I think one would need that time machine to confidently say it was impossible. — unenlightened

If the scientific community truly believed that human extinction is possible due to climate change in the next ten years, this would be of tremendous import.

At present, it is not the attitude of the scientific community.

As for global social collapse, as I asked earlier, how is it that China is supposed to collapse? Instead of asking me to prove a negative, help me understand the positive that's being presented.

As for global social collapse, as I asked earlier, how is it that China is supposed to collapse. — frank

China is held together by the tight grip of a dictatorship. It's already a touch and go operation which could unravel at any time. Add a big pile of stress on to the system, and China most likely unravels in to a collection of local warlord ruled sections.

China is held together by the tight grip of a dictatorship. It's already a touch and go operation which could unravel at any time. Add a big pile of stress on to the system, and China most likely unravels in to a collection of local warlord ruled sections. — Jake

China is a very robust dictatorship. It's survived tremendous stress during the 20th Century and is now poised to become the dominant political entity in the world.

1. Climate change is unstoppable.
2. Social collapse will be worldwide, and in the next 10 years or so.
3. This will involve Flooding caused by sea-level rises displacing huge populations, decline in crop yields leading to starvation even in developed countries, collapse of infra-structure, power, clean water particularly.
4. There's fuck all to be done to stop it.
5. So what might we do or think or discuss in the meantime? — unenlightened

Yawn...

Yes, much has been written on this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_cult

Here's a fairly comprehensive list of predicted apocalyptic events, many made by science:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events

For a walk down memory lane, here are some scientific doomsday predictions made at the time of the first Earh Day in 1970:

http://www.aei.org/publication/18-spectacularly-wrong-predictions-made-around-the-time-of-first-earth-day-in-1970-expect-more-this-year-2/

The more interesting phenomenon is how the adherents react when the prophecy fails and how they attempt to maintain their beliefs in light of them being proven wrong. Yours is particularly troubling for adherents because the date is only 10 years (or so) away. Can we declare the paper wrong in 15 years?

Yes, I get it, all these past examples of failed predictions don't prove that this newest version is also wrong. I also realize that if we make such predictions long enough we might eventually be right. But, my very strong hunch here is that we'll be having this same conversation in 10 years (or so), assuming we don't die from something else.

Please talk about climate change with reference to the paper and the evidence within or elsewhere for its claims along with counterevidence, for those who disagree, from other scientific sources. Everything beyond that will be subject to deletion unless there's a very good reason for its inclusion. — Baden

This would be a fair suggestion if scientists had a proven past of avoiding bias and had the ability to divorce themselves from this odd pessimistic psychological phenomenon that leads them to find evidence of eventual final death and destruction. That it is to say, this is not just ad hom mud slinging, nor is it an anti-scientific stance, but it's clear evidence that scientists go horribly wrong when they attempt such future extrapolations. Pretending that scientists are just objective apolitical folks sorting through facts and crunching out numbers is just that - pretending.

Let us also be clear that the paper itself admits to a high degree of speculation and conjecture:

"It is a truism that we do not know what the future will be. But we can see
trends. We do not know if the power of human ingenuity will help
sufficiently to change the environmental trajectory we are on.
Unfortunately, the recent years of innovation, investment and patenting
indicate how human ingenuity has increasingly been channelled into
consumerism and financial engineering. We might pray for time. But the
evidence before us suggests that we are set for disruptive and
uncontrollable levels of climate change, bringing starvation, destruction,
migration, disease and war.
We do not know for certain how disruptive the impacts of climate change
will be or where will be most affected, especially as economic and social
systems will respond in complex ways." pp 13-14.

This comment is fraught with political ideology, concluding as if fact that patent law, capitalistic consumerism, and financial engineering (whatever that is) are interfering with human ingenuity. That certainly sounds like a thesis unto itself, and one hardly universally accepted as true. He then speaks of how me might pray, which I understand is for effect (as if that's all we can now do), but are these the words fitting for a serious scientific discussion or is this more a call to arms?

The author then goes on to say:

"These descriptions may seem overly dramatic. Some readers might
consider them an unacademic form of writing. Which would be an
interesting comment on why we even write at all. I chose the words above
as an attempt to cut through the sense that this topic is purely theoretical.
As we are considering here a situation where the publishers of this journal
would no longer exist, the electricity to read its outputs won’t exist, and a
profession to educate won’t exist, I think it time we break some of the
conventions of this format." p. 14

He doesn't even pretend to be scientific, citing to nothing really, and admitting it's just time to stop being so damn scientific. He then goes on after this to discuss the various psychological forms of denial and other unhelpful ways he thinks people are dealing with this real problem. That is simply not science, but just a lament that people don't accept his claims and are finding ways to thwart our saving of the planet..

