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Collapsology books: Difference between revisions
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== | == Booklist == | ||
Editors: this should be a growing list | |||
[[File:Humanitys-Last-Stand.jpg|240px|right]] | [[File:Humanitys-Last-Stand.jpg|240px|right]] | ||
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''Surveying the struggles of disenfranchised peoples around the globe from frontline communities affected by climate change, to #BlackLivesMatter activists, to Indigenous water protectors, to migrant communities facing increasing hostility, anthropologist Mark Schuller argues that we must develop radical empathy in order to move beyond simply identifying as “allies” and start acting as “accomplices.” Bringing together the insights of anthropologists and activists from many cultures, this timely study shows us how to stand together and work toward a more inclusive vision of humanity before it’s too late.'' | ''Surveying the struggles of disenfranchised peoples around the globe from frontline communities affected by climate change, to #BlackLivesMatter activists, to Indigenous water protectors, to migrant communities facing increasing hostility, anthropologist Mark Schuller argues that we must develop radical empathy in order to move beyond simply identifying as “allies” and start acting as “accomplices.” Bringing together the insights of anthropologists and activists from many cultures, this timely study shows us how to stand together and work toward a more inclusive vision of humanity before it’s too late.'' | ||
https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/humanitys-last-stand/9781978820876/ | https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/humanitys-last-stand/9781978820876/ | ||
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[[File:Global-Catastrophic-Risks.jpg|240px|left]] | |||
=== Global Catastrophic Risks === | |||
'''Bostrom and Cirkovic''' | |||
''A global catastrophic risk is one with the potential to wreak death and destruction on a global scale. In human history, wars and plagues have done so on more than one occasion, and misguided ideologies and totalitarian regimes have darkened an entire era or a region. Advances in technology are adding dangers of a new kind. It could happen again.'' | |||
''In Global Catastrophic Risks 25 leading experts look at the gravest risks facing humanity in the 21st century, including asteroid impacts, gamma-ray bursts, Earth-based natural catastrophes, nuclear war, terrorism, global warming, biological weapons, totalitarianism, advanced nanotechnology, general artificial intelligence, and social collapse. The book also addresses over-arching issues - policy responses and methods for predicting and managing catastrophes.'' | |||
''This is invaluable reading for anyone interested in the big issues of our time; for students focusing on science, society, technology, and public policy; and for academics, policy-makers, and professionals working in these acutely important fields.'' | |||
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/global-catastrophic-risks-9780199606504?cc=us&lang=en& | |||
[[File:Pandoras-Seed.jpg|240px|right]] | |||
=== Pandora's Seed === | |||
'''Wells''' | |||
''Ten thousand years ago, our species made a radical shift in its way of life: We became farmers rather than hunter-gatherers. Although this decision propelled us into the modern world, renowned geneticist and anthropologist Spencer Wells demonstrates that such a dramatic change in lifestyle had a downside that we’re only now beginning to recognize. Growing grain crops ultimately made humans more sedentary and unhealthy and made the planet more crowded.'' | |||
''The expanding population and the need to apportion limited resources created hierarchies and inequalities. Freedom of movement was replaced by a pressure to work that is the forebear of the anxiety millions feel today. Spencer Wells offers a hopeful prescription for altering a life to which we were always ill-suited. Pandora’s Seed is an eye-opening book for anyone fascinated by the past and concerned about the future.'' | |||
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/188600/pandoras-seed-by-spencer-wells/ | |||
[[File:Worst-Case-Scenarios.jpg|240px|left]] | |||
=== Worst-case Scenarios === | |||
'''Sunstein''' | |||
''Nuclear bombs in suitcases, anthrax bacilli in ventilators, tsunamis and meteors, avian flu, scorchingly hot temperatures: nightmares that were once the plot of Hollywood movies are now frighteningly real possibilities. How can we steer a path between willful inaction and reckless overreaction?'' | |||
