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 Wk 8 Critical ResponsePractice(Peer review)–Texts 
Text 1
Causes of collapse of civilisations 
Edited extract from: 
Diamond, J. (2013). Collapse: how civilisations choose to succeed or fail. Penguin, UK. 
One consideration in societal collapse involves the damage that people inadvertently inflict on their environment. The extent and reversibility of that damage depend partly on properties of people (e.g., how many trees they cut down per acre per year), and partly on properties of the environment (e.g. how many plants grow per acre, and how rapidly plants grow per year). Those environmental properties are referred to either as fragility (the potential for damage) or as resilience (potential for recovery from damage), and one can talk separately of the fragility or resilience of an area's forests, its soils, its fish populations, and so on. The reasons why only certain historical societies suffered environmental collapses might involve either exceptional carelessness of their people or the exceptional fragility of some aspects of their environment, or both. 
Another consideration is climate change, a term that today we tend to associate with global warming caused by humans. In fact, climates may become hotter or colder, wetter or drier, or more or less variable between months or between years, because of changes in natural forces that drive climate and that have nothing to do with humans. Examples of such forces include changes in the output of heat by the sun, volcanic eruptions that inject dust into the atmosphere, changes in the orientation of the Earth's axis with respect to its orbit, and changes in the distribution of land and ocean over the face of the Earth. 
Climate change was even more of a problem for past societies with short human lifespans and without writing than it is today, because climates in many parts of the world tend to vary not just from year to year but also on a multi-decade time scale; e.g. several wet decades followed by a dry half-century. In many prehistoric societies the mean human generation time—average number of years between births of parents and of their children—was only a few decades. Hence towards the end of a string of wet decades, most people alive would have had no firsthand memory of the previous period of dry climate. Even today, there is a human tendency to increase production and population during good decades, forgetting (or, in the past, never realizing) that such decades are unlikely to continue. When the good decades then do end, the society finds itself with more population than can be supported, or with ingrained habits unsuitable to the new climate conditions. 
Natural climate changes may make conditions either better or worse for any particular human society and may benefit one society while hurting another society. In many historical cases, a society that was depleting its environmental resources could absorb the losses as long as the climate was benign*, but was then driven over the brink of collapse when the climate became drier, colder, hotter, wetter, or more variable. Should one then say that the collapse was caused by human environmental impact, or by climate change? Neither of those simple alternatives is correct. Instead, if the society hadn't already 2 

partly depleted its environmental resources, it might have survived the resource depletion caused by climate change. Conversely, it was able to survive its self-inflicted resource depletion until climate change produced further resource depletion. It was neither factor taken alone, but the combination of environmental impact and climate change, that proved fatal. 
*benign = not harmful
Text 2
The sustainability link to inequality 
Edited extract from: 
Waddock, S. (2017). Inequality, dignity and the sustainability challenge. Journal of Management for Global Sustainability, 5 (1), 63-83. 
There are two main factors that push societies and civilizations toward destruction. One is civilizations or societies pushing natural resources beyond what can sustain them, i.e., a lack of sustainability; the other is a growing gap between rich and poor, i.e., growing inequality (Diamond, 2005). Inequality is systemic, as are sustainability problems, and they are increasingly recognized as related issues. A key to understanding the worst impacts of climate change on the planet is to understand that the poor will be much more dramatically affected than the rich. This important point is made explicit by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which directly links the sustainability challenge to the problem of (growing) inequality in the world: 
Climate change will amplify existing risks and create new risks for natural and human systems. Risks are unevenly distributed and are generally greater for disadvantaged people and communities in countries at all levels of development. (IPCC, 2014: 13) 
INEQUALITY AS A SYSTEMIC ISSUE 
Inequality continues to grow globally, and the problem increasingly has to do with the ways in which business and economic systems are structured. A 2016 report by Oxfam puts it unequivocally: 
“The gap between rich and poor is reaching new extremes. The richest 1% now have more wealth than the rest of the world combined. Power and privilege [are] being used to influence the economic system to increase the gap between the richest and the rest” (Oxfam, 2016: 1). 
The U.S. now has greater inequality than about 70% of the world’s other countries, with gaps between rich and poor rising since about the 1970s. Indeed, close to three quarters of wealth in the U.S. is owned by the wealthiest 10% of the population, with some 35% owned by the top 1%, and a startling 22% of total wealth by the 0.1%. However, the problem is not confined to the United States. A report by the Pew Research Center notes that although some 700 million people around the globe have “stepped out” of poverty, they have only done so “barely,” meaning that they may no longer be living in “extreme” poverty but are still poor (Kochar, 2015). The same report also finds that while the middle-income population has increased worldwide, most people have remained poor, with 15% of the world’s population living on less than $2.00 a day and 56% at the “low income” level of between $2.01 and $10.00 a day. Moreover, the pathbreaking work of Thomas 3 

