Introduction

What got us thinking that climate change was a “new” world issue? How is mankind in
such a collective fantasy thinking that “somehow-someway” the Earth is going to
recover and be ready for humanity to keep taking resources out of it?

Answers to such questions would delightfully paradoxical in which, they would be a very
simple answer but at the same time, very hard to believe and understand. It is amazing
how in an era where technology is readily available for anybody to look and search for
figures and reports of natural disasters, climate change, poverty, pollution, life
expectancy, among many others.

In the book The Limits to Growth, first published in 1972, brings the topic to the table for
discussion for the very first time, and almost seems like it was listened but not deeply
heard and taked to heart either, as human race as not made significant changes at the
level required yet, in order to stop the consequences of what was projected back then.

Even when the subject is approached collectively, it comes down to change needed to a
very personal level for every person, related to lifestyle changes, constructive behavior,
their time horizon and heart to heart communications. All of these vary depending on
the person’s perspectives, which are related to culture and experience for every single
human being on Earth. At this point, it is critical for every single person to analyze and
adopt such matters as personal.

Collapse is at this point inevitable, however, mankind oughts to work on ways to deal
and bear with it from a civilized and peaceful perspective, preparing for the near future
when all civil societies will experience the changes to either their freedom and their
energy-consumption based lifestyle.
1. The World Problematique in the Past and Present
It is absolutely mesmerizing how the power of one person can generate a discussion
around a topic with such transcendency on the present and future of mankind. In April of
1968, a group of professionals in different areas were gathered upon the insistence of
one individual, Dr. Aurelio Peccei, a man of vision with a profound concern for humanity,
was bringing a topic to the table that nobody else in that time even thought about
discussing, “the present and the future predicament of man” [ CITATION Mea72 \l
1033 ].

Out of that initial meeting grew the invisible college called The Club of Rome, in which
many representatives in different areas and countries continued to discuss issues with
an abroad scope related to human and environmental development and, as a result,
they undertook the project of the predicament of mankind.

The project topics included matters that would affect all countries around the world to
some degree, it would contain elements such as social, economic, technical and politics
that would interact and have a cause-effect result with each other. Back then this group
was looking at problems such as:

 Economic disruptions
 Poverty in the midst of plenty
 Inflation
 Alienation of youth
 Insecurity of employment
 Uncontrolled urban spread
 Loss of faith in the institutions
 Degradation of the environment

Needless to say, all of the above are as relevant in 1970 as they are today in 2019 with
the variance of having each of the problems developing in the present to a higher
severity level, worse than 47 years after the initial study. However, even though the
proportions of each one of the issues described above have changed, the perception of
people not taking it as seriously and as personal remains the same. Unfortunately,
mankind is just starting to awake to realize that each aspect of this study is, and will,
affect them in a very personal level, might be that they will experience the
consequences of the lack of a timely response to the problem, or that their kids and
their grandkids will.

The failure to react in a timely manner for the past 47 years is showing up in our day to
day activities, now that the Earth is warmer, we have less rain due to deforestation,
poverty increases and population increases uncontrollably that its crystal clear that the
predicament of mankind has been to perceive the problematique but not yet fully
understanding the significance, origins, and interrelationships of its many components,
despite all of the new knowledge he has acquired over the years, man still fails to
devise effective responses to the root causes of the problem.

The original effort to look at each aspect of the issues resulted in The Club of Rome
engaging the MIT research team to go through the consequences of continuing to
equate growth in the future of the planet and humans. As a result, The Limits of Growth
was published in 1972.

2. Exponential growth in a finite planet

Back in 1972 the group of scientist working on the Limits to Growth project indicated
that “if the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food
production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this
planet will be reached sometime within the next 100 years” [CITATION Mea72 \p 23 \l
4106 ].

Today in 2019 those words are still holding to be true. These days climate change is
seen and felt all over the globe, however, it is rather a symptom more than a problem,
since we are looking at physical growth in a finite planet. Therefore, climate change
should be seen as the symptom of humanity growing exponentially and consuming all
the finite resources of the planet as we know it. Nevertheless, eliminating the symptom
would not be the solution to the root cause of the problem, because even if we were
able to eliminate climate change as it is today without changing the demographic
explosion of mankind, then people would start feeling the pressures of stopping the
growth in other sectors such as warfare, epidemics and water scarcity.