''Cass Sunstein explores these and other worst-case scenarios and how we might best prevent them in this vivid, illuminating, and highly original analysis. Singling out the problems of terrorism and climate change, Sunstein explores our susceptibility to two opposite and unhelpful reactions: panic and utter neglect. He shows how private individuals and public officials might best respond to low-probability risks of disaster—emphasizing the need to know what we will lose from precautions as well as from inaction. Finally, he offers an understanding of the uses and limits of cost–benefit analysis, especially when current generations are imposing risks on future generations.'' | |||
''Throughout, Sunstein uses climate change as a defining case, because it dramatically illustrates the underlying principles. But he also discusses terrorism, depletion of the ozone layer, genetic modification of food, hurricanes, and worst-case scenarios faced in our ordinary lives. Sunstein concludes that if we can avoid the twin dangers of overreaction and apathy, we will be able to ameliorate if not avoid future catastrophes, retaining our sanity as well as scarce resources that can be devoted to more constructive ends.'' | |||
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674032514 | |||
[[File:Revenge-Of-Gaia.jpg|240px|right]] | |||
=== The Revenge of Gaia === | |||
'''Lovelock''' | |||
''James Lovelock's bestselling The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back - and How we can Still Save Humanity is a dire warning against the unchecked growth of civilization.'' | |||
''Despite all our efforts to retreat sustainably, we may be unable to prevent a global decline into a chaotic world ruled by brutal warlords on a devastated Earth...'' | |||
''For thousands of years, humans have exploited the planet without counting the cost. Now Gaia, the living Earth, is fighting back. As the polar icecaps shrink and the global temperature rises, we approach the point of no return. Sustainable development, Lovelock argues, is no longer possible, and the only open to us may be a 'sustainable retreat'. This is the one book you must read to find out what is happening, how bad it will get - and how we can survive.'' | |||
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1155/the-revenge-of-gaia-by-james-lovelock/9780141025971 | |||
[[File:Collapse-Choose-Or-Fail.jpg|240px|left]] | |||
=== Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed === | |||
'''Diamond''' | |||
''In Jared Diamond’s follow-up to the Pulitzer-Prize winning Guns, Germs and Steel, the author explores how climate change, the population explosion and political discord create the conditions for the collapse of civilization. Diamond is also the author of Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis'' | |||
''Environmental damage, climate change, globalization, rapid population growth, and unwise political choices were all factors in the demise of societies around the world, but some found solutions and persisted. As in Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond traces the fundamental pattern of catastrophe, and weaves an all-encompassing global thesis through a series of fascinating historical-cultural narratives. Collapse moves from the Polynesian cultures on Easter Island to the flourishing American civilizations of the Anasazi and the Maya and finally to the doomed Viking colony on Greenland. Similar problems face us today and have already brought disaster to Rwanda and Haiti, even as China and Australia are trying to cope in innovative ways. Despite our own society’s apparently inexhaustible wealth and unrivaled political power, ominous warning signs have begun to emerge even in ecologically robust areas like Montana.'' | |||
''Brilliant, illuminating, and immensely absorbing, Collapse is destined to take its place as one of the essential books of our time, raising the urgent question: How can our world best avoid committing ecological suicide?'' | |||
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/288954/collapse-by-jared-diamond/ | |||
[[File:L-Entraide.jpg|240px|right]] | |||
=== L'entraide: L'autre loi de la jungle === | |||
'''Servigne, Chapelle''' | |||
''Alors que nos sociétés libérales sont fondées sur des valeurs qui ne trouvent trop souvent du sens qu’à travers la compétition, Gauthier Chapelle et Pablo Servigne – l’auteur du succès de librairie Comment tout peut s’effondrer – commettent ici un ouvrage majeur. Au modèle de « la guerre de tous contre tous », ils proposent de substituer une vision du vivre-ensemble basée sur l’entraide. Car en balayant l’éventail du vivant – des bactéries aux sociétés humaines en passant par les plantes et les animaux –, il apparaît clairement que les organismes qui survivent le mieux aux conditions difficiles ne sont pas les plus forts, mais ceux qui s’entraident le plus… '' | |||
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36690231-l-entraide | |||
[[File:2030-Spike.jpg|240px|left]] | |||
=== The 2030 Spike === | |||
'''Mason''' | |||