I don't even believe this prediction:

"If all the data and analysis turn out to be misleading, and this
society continues nicely for the coming decades, then this article will not
have helped my career." p. 24

Should society continue nicely in the coming decades (and now we moved to decades and not just the next 10 years), his career will be fine. From the citations above, it seems clear that damnation cults will always have a role to play in our world.

The issue is not whether it's impossible. If the scientific community truly believed that human extinction is possible due to climate change in the next ten years, this would be of tremendous import. — frank

Frank, there is a prediction made in one place, of social disruption, and even collapse in ten years or so.
And you have attached that timeframe to another section entirely that makes other claims. In introducing the article, I have given highlights, and left out lengthy discussions of evidence and reasoning. And you have mashed together bits of sentences in the most unfair way in order not to have to consider anything that might upset your views.

I totally agree there will be social disruption. I totally agree that there is "fuck all" we can do about it.

If those are the only claims we're considering, then :up:

He might be horribly wrong. I haven't taken a position on everything he says. I'm just trying to keep this on track by asking people to criticize on the basis of what the author actually claims in the paper (as there are things being criticized that no-one has claimed) and what other scientists claim because we're in the science category. There's no other way to resolve the debate other than scientific evidence. And if it's so obvious he's wrong, then it should be an easy refutation. Anyway, got stuff to do. Be back on this later.

Should society continue nicely in the coming decades (and now we moved to decades and not just the next 10 years), his career will be fine. — Hanover

He is the founder of some think tank. There is no such thing as bad publicity.

This paper is not the venue for a detailed examination of all the latest climate science. However, I reviewed the scientific literature from the past few years and where there was still large uncertainty then sought the latest data from research institutes. In this section I summarise the findings to establish the premise that it is time we consider the implications of it being too late to avert a global environmental catastrophe in the lifetimes of people alive today.

[...]

The warming of the Arctic reached wider public awareness as it has begun destabilizing winds in the higher atmosphere, specifically the jet stream and the northern polar vortex, leading to extreme movements of warmer air north in to the Arctic and cold air to the south. At one point in early 2018, temperature recordings from the Arctic were 20 degrees Celsius above the average for that date (Watts, 2018). The warming Arctic has led to dramatic loss in sea ice, the average September extent of which has been decreasing
at a rate of 13.2% per decade since 1980, so that over two thirds of the ice cover has gone (NSIDC/NASA, 2018). This data is made more concerning by changes in sea ice volume, which is an indicator of resilience of the ice sheet to future warming and storms. It was at the lowest it has ever been in 2017, continuing a consistent downward trend (Kahn, 2017).
Given a reduction in the reflection of the Sun’s rays from the surface of white ice, an ice-free Arctic is predicted to increase warming globally by a substantial degree. Writing in 2014, scientists calculated this change is already equivalent to 25% of the direct forcing of temperature increase from CO2 during the past 30 years (Pistone et al, 2014). That means we could remove a quarter of the cumulative CO2 emissions of the last three decades and it would already be outweighed by the loss of the reflective power of Arctic sea ice. One of the most eminent climate scientists in the world, Peter Wadhams, believes an ice-free Arctic will occur one summer in the next few years and that it will likely increase by 50% the warming caused by the CO2 produced by human activity (Wadhams, 2016).4 In itself, that renders the calculations of the IPCC redundant, along with the targets and proposals of the UNFCCC.
Between 2002 and 2016, Greenland shed approximately 280 gigatons of ice per year, and the island’s lower-elevation and coastal areas experienced up to 13.1 feet (4 meters) of ice mass loss (expressed in equivalent-water- height) over a 14-year period (NASA, 2018). Along with other melting of land ice, and the thermal expansion of water, this has contributed to a global mean sea level rise of about 3.2 mm/year, representing a total increase of over 80 mm, since 1993 (JPL/PO.DAAC, 2018). Stating a figure per year implies a linear increase, which is what has been assumed by IPCC and others in making their predictions. However, recent data shows that the upward trend is non-linear (Malmquist, 2018). That means sea level is rising due to non-linear increases in the melting of land-based ice.
The observed phenomena, of actual temperatures and sea levels, are greater than what the climate models over the past decades were predicting for our current time. They are consistent with non-linear changes in our environment that then trigger uncontrollable impacts on human habitat and agriculture, with subsequent complex impacts on social, economic and political systems.