According to Professor Dennis Meadows, the pressures against growth have to equal
the pressures in favor of growth since only when they’re equal, growth will stop
[CITATION Pro17 \l 1033 ]. The growth will stop either do we stop it, or the earth will.

2.1. Birth Rates

Climate change is undoubtedly related to the increasing population that requires a
certain level of material consumption and a level of energy required to support the
material consumption. In most countries, it has been considered politically incorrect to
legalize a certain amount of birth rates in the families due to the strong cultural
connotation and very cultural-specific along with religious connotations as well.
According to recent studies, many women around the world end up having more
children than they really want to have [ CITATION Sto18 \l 1033 ], due to factors such
as religious connotations, cultural norms, lack of sexual education, gender inequality,
among others.

According to [ CITATION Kim16 \l 1033 ] there is a negative correlation between

women’s education and fertility, which is strongly observed across regions and time.

The study reveals that relatively higher incomes and consequently higher income due to
motherhood leads women to want fewer children. The better care women provide at
home rises their children’s human capital and decreases the economic need for more
kids. It was also found that the positive health effects of education, on both women and
their babies, mean women are better able to give birth and children’s higher survival
percentage diminishes the desire for more kids. And last but not least, education on
girls and women results in better use of contraceptives and raises the awareness of
them having the power to decide if they want to reproduce or not, and if they do, how
many children they would like to have as “educated women adopt modern birth control
methods more often than uneducated women” [ CITATION Kim16 \l 1033 ].

2.2. The collective fantasy of mankind

In the midst of climate change severity in 2019, where sea levels are growing, the
temperature of Earth is increasing, animal species facing extinction, poverty increment,
among others, humanity doesn’t seem to realize that in order to solve and alleviate the
effects of exponential growth, each person needs to make deep changes into their
current standard of living, meaning that people need to adjust their intense power
consumption habits, moving from fossil fuels to sustainable green fuels sacrificing habits
and commodities.

Mankind seems to be in a collective fantasy where somehow climate change will be

solved without giving up our material standards of living. Where somebody else
(scientific or doctors) will eventually find the solution using technology, which is not the
case. Profound answers are actually found at a very granular level, where each family
takes the plant sustainability into account when performing their day to day activities.

People know climate change is happening around the world but are thinking that they
have no direct influence on making that change. However, according to a report of the
BBC Future [ CITATION Arg18 \l 1033 ] mankind can implement many of these actions
in positively influence climate change:

 Limit the use of fossil fuels such as oil, carbon and natural gas and replace them
with renewable and cleaner sources of energy.
 Exercise citizen and consumer rights putting pressure on governments and
companies to make environmentally-friendly changes.
  Going car-free by using other alternative modes of transportation, like bicycles,
walking or public transportation.
 Make use of home use technology like solar panels.
 Cut down on meat consumption as the meat industry and cater are one of the
largest greenhouse gas producers in the world.
 Reduce your flying habits, as planes run on fossil fuels.
 Improve the revision of merchandise as a consumer, as every product has a
carbon footprint. Basically, the change is to reduce consumption other than
recycle.
 Consider how many children to have per family, as the demographic explosion is
one of the biggest issues of the modern era.

3. Constructive behavior
Per Professor [ CITATION Pro17 \l 1033 ] “constructive action requires two things in
particular: to understand the problem and to care about it”. It is equally important to care
enough about the problem but to also have a scientific understanding of it, as people
caring about the environment without having this approach to the appropriate
knowledge, they would have no practical consequence on the matter.

Consequently, there is a big challenge in which mankind needs to generate people who
care and systems which respond to both human caring and scientific understanding of
the problem. Since 1972 humanity hasn’t really changed its behavior, leading to the
current situation in which new generations such as the millennials are being born and
raised watching the effects of the lack of timely action.

3.1. The time horizon

The time horizon is the period in which people evaluate the cost and the benefits of a
determined action, normally someone who has a short time horizon and is dealing with
a system where the benefits come in the future (long term) is not going to care about
taking action. The effects of exponential growth and climate change are and will
continue to transcend generations as it is all about people’s time horizon. In order for
individuals to care and understand they need to change their time horizon to the long
term.

