{"id":6032,"date":"2020-07-26T12:06:53","date_gmt":"2020-07-26T16:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=6032"},"modified":"2020-07-27T12:30:15","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T16:30:15","slug":"collapse-now-avoid-the-crush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/collapse-now-avoid-the-crush\/","title":{"rendered":"Collapse now, avoid the crush"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Max Thaysen<\/p>\n

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This year has seen a couple of fairly major shocks to the global industrial economic system that so many of us rely upon. One could say that we had a near-collapse experience.<\/p>\n

I thought it might be wise to take a moment, step back, and have a look at the bigger picture. To see where western civilization is at, what\u2019s driving us and what kinds of a future we might want to plan for. How does the\u00a0pandemic<\/a>\u00a0fit with other threats to stability.<\/p>\n

To help me with this, I sought out the ideas of a\u00a0Cortes Island\u00a0<\/a>thinker and researcher who deals with a lot of the stuff on this island that most people would rather flush away without looking at \u2013 he\u2019s a plumber, but so much more.<\/p>\n

Who is Chris Walker?<\/h4>\n

Chris Walker was a builder in Ontario when he became enamoured with solar electricity. He became an installer of solar systems, hoping that they would replace the more destructive forms of energy production.<\/p>\n

When he found that they were \u2018in addition to,\u2019 and not \u2018instead of\u2019 fossil fuels, he decided to try social change through democracy \u2014 he ran for the Green Party provincially and federally\u00a0<\/a>in several elections.<\/p>\n

When he found that people didn\u2019t want to vote for people representing policies that acknowledged\u00a0limits to growth\u00a0<\/a>and pushed for conservation of resources and nature, he went off to Sweden and did a masters in Sustainable Business Design. His thesis was on sustainable power generation.<\/p>\n

He then taught at a college in Ontario for a year before moving to BC in search of an intentional community to build resilience and weather the storm. He found Cortes.<\/p>\n

Walker believes that the forces of collapse are all around us. We haven\u2019t felt the full impact of the pandemic yet, the effect has been cushioned by government bailouts.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s like we\u2019re on the Titanic and we hit our first iceberg. We seem to have plugged the hole, but we tore up the deck to do it.<\/p>\n

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Chaos<\/a>\u00a0by Sonny Abesamis via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Our debt to GDP ratio<\/h4>\n

We had economic problems before, the pandemic just precipitated and exacerbated them. Walker talks about our troublesome debt-to-GDP-ratio.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s not pretend that I know how a debt-to-GDP ratio threatens our economic sustainability\u2026 but let\u2019s not let that stop me from referring to Wikipedia.<\/p>\n

GDP is our gross domestic product, or the amount of money we make as a country every year. In the 2007\/2008 fiscal year, Canada had a debt of $457-billion, which was 31 per cent of our GDP. By 2017\/2018, our debt had risen to $768-billion and 33 per cent of GDP.<\/a><\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s finance minister expects a $343-billion deficit this year and 40 per cent drop in GDP \u2013 and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 49 per cent. It means we\u2019ll have to grow the economy \u2014 extract more stuff from the land and sea to pay it back.<\/p>\n

Limits to growth<\/h4>\n

Don\u2019t worry, we\u2019re told, we\u2019ll fix the deck once we get back up to full speed.<\/p>\n

Walker points out that growth is always the answer \u2014 Canada\u2019s finance minister agrees \u2014 and that\u2019s suicidal. It\u2019s the logic of the yeast cells in the petri dish: they eat everything, growing exponentially and then they die.<\/p>\n

The hole in the hull is leaking \u2014 solving our problems with growth is like the Titanic not only having to get back up to full speed, it has to keep accelerating all the time.<\/p>\n

Walker believes that we are on a collision course with the limits to growth on a finite planet. We cannot keep growing indefinitely. The consequences of running into limits, when your society can\u2019t slow down is collapse.<\/p>\n

Walker points us to a report by the Club of Rome called \"Limits to Growth.\" The Club of Rome was formed when a small international group of people from the fields of academia, civil society, diplomacy, and industry met in a villa in Rome in 1968. In 1972, the group published its first report, Limits to Growth (LtG).<\/p>\n

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Mayan High Temple<\/a>\u00a0by John Hilliard via Flickr (CC BY SA, 2.0 License)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

From\u00a0wikipedia<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The study used the\u00a0World3<\/a>\u00a0computer model to simulate the consequence of interactions between the earth and human systems.<\/p>\n

Conclusions<\/h4>\n

After reviewing their computer simulations, the research team came to the following conclusions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Given business as usual, i.e., no changes to historical growth trends, the limits to growth on earth would become evident by 2072, leading to \u201csudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity\u201d. This includes the following:\n