He might be wrong. He might be horribly wrong. You might want to check some of those references, he might be a snake oil salesman, or a self-publicist. But the sea level is rising, the ice is melting, global temperatures are rising, atmospheric CO2 levels are rising, Global average temperatures are rising, he's not wrong about that stuff, is he?

And perhaps just consider... he might be right.

80mm is about 3 inches, which is not very much at all, until it's 3 inches of water in your living room, and then it's way too much. Too much because no sewage, no electric and probably no fresh water. If he's right that the changes are nonlinear, then the next 3 inches might not be 25 years away, but 10 years, and the next 3 inches only a couple of years after that. I will be a refugee by then, as I live on the coast.

Yawn...

Yes, much has been written on this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doomsday_cult

Here's a fairly comprehensive list of predicted apocalyptic events, many made by science:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events

For a walk down memory lane, here are some scientific doomsday predictions made at the time of the first Earh Day in 1970:

http://www.aei.org/publication/18-spectacularly-wrong-predictions-made-around-the-time-of-first-earth-day-in-1970-expect-more-this-year-2/

The more interesting phenomenon is how the adherents react when the prophecy fails and how they attempt to maintain their beliefs in light of them being proven wrong. Yours is particularly troubling for adherents because the date is only 10 years (or so) away. Can we declare the paper wrong in 15 years? — Hanover

I've stumbled into this with in economic and financial debate, the phenomenon of the existence of the so-called permabears. Now a permabear forecasts the imminent collapse of the stock market and the financial system. He or she sounds like a breath of fresh air to the very annoying permabull-people trying to sell you stocks and who see everything through rose-coloured glasses. At least at first. For one year or two. Now some of the arguments are indeed correct and can be very convincing. About every 10-25 years that is. We do have a financial crisis every now and then.

You would assume that a financial commentator that is correct once in ten to twentyfive years wouldn't have a following, but that isn't true. And the most suprising thing is that IF they would change their views. they come to the conclusion that now things are so bad that it's time to buy stock, they will LOOSE their audience, which at the worst times is the greatest. In fact they are prisoners of their own following audience.

Hence it's not only that the most dire forecast will break the newsbarrier, come to be quote far more than something more realistic, which people find simply boring. It's that dire & gloomy predictions create an audience who will just love the doom & gloom and be extremely hostile to any positive upbeat news.

Perhaps the most incredible thing is that when indeed some of the dire predictions come true, then we simply will ignore them as life does go on...

Very simply, this is why one should resist the temptation to extrapolate from where we are now: the climate varies. In the next decade the climate may cool down and we may see reversals in the signs we're seeing now. Would we then be warranted to say anthropogenic global warming is a hoax?

No.

That freshman textbook on global warming explains that. It explains that there's a delay between emission and actual warming. It explains how this is actually a long-range problem. It explains the challenges to being specific about what will happen. It also explains the biggest challenge to actually doing anything about it.

Thanks for the factless reference-less patronising condescension. Sea-levels may fall as well as rise, terms and conditions apply.

Thanks for the factless reference-less patronising condescension. Sea-levels may fall as well as rise, terms and conditions apply. — unenlightened

I don't think you understood what I said. I wasn't being condescending. I was telling you something basic.

If you promote the habit of looking at the short term, you're basically heading people down the wrong path. Point them toward understanding the basics of the climate.

But you don't have the title or author of the textbook for us, so I have to assume he or she is not a reputable scientist. Stop the fuck shooting the breeze and pretending to be an authority and back up your bullshit with something.

What do you want me to back up? That the climate varies such that the next decade might be cooler?

What do you want me to back up? — frank

I want a reference to this text book you keep talking about as if you've read it for a start. I know you can't predict the future, so I already know that "the next decade might be cooler" means exactly nothing at all. That the climate varies I had already surmised.

Good, then you know we shouldn't extrapolate from current conditions.

Also, Banno would say that since I'm being more civil than you are, I automatically win.

