‘When spectacular success spells calamitous failure’ What is real? One of humanity’s more curious traits is an unlimited capacity for self-delusion. And if you don’t think you are delusional, you are doubly deluded. There are numerous causes of this enigma, many springing from basic human nature. Perhaps the most obvious is that human groups
Highlights The stable climate of the Holocene made agriculture and civilization possible. The unstable Pleistocene climate made it impossible before then. Human societies after agriculture were characterized by overshoot and collapse. Climate change frequently drove these collapses. Business-as-usual estimates indicate that the climate will warm by 3°C-4 °C by 2100 and by as much as
Iran - especially its capital, Tehran - is facing an unprecedented drought this autumn, with rainfall at record lows and reservoirs nearly empty. Officials are pleading with citizens to conserve water as the crisis deepens. President Masoud Pezeshkian has warned that if there is not enough rainfall soon, Tehran's water supply could be rationed.
Two scenarios for what a world with a declining resource and energy availability could look like We, the lucky 1 billion living affluent lives, are completely technology-blind. We take all what has been discovered, developed and scaled up in the past as a given for eons to come. Electricity. Food in the supermarket. Gas
Gubba, 25, is preparing for the worst by stocking up on everything from food to medical supplies, seeds and soil - and every spare bit of cash goes towards her homestead A doomsday prepper who is preparing for worldwide 'collapse' revealed she'll be tucking into 'freeze-dried' Christmas dinner this year. Gubba,25, has "scaled up"
More than 2.5 million Americans depend on durable medical equipment, such as oxygen delivery systems, ventilators, and dialysis machines. For these vulnerable customers, even brief power interruptions can cause their equipment to malfunction, and longer outages can be life-threatening, if power isn’t restored quickly. Yet the U.S. power grid is aging and under increasing
HOUSTON (AP) — Doris Brown was nearly asleep when a neighbor knocked on her door, telling her to look outside. “There were no lights, nowhere,” said Brown, recalling the power outage that summer night in 2023. “I didn't even know it.” Brown's solar panel and battery system was keeping her power on. She'd prepared
In 27 years’ time, society as we know it will have collapsed. Food will be extremely limited. Lawlessness will have taken over the land. Gangs will roam the countryside scavenging for resources like food, water and fuel. This breakdown won’t be sudden. It will happen over a period of months. It might even have
In the name of ‘pragmatism’, green measures are being ditched, net zero derided. Be very clear: without slashing emissions we are in deep, deep trouble The hope that followed the signing of the Paris climate agreement in 2016 has long gone as the global community has failed utterly to rein in emissions, which –
We’re beyond Mel Gibson’s Mad Max era. We no longer need oil to make it through the apocalypse As I write these words, the No 1 trending story on the Guardian is titled: “The history and future of societal collapse”. It is an account of a study by a Cambridge expert who works at