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thomas davison

A Study Concludes When Civilization Will End, And It's Not Looking Good for Us
Tom McKay's avatar image By Tom McKay March 18, 2014

Civilization was pretty great while it lasted, wasn't it? Too bad it's not going to for much longer. According to a new study sponsored by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, we only have a few decades left before everything we know and hold dear collapses.

The report, written by applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei of the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center along with a team of natural and social scientists, explains that modern civilization is doomed. And there's not just one particular group to blame, but the entire fundamental structure and nature of our society.

Analyzing five risk factors for societal collapse (population, climate, water, agriculture and energy), the report says that the sudden downfall of complicated societal structures can follow when these factors converge to form two important criteria. Motesharrei's report says that all societal collapses over the past 5,000 years have involved both "the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity" and "the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or "Commoners") [poor]." This "Elite" population restricts the flow of resources accessible to the "Masses", accumulating a surplus for themselves that is high enough to strain natural resources. Eventually this situation will inevitably result in the destruction of society.

Elite power, the report suggests, will buffer "detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners," allowing the privileged to "continue 'business as usual' despite the impending catastrophe."

Science will surely save us, the nay-sayers may yell. But technology, argues Motesharrei, has only damned us further:

Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use.

In other words, the benefits of technology are outweighed by how much the gains reinforce the existing, over-burdened system � making collapse even more likely.

The worst-case scenarios predicted by Motesharrei are pretty dire, involving sudden collapse due to famine or a drawn-out breakdown of society due to the over-consumption of natural resources. The best-case scenario involves recognition of the looming catastrophe by Elites and a more equitable restructuring of society, but who really believes that is going to happen? Here's what the study recommends in a nutshell:

The two key solutions are to reduce economic inequality so as to ensure fairer distribution of resources, and to dramatically reduce resource consumption by relying on less intensive renewable resources and reducing population growth.

These are great suggestions that will, unfortunately, almost certainly never be put into action, considering just how far down the wrong path our civilization has gone. As of last year, humans are using more resources than the Earth can replenish and the planet's distribution of resources among its terrestrial inhabitants is massively unequal. This is what happened to Rome and the Mayans, according to the report.

... historical collapses were allowed to occur by elites who appear to be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory (most clearly apparent in the Roman and Mayan cases).

And that's not even counting the spectre of global climate change, which could be a looming "instant planetary emergency." According to Canadian Wildlife Service biologist Neil Dawe:

Economic growth is the biggest destroyer of the ecology. Those people who think you can have a growing economy and a healthy environment are wrong. If we don't reduce our numbers, nature will do it for us ... Everything is worse and we�re still doing the same things. Because ecosystems are so resilient, they don�t exact immediate punishment on the stupid.

In maybe the nicest way to say the end is nigh possible, Motesharrei's report concludes that "closely reflecting the reality of the world today ... we find that collapse is difficult to avoid."

Writes Nafeez Ahmed at The Guardian:

"Although the study is largely theoretical, a number of other more empirically-focused studies � by KPMG and the UK Government Office of Science for instance � have warned that the convergence of food, water and energy crises could create a 'perfect storm' within about fifteen years. But these 'business as usual' forecasts could be very conservative."

Well, at least zombies aren't real.

I think they are wrong about the Zombies we have 650 of them draining our resources every day and doing nothing for the people at all ---------time for massive changes.

thomas davison · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2014 7:27 am Post subject:

(NaturalNews)
NASA sounds red alert over solar flare that nearly wiped out human civilization two summers ago

The news you are about to read should be front page news everywhere. There is arguably nothing more important to humanity's survival than the alarming facts presented in this report from NASA, yet most of the world pretends this event never happened in 2012, and they falsely assume it won't happen again.

They are wrong. According to shocking new research published by NASA, each decade there is roughly a 12% chance of a near-wipeout of humanity's high-tech civilization. In fact, one such event nearly wiped out technology across the planet during the summer of 2012.

"A powerful coronal mass ejection (CME) tore through Earth orbit on July 23, 2012," reports NASA.gov. (1) "If the eruption had occurred only one week earlier, Earth would have been in the line of fire."

NASA goes on to report:

Analysts believe that a direct hit by an extreme CME such as the one that missed Earth in July 2012 could cause widespread power blackouts, disabling everything that plugs into a wall socket. Most people wouldn't even be able to flush their toilet because urban water supplies largely rely on electric pumps.

Almost everything on Earth with a circuit board would be fried
NASA's description of the consequences of an "extreme CME" (Coronal Mass Ejection) just barely begins to paint the real picture of what such an event would cause. Here's a more detailed picture of what we would really see unfold:

� Nearly all circuit boards containing microelectronics would be fried, causing across-the-board failures of nearly all communications including cell phone towers, internet systems, radios, computers and mobile devices. And yes, your mobile devices will be long gone, too.

� Nearly all forms of motorized transportation relying on complex integrated circuit boards would be rendered unusable. Some late model automobiles and airplanes might be immune to these effects, but most newer cars, airplanes and ocean vessels would be rendered inoperable. There are some very valuable discussions on this topic at www.SurvivalBlog.com

� Nearly all transportation and delivery of food, water and fuel would immediately cease.

� The power grid would go down and stay down. Nearly all systems dependent on power would cease to function. This includes your TV, meaning you won't be able to turn on CNN to tell you what just happened. Shockingly, people will have to think for themselves.

� Cities around the world would almost immediately fall into total panic and chaos as food, water, fuel and electricity are all cut off. This would set off a wave of desperation, violence, starvation and infectious disease.

� All forms of electronic commerce would cease to function, including EBT cards, ATMs, credit cards and most banking operations. Commerce would effectively grind to a halt.