Don't tell me what I know, you @£$%^*. I'll tell you what I know, which is that the past and the present are the only things anyone whatsoever of whatever repufuckingtation has from which to extrapolate anything at all about the future.

And where is that reference? Or are you unwisely extrapolating from text books you've seen on other topics?

So many people here are ignorant.

Read the primary source material (datasets, scientific peer-reviewed journal publications) and stop letting people interpret the data for you (i.e.: most news source out there).


Here are global temperatures:

https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/

https://www.nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2019/tlt_201901_bar.png

Shows 3 year global trend of dropping temperatures. The average is now in line with peaks in the 80s, 90, early 00s. I repeat, global temperatures have been going down for the last 3 years.

Fact that is hard for many people to swallow: every study that tries to devine the future uses climate models ... (simulations by computer, using simple formulas, funded by government) for example NASA, or its Japanese or French equivalent.

Look at the primary source, the IPCC assessment report:
https://archive.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/far/wg_I/ipcc_far_wg_I_chapter_05.pdf

1. it predicts that we should have experienced an 15-18 degree C increase in global temperatures by now.

look at the global temperatures now, last winter, we were only 0.1 degree above the global mean.

that is not just a wrong prediction, you are not even in the same ballpark.

2. It predicts that rainforest would have lost 20% of its precipitation and would shrink due to climate change

completely false, precipitation is increasing. Again they are off not by a little, but by an order of magnitude.

http://www.waterandclimatechange.eu/rainfall/amazon-river-basin-rainfall-in-average-year

the amazon forests thrive in warmer temperatures and actually grow shockingly fast.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16512#ref2

Again, these climate reports based on a conglomerate of climate scientists (who BTW 90% work for government, and im sure that government has no bias, and neither does pumping money for grants)

So the point is, all climate models in the 90 and 00s were completely wrong. Global temperatures are factually going down for the last 3 years, none of the models predicted this. Most people here read articles about the "Earth warming in 2050 and there's nothing we can do about it"... I advise you to look how they come up to those numbers...

how do you think they can make a prediction in 2050? that's right, climate models. which are proven again and again to be completely wrong. The mods edited the IPCC wiki page for their assessment reports and claim they predicted today's tempertures (laughably, and factually untrue, look at the PDF of their report).

Don't tell me what I know, you £$%^*. I'll tell you what I know, which is that the past and the present are the only things anyone whatsoever of whatever repufuckingtation has from which to extrapolate anything at all about the future.

And where is that reference? Or are you unwisely extrapolating from text books you've seen on other topics? — unenlightened

Scientists don't simply extrapolate. They computer simulate.

I'm not sure why you're fixated on my textbook. I don't have it anymore, so I'm not going to quote from it. I'm guessing most global warming textbooks are about the same. If there's something specific you want a reference for, let me know.

I'm not sure why you're fixated on my textbook. — frank

Because you keep hitting me with it, and because you haven't mentioned when repeatedly asked, any other source for your opinions.

They computer simulate. — frank

My turn to patronise. Yes dear, that's right, clever scientists collect a lot of data about the past and from that they produce a model or algorithm that dynamically matches the data sets (to an approximation). And then they use the same model and the current data set to extrapolate to the future. And always the data sets are partial, the models are partial and the predictions are tentative. And this means that a scientist can be reputable, and not stupid, and still get their predictions wrong. So there's no need to slag them off when you disagree with them, or compare them with astrologers and conspiracy theorists.

Don't tell me what I know, you £$%^*. — unenlightened

Well, this discussion about climate change and the future has been about as successful as most of them.

There is a way, You type the words on a lap top and then click "post comment". Science is all about predicting the future — unenlightened

Science is all about repeatability, and societal collapse isn't a repeatable phenomenon. It has happened for various societies in the past. But that's history, not science. And there's a difference for a reason.

But yes, anyone can type words on a laptop and click post.

I've stumbled into this with in economic and financial debate, the phenomenon of the existence of the so-called permabears. Now a permabear forecasts the imminent collapse of the stock market and the financial system. He or she sounds like a breath of fresh air to the very annoying permabull-people trying to sell you stocks and who see everything through rose-coloured glasses. — ssu

The odd thing about this analogy is that you seem to have it the wrong way round. The permawarmers acknowledge that every few years, the temperature will go down for a bit but overall, the long term trend is steadily or unsteadily upwards. And the permafrosties are always saying it's going down or is about to go down, and the reason for it going up is not the reason that has been theorised for 100 years, burning fossil fuels raising CO2 in the atmosphere, but random woo and the hot air of climate scientists.

