On American Sustainability - Anatomy of Societal Collapse (Summary)

[Link: The Oil Drum]

"As the historically abundant and cheap resources upon which our American way of life depends become increasingly scarce and expensive, a scenario that is already in process, the total level of natural resources and derived goods and services available for our consumption will decline dramatically, as must some combination of our population level and material living standards.

Absent immediate fundamental changes to both our distorted worldview and our dysfunctional resource utilization behavior, American society will collapse—not in 1000 years, or 500 years, or even 50 years; but almost certainly within 25 years. America, as we know it, will cease to exist well before the year 2050."

This article makes a strong statement about the true consequences of the sustainability quandary. Sustainability is not a direction of travel but rather a destination. As children of the age of growth, if we think about limits at all, we tend to think about ceilings. How much is too much? As a society that is living far beyond its means, however, we should be thinking about floors. How far do we have to fall?

All of the trappings of a modern, industrial society are interrelated. Both our products and our means of production are fed by unsustainable resource consumption. Somehow we will have to learn to produce sustainable products using sustainable production methods with sustainable sources of power if we are to maintain a functioning sustainable society. In addition we will probably have to figure out how to limit our actual numbers. None of this is a likely result, if we wait until the unsustainable resources are gone, or even until society realizes that they eventually will be gone.

All of this seems somewhat obvious to me. And yet, honestly, I cannot find a way to drop my lifelong habits and move towards a non-consumptive, or even lower consumption existence. The built in prejudices from living my life in a powerful, industrial society are difficult to ignore. For the vast majority of people even the concept of limits is still impossible to embrace. I think the author is right, the inevitable readjustment we are facing will, almost certainly, come as a surprise and we will probably never know what hit us.