� As all this is happening, hundreds of nuclear power plants across North America would run out of backup diesel fuel for their generators, causing cooling pump failures and leading to a cascading series of nuclear meltdowns equivalent to hundreds of Fukushima disasters. This might render much of the continent uninhabitable by humans for centuries, if not millennia.

� Interestingly, some of the things that would still work just fine after all this would be:
- Low-tech or "no tech" devices such as old diesel engines and farm implements
- Wood-burning stoves
- Garden seeds
- Firearms
- Gold and silver
- Horse and plow

Essentially, life would be thrust back into the 19th century. The Amish would be King, in other words.

19th-century technology cannot support 7 billion people
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that 19th-century technology cannot support the world's current population of 7 billion people.

The world population in the year 1850 hovered at just over one billion people. (2)

The world's current population of over 7 billion people is only made possible by food production and transportation systems which depend heavily on complex electronics. Even the modern tractors that produce food are dependent on electronics and GPS systems. The fuel they burn and the parts they consume must be created and then delivered from thousands of miles away.

Food refrigeration, storage, manufacturing and retailing all depends on a complex infrastructure built on integrated circuits. NASA says there is a 12% chance every decade that this entire infrastructure will be wiped out in an instant.

"How many others of this scale have just happened to miss Earth and our space detection systems?" asks Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado. "This is a pressing question that needs answers. "We need to be prepared." (1)

But we are not prepared
Consider, for a moment, the enormity of this threat to human civilization. Each year there is over a 1% chance of a MCE event which would destroy the power grid, fry most electronics across the planet, and plunge human civilization into the 19th century in terms of technology.

"Initially, I was quite surprised that the odds were so high," stated Pete Riley of Predictive Science Inc., who published a February, 2014 paper in Space Weather. (1) "But the statistics appear to be correct... It is a sobering figure."

The odds of human civilization being plunged back into a pre-technology era are not in dispute. Every day that goes by is another roll of the dice, and a direct hit on the planet by a massive CME is mathematically inevitable.

On a larger time scale, in fact, large solar flares might be viewed as a kind of "galactic rebooting" of inhabited planets, humbling civilizations back into the pre-electronics era and causing a massive die-off of the unprepared.

Almost no one is prepared for the reality of "direct hit" solar flares
Today on planet Earth, almost no one is prepared for this. Everybody is too focused on their own problems or ambitions to think about the risk of solar flares. After all, there are political ambitions to pursue, corporate stocks to trade and shiny new cars (or hand bags) to be acquired.

There are wars to be fought, housing developments to be constructed and water wells to be drilled.

Everyone is so focused on their own narrow goals or ambitions that almost nobody looks skyward at the sun and says, "That object is repeatedly sending out large bursts of energy that could blast us back into the Agrarian Age."

And so nothing gets done to protect the national power grid from such events, even though such protections could be installed for only about $2 billion in the U.S. Nothing gets done to shift away from nuclear power facilities or protect their backup generators from solar flares or EMP weapons, and so nuclear power plants remain ticking time bombs capable of unleashing a nuclear apocalypse.

Modern humans have forgotten how to live without electronics
Not surprisingly, humanity is blindly marching into a future of its own demise. By relying so heavily on computerized systems for the production and delivery of electricity, food, water, fuel and supplies, human civilization has placed itself in a non-survivable scenario.

Even if a large percentage of the population wanted to survive following a global electronics wipeout, most people have no real-world skills anymore. They don't know how to farm, how to ranch animals, how to grow a garden or how to live off the land. All the skills of the Information Age become instantly useless once a massive solar flare wipes out the electronics.

How many people are left who can navigate a street map without using GPS? How many people know how to start a fire in a wood burning stove? How many people purchase books in hard copy format anymore? (Trust me when I say all those survival books you bought on Amazon Kindle won't be much good after a solar flare wipeout.)

Humans are not wired to process long-term risks
To understand this even better, step back and take an honest look at your own behavior. After reading this article and realizing it's 100% true and based on a real announcement from NASA, what will you do about it?

Over 99 percent of the people who read this article will do nothing different. They will go back to their lives in the city, working their jobs, paying their rent, and perhaps saying to themselves, "Wow, solar flare. That's interesting."

It doesn't sink in because humans are not wired to process long-term risks. Humans are wired to run from tigers and evade imminent physical danger, but they have almost no innate cognitive ability to understand large systemic risks.

That's why people don't understand the reality of the coming global debt collapse. They don't grasp the coming global water collapse. They are unable to recognize the inherent fragility of a highly specialized society with few redundancies.

The ability to ignore these very large systemic risks is sometimes called a "normalcy bias." That terms refers to the irrational belief that things will stay the way they are because they've always been that way. If tap water always comes out of the tap, day after day, year after year, the human mind will automatically assume water automagically will comes out of that same tap forever.

When the solar flare hits, few will know what happened
Nearly all humans alive today falsely assume that human civilization is robust and redundant. They do not understand how their food, water, air conditioning, economic activities and personal safety are all heavily dependent on complex electronic devices which will not survive a sufficiently large solar flare.

As a result, few people will understand what's really happening when the CME strikes. Suddenly, nearly all electronic devices will simultaneously cease to function. The world will fall silent, and within minutes the panic will begin.

Thrust back into the 19th century, the world will likely see a loss of billions of lives. Under-developed agricultural nations like Papua New Guinea will experience the highest survival rates, and rural families will vastly out-live urban dwellers across every nation. Those people who can grow their own food, defend their property against looters and safeguard their health with natural remedies will vastly out-live those who can't.

This scenario is precisely what nearly unfolded in the summer of 2012. And there is no question that it will happen to our civilization sooner or later. With a 12% chance of a direct hit every decade, it's likely to be "sooner" rather than "later."

I suppose he forgot that there has been no solar activity for a while now and we are heading for a mini ice age