Collapse, environment, and society

Abstract

Historical collapse of ancient states poses intriguing social-ecological questions, as well as potential applications to global change and contemporary strategies for sustainability. Five Old World case studies are developed to identify interactive inputs, triggers, and feedbacks in devolution. Collapse is multicausal and rarely abrupt. Political simplification undermines traditional structures of authority to favor militarization, whereas disintegration is preconditioned or triggered by acute stress (insecurity, environmental or economic crises, famine), with breakdown accompanied or followed by demographic decline. Undue attention to stressors risks underestimating the intricate interplay of environmental, political, and sociocultural resilience in limiting the damages of collapse or in facilitating reconstruction. The conceptual model emphasizes resilience, as well as the historical roles of leaders, elites, and ideology. However, a historical model cannot simply be applied to contemporary problems of sustainability without adjustment for cumulative information and increasing possibilities for popular participation. Between the 14th and 18th centuries, Western Europe responded to environmental crises by innovation and intensification; such modernization was decentralized, protracted, flexible, and broadly based. Much of the current alarmist literature that claims to draw from historical experience is poorly focused, simplistic, and unhelpful. It fails to appreciate that resilience and readaptation depend on identified options, improved understanding, cultural solidarity, enlightened leadership, and opportunities for participation and fresh ideas.

Macro-Economic Cycles Related to Climate change in Dynastic China

“…When food supply per capita was barely adequate for the majority of a population, and the society was trapped in its inability to respond positively, famine and epidemics would become difficult to avoid, and ultimately lead to depression in a rural economy (Fang et al, 2013). A more "advanced" (Butzer, 2012) nationwide economic depression and collapse would follow armed conflicts, wars and invasions which would bring large depopulation, migration, damage and abandonment of land and irrigation facilities, and fiscal crises.…”

“…We tend to accept the climate-economy linkage as a driving-response relationship under particular social conditions instead of simple causality. Therefore, the buffering mechanism of social institutions and their complicated interplay with climate change should never be underestimated (Rosen, 2007;Butzer, 2012). Economic collapse in Chinese history should be considered as a response to climatic pressure to avoid a total collapse, by population and agricultural resource redistribution and social reorganization.…”

“…Admittedly, many studies mistake the seeming-temporal coincidence between climate change and social fluctuation as a causal link. They fail to incorporate many other important factors that interact with climatic components on different temporal-spatial tiers, as well as the different role played by variable factors in specific spatial and temporal scales (Catto and Catto, 2004;Butzer, 2012). In particular, many socioeconomic phenomena operated at different temporal scales from climate change.…”

Societal transformation in response to global environmental change: A review of emerging concepts

“…Transformation is seen by some scholars as the consequence of societal collapse, and therefore considered a negative outcome (e.g., Butzer 2012), while others see the capacity to actively transform (i.e., transformability) as an essential property of longlasting functioning systems (Folke et al 2010), and concomitantly view transformation as an effective means of promoting ecological sustainability and social prosperity (Beddoe et al 2009;Jackson 2009). The latter perspective has been influenced by debates in Marxist and post-Marxist theory, with some scholars defining societal transformation as change within the frame of the capitalist economic system (WBGU 2011), while others viewing transformation as a radical change of the social structures (e.g., world views and power relations) underpinning a capitalist economy (e.g., Brooks et al 2009).…”

A preliminary analysis of economic fluctuations and climate changes in China from BC 220 to AD 1910

“…Quantitative investigations of the economic effects of longterm climatic perturbations are still limited by the dearth of long-term and high-resolution data that indicate the dynamics of socioeconomic processes. Quantitative surveys based on multi-proxy comparisons not only have been pursued by PAGES (2009) but are also essential to help reduce uncertainty and avoid environmental determinism that is related to climate-society research, specifically when considering that some statements are growingly criticized as too simplistic and mono-causal (Butzer and Endfield 2012;Turner 2010;Butzer 2012;Yancheva et al 2007;Zhang and Lu 2007;Zhang et al 2008;Zhang et al 2010b;Cheng et al 2010).…”