Our Final Destiny: Catastrophe or Rebirth?
Millenialism or renewalism?
The “Base Case” scenario of the first version of “The Limits to Growth” study, published in 1972. Note the shape of the curves: a slow growth is followed by a rapid decline, the typical “Seneca Shape.” Note also that the calculation shows a single cycle. Collapse, as seen in this scenario, is final and irreversible. Is it a “millenaristic” view of the future? Maybe, but we cannot exclude that the system will rebound in a farther future.
For decades after it was published, in 1972, the “Limits to Growth” was criticized with the accusation of being a “wrong prediction.” Remarkably, these accusations started immediately after the study was published, way before the main result of the calculations, the impending societal collapse, could be verified. It was a good example of the human attitude of thinking that what you don’t like cannot be true.
Today, more than 50 years later, the tide seems to be turning, and the study is being re-appraised; see, for instance, the book Limits and Beyond. Yet, we may be making the opposite mistake: turning a scenario into a prophecy and seeing collapse in the light of an unavoidable apocalypse for humankind.
It is not surprising. The history of human thought sees two attitudes going in parallel: “millenarism,” the idea that the world will go through a single cycle and then die, and the opposite one, which I might call “renewalism.” It sees death followed by rebirth in an infinite series of cycles, or at least a very long one.
The term “millenarism” is often attributed to Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BC), who said that Roma would last one thousand years. It is typical of the Jewish tradition as expressed, for instance, in the Book of Daniel in the Bible. It was later integrated into the Christian canon. The opposite view, renewalism, is typical of Oriental thought, as expressed by the concept of reincarnation.
Today, we are still oscillating between these two views. Note how the “base case” scenario of the “Limits to Growth” shows a single cycle. It is not that the model was conceived in millenaristic terms. It is just that the calculations were stopped at the end of the 21st century because, correctly, it was thought that extending them to longer time spans made little sense.
Nevertheless, the study was accused from the beginning of being millenaristic, and it was understood to be such by people who took that attitude by heart. We call them “catastrophists,” a term that applies to a varied group of people who seem to like the idea of a final holocaust that will purify humankind of its sins. They are the various religious apocalyptic sects, those who are awaiting the arrival of extraterrestrial saviors (a little less common nowadays), and the “near-term extinctionists” who see the collapse envisaged first by “The Limits to Growth” study as definitive and irreversible. Combined with the worst scenarios related to climate change, collapse may end with the extinction of humankind and perhaps the sterilization of Earth’s ecosphere.
Yet, models are not prophecies. They are answers to the “what if?” question. The Limits to Growth study answered the question, “What if we continue in our ways for decades?” The answer was, “Civilization will collapse.” But if we ask the question, “What if we massively deploy renewable energy?” a new set of calculations may falsify a prediction that never was one.
They say that all models are wrong, but some are useful. Personally, I would say all models are useful if you understand their limits. We use models to shed some light on the obscurity in front of us, but we cannot pretend to determine the future. Models can only tell us the consequences of things we, humans, can do or refrain from doing. But the universe is not ruled by humans, and the ancients may have been right in seeing it in the hands of non-human entities: the Annunaki of the Sumerians, the Moirai of the ancient Greeks, the Æsir of the Nordic mythology, and many other names. We use the term “natural laws” for the same concept, but it makes little difference. We don’t know why these laws exist, why they operate the way they do, and whether they will keep operating in that way forever or for a long time. The universe may end one day, and it may or may not restart afterward. But these matters may remain forever beyond our capability of understanding them
Perhaps the reactions to "Limits to Growth" is simply humanity going through the 5 stages of grief. Each person reacts on an individual level, so it's difficult to speak of society as a unified whole, but I think it's safe to say that we have been through Denial and Anger, and are now somewhere between Bargaining and Depression.
You write:
If we ask the question, “What if we massively deploy renewable energy?” a new set of calculations may falsify a prediction that never was one. But Randers and others conclude that warming and self-sustained thawing of permafrost will continue even if all man-made GHG emissions would stop now: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-75481-z
If we have a 65-year old patient of 140kg with uncontrolled diabetes, diabetic retinopathy, diabetic kidney disease, urinary infection, high blood pressure, vertigo, a former myocardial infarction, atrial fibrillation and angina pectoris, varicosis, prostate carcinoma, coxarthrosis and gonarthrosis on both sides, its not rocket science to predict that his activity and lifespan will be rather limited, although an experienced physician will never give a precise estimation.
If I look at runaway global warming fed by multiple nefarious feedbacks, looking at the likewise threatening global water situation, the rising sea levels, the galloping extinction of species (and reduction of genetic diversity within species), the shrinking food base, the overcrowding which will produce epidemics more lethal than COVID and last but not least at the rapacious nature of mankind I have a rater similar feeling as before the above-mentioned patient.
I consider Gaza, Jemen, Sudan, Eritrea, Mali, Myanmar, Ukraine, Haiti and the increasing war talk in Europe and East-Asia as the beginning breakdown of the liberal and democratic achievements of the enlightenment. Moreover, it feels safe to predict that human thriving will be severely curtailed during this century and even during the next few decades, although I consider it foolish to fix a McPherson-like timing. In a best-case scenario the population will be reduced by half. This will be aided by declining sperm-count and the rest will not be nice.
So, it will not be catastrophe OR rebirth, but catastrophe AND in any case some rebirth, which could start with surviving humans or surviving rats, or even with the heat resistant microorganisms thriving in boiling volcanic waters.
The public discussion circles about if and how there will be a catastrophe and how it is to be prevented. This is similar to discussing "healing" in the above patient. In medicine and in life there comes a moment where there is no sense in such discussions and when it is time to face the catastrophe and the end and to face it with dignity. This could and should also be a theme for discussion.