Because you keep hitting me with it, and because you haven't mentioned when repeatedly asked, any other source for your opinions. — unenlightened

Fair enough. Tell me what you want me to back up.

And then they use the same model and the current data set to extrapolate to the future. — unenlightened

My point was that the fact that it's been warmer during the last few decades doesn't mean it won't cool down in the next.

If it does cool down, we don't want people saying "Hey! I thought you said..."

But then again, maybe we do want them to say that. If it's true that we can't do anything about it, we might as well become completely deluded. So, carry on.

I've seen the light. The collapse of the Roman empire was nothing. The Bronze Age collapse? Sniff.

We're all going to die. So eat, drink, and be merry. Or sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Whichever.

For those of you too lazy for close reading:

First question for any paper: what is it trying to do?

(1) The paper is trying to highlight that current climate science/sustainability management treats severe global socioeconomic impacts as an edge case (A), that management strategies thus advocated are short term bodges given the plausibility of severe global socioeconomic impacts of climate change within our lifetime (B), and because of (A) and (B) it is now time to consider alternative strategies which adjust or adapt to the plausible reality of such changes (C).

Second question for any paper: how does it try to achieve this?

(2) It surveys contemporary climate science to assess the plausibility referenced in (1), finding that such large changes are consistent with its reviewed literature, evincing (A). Moreover, it does a literature search for climatology or sustainability management looking for people analysing adjustment or adaptation strategies given severe global socioeconomic impacts from climate change within our lifetime. It doesn't find much literature explicitly on it, and doesn't find much literature which treats these scenarios as plausible, evincing (B). Given (A) and (B), investigating (C) seems sensible. So he proceeds to investigate (C).

Investigating (C), he takes the approach of trying to isolate why there are holes in the scientific literature corresponding to (A) and (B) - which has psychological and institutional components, he summarises:

Have professionals in the sustainability field discussed the possibility that it is too late to avert an environmental catastrophe and the implications for their work? A quick literature review revealed that my fellow professionals have not been publishing work that explores, or starts from, that perspective. That led to a third question, on why sustainability professionals are not exploring this fundamentally important issue to our whole field as well as our personal lives. To explore that, I drew on psychological analyses, conversations with colleagues, reviews of debates amongst environmentalists in social media and selfreflection on my own reticence. Concluding that there is a need to promote discussion about the implications of a social collapse triggered by an environmental catastrophe...

he then begins to analyse what he sees as relevant information for adjustment or adaptation:

I asked my fourth question on what are the ways that people are talking about collapse on social media. I identified a variety of conceptualisations and from that asked myself what could provide a map for people to navigate this extremely difficult issue. For that, I drew on a range of reading and experiences over my 25 years in the sustainability field to outline an agenda for what I have termed “deep adaptation” to climate change.

So first thing, the article is not predicting an extinction event, the argument does not require strong commitment to the reality of an imminent extinction event - though that is consistent with the broad aims of the paper - it predicts socio-economic upheaval on a large scale. As it puts it in the introduction:

Instead, this article may contribute to future work on sustainable management and policy as much by subtraction as by addition. By that I mean the implication is for you to take a time to step back, to consider "what if" the analysis in these pages is true, to allow yourself to grieve, and to overcome enough of the typical fears we all have, to find meaning in new ways of being and acting.. That may be in the fields of academia or management - or could be in some other field that this realisation leads you to.

If the author thought his research strongly supported an extinction event, I doubt he would put this emphasis on adjustment to massive socioeconomic upheaval. The paper is even called 'Deep Adaptation' for Christ's sake, and the title of the section he reviews the climatological literature in is 'Apocalypse Uncertain'. He does however make an effort to portray an extinction event as emotionally relevant:

It is a truism that we do not know what the future will be. But we can see
trends. We do not know if the power of human ingenuity will help sufficiently to change the environmental trajectory we are on. Unfortunately, the recent years of innovation, investment and patenting indicate how human ingenuity has increasingly been channelled into consumerism and financial engineering. We might pray for time. But the evidence before us suggests that we are set for disruptive and uncontrollable levels of climate change, bringing starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war.