Piketty warns of the possibility that structural conditions in the economy will continue to fuel ever-greater wealth gains by the already wealthy at the expense of the rest of the population (Piketty, 2014). Global Jobs Crisis These data suggest that inequality, both in the U.S. and globally, is in many ways as problematic as climate change. Both are potential sources of societal and civilizational instability—inequality can lead to civil unrest, particularly if there are not enough jobs to support people. A 2014 report by the World Bank warned that the world is possibly heading for a global jobs crisis: some 600 million jobs need to be created simply to keep up with population growth in the G20 alone, where there are already more than 100 million people unemployed and nearly 450 million living on less than $2/day. An International Labour Organization report from 2015 indicated that the global employment situation is likely to worsen between 2015 and 2020. Some 201 million people were unemployed in 2014, more than 31 million more than before the GFC. Furthermore, some 61 million jobs have been lost since the crisis, meaning that nearly 280 million new jobs need to be developed by 2019 simply to close the gap created by the GFC. The situation is particularly problematic for young people, as almost 74 million young people (15–24) were seeking work in 2014. In addition, seemingly inexorable forces are shaping business and economics today, including global economic integration and technological changes that are shifting the number, type, and nature of jobs in both the developed and developing world (Rifkin, 2014; Pinney, 2014). Even what we think of as high-skilled jobs, like much of the work of junior lawyers, accountants, technologists, and some doctors, can now be outsourced or off-shored, with the resulting reduction of positions creating disruptions in numerous local economies (although others might benefit to some extent). Inequality combined with lack of productive work for so many could even result in social collapse, as Jared Diamond (2005) dramatically argues. Protests like the Arab Spring, Occupy, and in Spain, Egypt, and Greece, among others, suggest the discontent that can erupt—and spill into civil disruption—if equity and employment are not dealt with effectively at the policy level. Even if collapse does not happen, keen observers like Piketty (2014) and Saez & Zucman (2014) warn of a “dystopian future” in which the rich/poor gap continues to widen. A vast majority of people, the bottom 90%, own very little, and can potentially experience quite readily a significant lack of dignity* in the way that they are treated and positioned in their societies. *dignity = the state or quality of deserving honour or respect
Text 3 How inequality undermines environmental sustainability Edited extract from: Hoffman, J. (2017). Sustainability and inequality: confronting the debate. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 9 (3), 359 – 364. It has been argued that concerns about inequality and sustainability are linked as inequality can undermine the desired goals of sustainability. Indeed, sustainability programs that focus on environmental sustainability pay relatively little attention to inequality and ignore the impact of inequality on the environmental aspect of sustainability. Economic growth can have an unsustainable ecological footprint*. This is destructive to the environment that will support future generations (Faber & McCarthy, 2003; McLaren, 2003). In addition, economic growth can increase inequality, as has happened in the US in recent years (Stockhammer, 2012; Van Treeck & Sturn, 2012) and have consequent negative effects on environmental spending. Even if the average national income is rising, lower income groups have less real purchasing power and tend to reduce their spending on personal environmental investments such as cleaner vehicles, energy-efficient appliances and home repairs such as insulation. These income pressures can reduce their support for environmental spending in their communities in general. Government revenues needed for environmental spending can also be adversely affected by both declining and slow-growing incomes, as well as declines in property values due to inadequate home maintenance (Hoffman, 2005; Magnani, 2011). Local communities with high proportions of economically disadvantaged residents are most likely to be adversely affected (e.g., Kozol, 1991). Further ways in which conditions of inequality can limit environmental protection include negative effects arising from greater economic insecurity, such as unemployment, temporary work and below-living wages. These can contribute to a reduced willingness to risk investment in health, education and environmental protection, both individually and by the government. Negative impacts can result, such as failure to invest in individual or community education which affects future productivity and therefore future ability to pay for environmental needs (Magnani, 2011). Additionally, inequality allows privileged community members with decision-making influence to continue environmentally harmful practices. Since some environmental effects can, at least temporarily, be localized, the privileged may ignore the need to clean up pollution in poor areas, as this would mean greater taxes, or they may make financial gains from allowing additional polluting activities which can be located in poor areas (Colton,1997; Hurley, 1997; Agyeman et al., 2003). The artifice* by which the privileged can temporarily protect themselves from the true external costs of polluting activities results in a less sustainable future for all, as we are discovering in the case of global warming. By weakening social cohesion, inequality can work against the community contributions and cooperation necessary for environmental protection. If some system of privilege (such as gender, class, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference) discriminates against some groups, not only are their incomes reduced but also important development goals, such as dignity, self-esteem and access 4 5 

