How Everything Can Collapse

A Manual for our Times

Pablo Servigne, Raphaël Stevens, Andrew Brown (Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, West Sussex, UK)

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English

Polity Press
03 April 2020

The environment

What if our civilization were to collapse? Not many centuries into the future, but in our own lifetimes? Most people recognize that we face huge challenges today, from climate change and its potentially catastrophic consequences to a plethora of socio-political problems, but we find it hard to face up to the very real possibility that these crises could produce a collapse of our entire civilization. Yet we now have a great deal of evidence to suggest that we are up against growing systemic instabilities that pose a serious threat to the capacity of human populations to maintain themselves in a sustainable environment.

In this important book, Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens confront these issues head-on. They examine the scientific evidence and show how its findings, often presented in a detached and abstract way, are connected to people’s ordinary experiences – joining the dots, as it were, between the Anthropocene and our everyday lives. In so doing they provide a valuable guide that will help everyone make sense of the new and potentially catastrophic situation in which we now find ourselves. Today, utopia has changed sides: it is the utopians who believe that everything can continue as before, while realists put their energy into making a transition and building local resilience. Collapse is the horizon of our generation. But collapse is not the end – it’s the beginning of our future. We will reinvent new ways of living in the world and being attentive to ourselves, to other human beings and to all our fellow creatures.

By: Pablo Servigne, Raphaël Stevens
Translated by: Andrew Brown (Queen Victoria Hospital East Grinstead West Sussex UK)
Imprint: Polity Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 206mm, Width: 136mm, Spine: 22mm
Weight: 408g
ISBN: 9781509541386
ISBN 10: 1509541381
Pages: 250
Publication Date: 03 April 2020
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Foreword Acknowledgements Introduction: We’ll Definitely Need to Tackle the Subject One of These Days … Collapse? The birth of ‘collapsology’ Beware, this is a sensitive subject! Notes Part I The Harbingers of Collapse 1 The Accelerating Vehicle A world of exponentials Total acceleration Where do the limits lie? Notes 2 When the Engine Dies (Limits that Cannot be Crossed) At the top of the peak, does energy starts to fall? At the top of the peak, there is a wall! And before the wall … a precipice Notes 3 Leaving the Road (Boundaries that Can be Crossed) Global heating and cold sweats Who will kill the last animal on the planet? The other boundaries of the planet What happens when we cross different Rubicons? Notes 4 Is the Steering Locked? How a system becomes locked in The problem of complexity Notes 5 Trapped in an Ever More Fragile Vehicle Finance: feet of clay Supply chains on the razor’s edge Infrastructures at their last gasp What will be the spark? Notes Summary of Part I An all-too-clear picture Notes Part II So, When’s It Going to Happen:? 6 The Difficulties of Being a Futurologist From risk assessment to intuition The paradoxes of collapse Notes 7 Can We Detect Warning Signs? The ‘noise’ of a system about to collapse There will always be uncertainty Notes 8 What Do the Mathematical Models Say? An original model: HANDY A robust model: World3 Notes Part III Collapsology 9 A Mosaic to Explore What are we talking about exactly? What do past civilizations tell us … ? How far are we sinking … ? … up to our necks? Notes 10 And Where Do Human Beings Fit into All This? How many of us will there be at the end of the century? The demography of collapse Will we kill each other off? The sociology of collapse Why do most people not believe it will happen? The psychology of collapse Now that we believe in it, what shall we do? The politics of collapse Notes Conclusion: Hunger is Only the Beginning Towards a general and applied collapsology The ‘hangover’ generation Other ways of partying Notes ‘For the Children’ Notes Postscript Notes

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 an eco-adviser. An expert in the resilience of socio-ecological systems, he is cofounder of the consultancy agency Greenloop.

Reviews for How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for our Times

An explosive book that everyone should buy and read as soon as possible. L'Obs This is not the kind of book you can read and put down with a shrug of the shoulders: it is a book that will overwhelm you. Canard Enchaine This is an important book. The authors avoid apocalyptic scaremongering but present compelling arguments to show that our society is increasingly vulnerable to insidious but potentially devastating setbacks and that, because our world is now so interconnected, any collapse would cascade globally. It will leave readers deeply anxious about where we are heading. But it deserves a wide readership among all concerned citizens and, even more, among those who can influence policy. Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal and former Master of Trinity College, Cambridge It's high time and a cause for rejoicing that this matter-of-fact, warm-blooded guide to societal collapse is now available in English. The sane, comprehensive clarity brought by Pablo Servigne and Raphael Stevens will, I expect, liberate much practical ingenuity in the US and other countries. Four decades developing the Work That Reconnects and Deep Ecology Work around the world has taught me that confronting together our fears and losses with open eyes generates solidarity and collective intelligence. Joanna Macy, co-author of Coming Back to Life: The Updated Guide to The Work That Reconnects If this crisis has taken most of us by surprise, French researchers Pablo Servigne and Raphael Stevens can claim to have seen it, or something like it, coming. In their book, How Everything Can Collapse, they suggest civilisation is now vulnerable to a complete breakdown, and that the interconnectedness of modern societies makes that prospect more, not less, likely today's pandemic and its economic fallout confirm the authors' arguments. The Australian