We do not know for certain how disruptive the impacts of climate change will be or where will be most affected, especially as economic and social systems will respond in complex ways. But the evidence is mounting that the impacts will be catastrophic to our livelihoods and the societies that we live within. Our norms of behaviour, that we call our “civilisation,” may also degrade. When we contemplate this possibility, it can seem abstract. The words I ended the previous paragraph with may seem, subconsciously at least, to be describing a situation to feel sorry about as we witness scenes on TV or online. But when I say starvation, destruction, migration, disease and war, I mean in your own life. With the power down, soon you wouldn’t have water coming out of your tap. You will depend on your neighbours for food and some warmth. You will become malnourished. You won’t know whether to stay or go. You will fear being violently killed before starving to death.

These descriptions may seem overly dramatic. Some readers might consider them an unacademic form of writing. Which would be an interesting comment on why we even write at all. I chose the words above as an attempt to cut through the sense that this topic is purely theoretical.

I suspect that good responses to the article would deal with its 'theory of adaptation' and possible socio-economic organisational strategies that might work irrespective of the doomy-gloomy plausibilities.

Oh, and just for @frank, firstly:

The World Bank reported in 2018 that countries needed to prepare for over 100 million internally displaced people due to the effects of climate change (Rigaud et al, 2018), in addition to millions of international refugees.

if the World Bank, that well known cabal of green anarchist zero-growth environmental activists, is informing us of the need to prepare for Bad Times, we (by that I mean our betters) should probably take it seriously. If that doesn't suffice there are two slightly methodological sections called 'Our Non-Linear World' and 'Looking Ahead' which cover why the paper takes a more qualitative/integrative approach over the use of quantitative models.

The observed phenomena, of actual temperatures and sea levels, are greater than what the climate models over the past decades were predicting for our current time. They are consistent with non-linear changes in our environment that then trigger uncontrollable impacts on human habitat and agriculture, with subsequent complex impacts on social, economic and political systems. I will return to the implications of these trends after listing some more of the impacts that are already being reported as occurring today....

The impacts I just summarised are already upon us and even without increasing their severity they will nevertheless increase their impacts on our ecosystems, soils, seas and our societies over time. It is difficult to predict future impacts. But it is more difficult not to predict them. Because the reported impacts today are at the very worst end of predictions being made in the early 1990s - back when I first studied climate change and modelbased climate predictions as an undergraduate at Cambridge University.

I'm sure if you actually went through a proper error-propagation over all the combined climate data and tried to estimate the societal effects, your resultant models would have crazy high future error - and they should, because the future of nonlinear complex systems is really hard to pin down in numbers -, but if you change your frame of questioning a bit; why should the need for such error propagation and an integrated quantitative model of everything the paper touches on stop us from trying to plan to adjust or adapt to the horrible possible circumstances consistent with those models? They shouldn't... that's the real point of the paper. That is the position from which its interesting questions are tackled. It looks at various psychological factors in depth, and some institutional ones. It's only from that position does its title and intended contribution to discourse actually makes sense.

Given the climate science we discussed earlier, some people may think this (current) action is too little too late. Yet, if such action reduces some harm temporarily, that will help people, just like you and me, and therefore such action should not be disregarded. Nevertheless, we can look more critically at how people and organisations are framing the situation and the limitations that such a framing may impose. The initiatives are typically described as promoting “resilience”, rather than sustainability. Some definitions of resilience within the environmental sector are surprisingly upbeat. For instance, the Stockholm Resilience Centre (2015) explains that “resilience is the capacity of a system, be it an individual, a forest, a city or an economy, to deal with change and continue to develop. It is about how humans and nature can use shocks and disturbances like a financial crisis or climate change to spur renewal and innovative thinking.” In offering that definition, they are drawing on concepts in biology, where ecosystems are observed to overcome disturbances and increase their complexity (Brand and Jax, 2007).

So please, if you want to put this research in bin with the Mayan Apocalypse and Millenium Bug, do so, but politely leave it out of the thread (personal opinion, not moderator opinion).

So please, if you want to put this research in bin with the Mayan Apocalypse and Millenium Bug, do so, but politely leave it out of the thread (personal opinion, not moderator opinion). — fdrake

I did confirm that social disruption is on the horizon, you $$#%^&&. :)

I did confirm that social disruption is on the horizon, you $$#%^&&. — frank

Hey good! Now you're ready to start considering the arguments in the paper!

Hey good! Now you're ready to start considering the arguments in the paper! — fdrake

We were.