to rights, are denied. Such systems of privilege can result in entire communities being socially isolated from other communities. This means these community members will have less access to information and opportunities and their future incomes may therefore be lower (McGahey, 1986; Borjas, 1995). Lower incomes are likely to mean that community members, and also community businesses, are less willing to pay for new environmental technology (Magnani, 2011). Additionally, reduced communication among communities can limit the exchange of ideas and talents which would enhance environmental protection. Systems of privilege and resulting inequalities can also undercut the willingness of disadvantaged groups to participate in community activities important to environmental protection and sustainability (Henrich et al., 2001). Systems of privilege can erode respect for law, including environmental laws, among all members of the community and this encourages illegal behaviours such as those involving littering, recycling and hazardous waste disposal. While these activities can be regulated, policing such behaviour is both expensive and imperfect. Avoidance of environmental harms is preferable to, and cheaper than cleaning them up (Hoffman, 2010). Inequality can also negatively affect the general well-being of both the privileged and the disadvantaged, as well as threatening the very existence of a society. Greater inequality in income distribution has been shown to have negative effects on investment and economic growth, which in turn could discourage overall environmental spending (Perotti, 1993). Inequality has also been associated with poorer health for all community members, not just the disadvantaged (Wilkinson, 1992). Finally, the society becomes increasingly unsustainable as legal structures are questioned and trust in the system fails. Such inequality has been variously tied to revolution and the collapse of entire societies. 
*ecological footprint = the environmental impact of human activities
*artifice = clever tricks to make others believe things that are not true

Text 4
So this week, we've been looking at reasons for the collapse or the decline of civilizations and societies. And what I'd like to talk to you about now is an interesting study about this. That was carried out by a team of scientists. These were systems scientists, natural scientists and social scientists, a whole team of different scientists at the National socio environmental synthesis center. So what these scientists did, they used a mathematical model to see how different scenarios would play out. They modeled different scenarios mathematically on a computer and basically, they use this model to well, they put in different combinations of variables to see what the result would be if we had those different combinations of variables in reality, and what they found was that it's pretty likely if nothing changes, it's pretty likely that global industrial civilization could collapse in the coming decades, because of two key things, over exploitation of resources, unsustainable resource use, and also inequality, the increasingly unequal distribution of wealth. Now before I go on I think it's worth revisiting quickly what we mean by social collapse, we can define collapse as the decline or fall if you like of a complex human society. So this decline or fall could be sudden, like, for example, the Mayan civilization in Central America or it could be a more gradual process like the decline of the Roman Empire.
And what basically happens when the society declines is that it reverts back to less complex organization, simpler social structures, less complex governance, there's usually population decline and a period of a kind of loss of knowledge, less education, less literacy, poor health and so on. Basically, going back to a period of less development or less civilization, like the Dark Ages in Europe would be an example. So in this particular study, the scientists fed a lot of historical data into their model, and found that this process of rise and collapse is actually a recurring cycle found throughout history. There are many examples of severe social disruption civilizational disruption, because of the collapse of advanced complex societies, and these periods of disruption, these periods of going backwards, if you like, can last for for hundreds of years for centuries and have actually been quite common throughout history.

So what are the reasons they found for the collapse for the decline? of complex civilizations? The research has investigated the interaction or the interrelationships if you like between humans and nature.

And in these historical examples, and then these past cases of collapse, they identified five important factors which explain civilizational decline and these factors might also help to determine the risk of collapse today. These factors are population, climate, water, agriculture and energy. Now these factors can lead to collapse when they come together to create two important social features. The first of these features is the overuse of resources to the point where the environment can't support the society anymore. This is called exceeding the carrying capacity of the environment.

The second is the economic stratification of society. In other words, increasing inequality between the rich or the elites we call the rich the elites and the poor.

The study found that these two social phenomena have played a central role in the nature of or the process of the collapse in all the examples that they looked at from over the last 5000 years. So why did this happen? It's because high levels of inequality are linked directly to overconsumption of resources. And the elites or the rich are largely responsible for both the masses of the population the poor, produce the wealth, but only have access to a small portion of that wealth, while the elites control the wealth. Because the elites control the wealth, they're protected from the negative effects of resource exploitation. They're protected from the effects of environmental collapse much longer than the poor. And eventually, there's a collapse of the poor population. The poor suffer from famine, for example, there's no food for them to eat, while the rich are protected from these because they control most of the wealth and the resources. But eventually, because the poor collapse the population of the poor collapses.

This means that the elites will eventually collapse to because there's no one to produce the wealth for them anymore, or there's a much reduced population of the poor to produce the wealth for them. It's really a loss of workers that causes the collapse rather than a collapse of nature, a collapse of the environment and it's the sort of mechanism that can help explain how historical social collapses were allowed to happen by elites, who seems to be unaware of the catastrophic path that this society was on.

They weren't aware of the problems because they were protected from the problems because of their access to and control of resources and wealth, the elites and their supporters who were opposed to making changes so that they could protect their interests. They failed to see the long term unsustainability of their society. But this doesn't mean that collapse is inevitable. Policy and structural changes can avoid collapse and pave the way to a more stable civilization.
If the problems are recognized and addressed by the rich. The two key solutions are to reduce economic inequality. So as to ensure fairer distribution of resources, and also to dramatically read to dramatically reduce resource consumption by relying on less intensive renewable resources and reducing population growth.

So what's the main lesson from this? It's that collapse can be avoided, population can reach equilibrium can reach a balance, if the rate of depletion in nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion, and these are decisions that our society can choose to make.