Will The Human Society Survive or Collapse In The Future

Will human societies survive or collapse in the future? According to a new research study sponsored by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, that the world’s industrial societies are poised to collapse. The paper was published in the scientific journal Ecological Economics.

You can read the whole rundown of what the research says here.

Here is the full abstract:

There are widespread concerns that current trends in population and resource-use are
unsustainable, but the possibilities of an overshoot and collapse remain unclear and contro-
versial. Collapses have occurred frequently in the past ve thousand years, and are often
followed by centuries of economic, intellectual, and population decline. Many dierent nat-
ural and social phenomena have been invoked to explain specic collapses, but a general
explanation remains elusive. Two important features seem to appear across societies that
have collapsed: (1) Ecological Strain and (2) Economic Stratication.
In this paper, the structure of a new model and several simulated scenarios that oer
signicant implications are explained. The model has just four equations that describe the
evolution of the populations of Elites and Commoners, Nature, and accumulated Wealth.
Mechanisms leading to collapse are discussed and the measure \Carrying Capacity” is devel-
oped and dened. The model suggests that the estimation of Carrying Capacity is a practical
means for early detection of a collapse. Collapse can be avoided, and population can reach a
steady state at the maximum carrying capacity, if the rate of depletion of nature is reduced
to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed equitably.