''The clock is relentlessly ticking! Our world teeters on a knife-edge between a peaceful and prosperous future for all, and a dark winter of death and destruction that threatens to smother the light of civilization. Within 30 years, in the 2030 decade, six powerful 'drivers' will converge with unprecedented force in a statistical spike that could tear humanity apart and plunge the world into a new Dark Age. Depleted fuel supplies, massive population growth, poverty, global climate change, famine, growing water shortages and international lawlessness are on a crash course with potentially catastrophic consequences. In the face of both doomsaying and denial over the state of our world, Colin Mason cuts through the rhetoric and reams of conflicting data to muster the evidence to illustrate a broad picture of the world as it is, and our possible futures. Ultimately his message is clear; we must act decisively, collectively and immediately to alter the trajectory of humanity away from catastrophe. Offering over 100 priorities for immediate action, The 2030 Spike serves as a guidebook for humanity through the treacherous minefields and wastelands ahead to a bright, peaceful and prosperous future in which all humans have the opportunity to thrive and build a better civilization. This book is powerful and essential reading for all people concerned with the future of humanity and planet earth.'' | |||
https://www.routledge.com/The-2030-Spike-Countdown-to-Global-Catastrophe-1st-Edition/Mason/p/book/9781138384095 | |||
[[File:Collapse-of-Complex-Societies.jpg|240px|right]] | |||
=== The Collapse of Complex Societies === | |||
'''Tainter''' | |||
''Any explanation of political collapse carries lessons not just for the study of ancient societies, but for the members of all complex societies in both the present and future. Dr Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory that accounts for collapse among diverse kinds of societies, evaluating his model and clarifying the processes of disintegration by detailed studies of the Roman, Mayan and Chacoan collapses.'' | |||
https://www.cambridge.org/ch/universitypress/subjects/archaeology/archaeological-theory-and-methods/collapse-complex-societies?format=PB&isbn=9780521386739 | |||
[[File:Overshoot.jpg|240px|left]] | |||
=== Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change === | |||
'''Catton, Jr.''' | |||
''Our day-to-day experiences over the past decade have taught us that there must be limits to our tremendous appetite for energy, natural resources, and consumer goods. Even utility and oil companies now promote conservation in the face of demands for dwindling energy reserves. And for years some biologists have warned us of the direct correlation between scarcity and population growth. These scientists see an appalling future riding the tidal wave of a worldwide growth of population and technology.'' | |||
''A calm but unflinching realist, Catton suggests that we cannot stop this wave - for we have already overshot the Earth's capacity to support so huge a load. He contradicts those scientists, engineers, and technocrats who continue to write optimistically about energy alternatives. Catton asserts that the technological panaceas proposed by those who would harvest from the seas, harness the winds, and farm the deserts are ignoring the fundamental premise that "the principals of ecology apply to all living things." These principles tell us that, within a finite system, economic expansion is not irreversible and population growth cannot continue indefinitely. If we disregard these facts, our sagging American Dream will soon shatter completely.'' | |||
https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p009884 | |||
[[File:Limits-To-Growth.jpg|240px|right]] | |||
=== The Limits to Growth === | |||
'''Meadows, Meadows, Randers, Behrens III''' | |||
''Published 1972 – The message of this book still holds today: The earth’s interlocking resources – the global system of nature in which we all live – probably cannot support present rates of economic and population growth much beyond the year 2100, if that long, even with advanced technology. In the summer of 1970, an international team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began a study of the implications of continued worldwide growth. They examined the five basic factors that determine and, in their interactions, ultimately limit growth on this planet-population increase, agricultural production, nonrenewable resource depletion, industrial output, and pollution generation. The MIT team fed data on these five factors into a global computer model and then tested the behavior of the model under several sets of assumptions to determine alternative patterns for mankind’s future. The Limits to Growth is the nontechnical report of their findings. The book contains a message of hope, as well: Man can create a society in which he can live indefinitely on earth if he imposes limits on himself and his production of material goods to achieve a state of global equilibrium with population and production in carefully selected balance.'' | |||
https://www.clubofrome.org/publication/the-limits-to-growth/ | |||
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Taken and expanded from https://www.collapsologie.fr/en/books/ | |||