself even if it takes a billion years to undo the damage humans cause. It is humans that are clearly going to need saving, not the planet.

@African Rover

Pretty much everything you said is based on your preconceived notion that economics is unreliable and without merit. Wrong. Do some research instead of sitting in your little armchair talking about things you have no basis of opinion for.

That is pretty much perfect timing. I'll be old by then. I will have experienced maximum mileage from this planet. Good news! (/sarcasm)