People who don’t care are aware and have an understanding of the causes and
consequences of exponential growth but within the global system, people are more
focused on short term profit, short term political position, and such because they don’t
see the benefits of scarifying their current way of living now, for a benefit that they might
not be able to see, within the next 20 or 30 years.

Changing people’s time horizons is a crucial thing to do so they are able to see that the
benefit is good enough in order to accept the cost in the present.

3.2. Heart to Heart Communications

With the purpose of making mankind genuinely care about the effect of exponential
growth, the so-called heart to heart communication might be a way to make people care
about the problems with a more intuitive and emotional approach to the subject. For
example, is someone is able to have a heart to heart communication with someone
starving, that would probably make them care more about the food system and poverty.

In the world of today where communication is being oversaturated with mindless

publicity and lame thinking, it is important to communicate on a deeper exchange of
hearts to generate a profound caring about the problems and their effect on the future
predicament of mankind [ CITATION Doy18 \l 1033 ].

4. The 21st-century collapse

All mankind is responsible and at the same time, nobody is responsible for the current
collapse of the world, since this is a collective fault everybody needs to carry as all living
individuals of Earth should be making sure we leave the planet as healthy and
sustainable as we found it. Currently, we see a collapse in food shortage, water
pollution, air pollution, the standard of living is going down, the climate is moving to
directions never seen before, the oil companies are exploding all-natural non-renewable
sources, which will only intensify if the humanity keeps its current habits, draining all life
and resources out of the planet.
The economic system is also changing humans, every time there is a new profit
indicator, people move in pursue of that indicator looking for a more accommodated
form of life. The current economic system is very dysfunctional as it is driving mankind
towards to have more money and buy more, even if it’s not needed, linking happiness to
merchandise, creating a fictional relationship between the two of them.

Despite the way the economic system works in the world of today, the problem isn’t the
system, is people’s goals which are focused on earning more money to buy more
merchandise, wasting resources, focusing on the short-term effects, thinking in oneself
instead of thinking about future generations, to add to the fact that millennials have a
tendency to be self-centered. “They are the most threatening and exciting generation
since the baby boomers brought about social revolution, not because they're trying to
take over the establishment but because they're growing up without one” [ CITATION
Ste18 \l 1033 ].

The goal of the global policy should be to eliminate that global policy itself. Mankind has
to give up its short-term gains in order to have the benefit of survival over time. To a
more personal level, the change of goals is critical as instead of having things like
status, money, political position and material things, humans could be pursuing goals
such as happiness, well-being, peace and enjoying life responsibly.

For the new generations that were born within the millennial’s timeline, they are now
perceiving reality in a very much different way than the baby boomers, in which this
marvelous book was written. Recent children are now more used to technology, hot
weather, a certain level of violence in both televisions, the internet and reality. On the
other hand, when the kids born and grown during the 70s era more used to working
hard, studying, cooler weather, security and in general to have a slower pace of life.

Another form of collapse is also seen in a change of values and ethics within the current
modern society, where meeting in person is less popular and texting and WhatsApp
messaging is the norm, not the exception. A society where having “likes” in social media
is way more important and relevant than spending family time, pretending to have
something is more important than actually being a decent human being. For some,
collapse is not only the way the planet and the human race is going to survive, but
mankind should also ask the question “How the humans of the future be raised based
on what we are doing today”, which has a huge interference in the matters of caring
about the world and taking acting taking in consideration the appropriate time horizon to
make it relevant today with a benefit in the far future.

4.1. Can humanity have a peaceful collapse?

Mankind is only 53 years away from what the book The Limits of Growth predicted the
collapse due to the consequences of humanity’s exponential growth in a timeframe of
one hundred years. The “how” it will happen is not knowable as there might be many
scenarios, either it is the physical collapse of Earth or society's downfall where collapse
would happen through warfare and violence.

A peaceful collapse refers to a way of bearing with collapse without using violence,
doesn’t necessarily mean that mankind will happily accept changes, it only means that
no human lives would be put at risk while trying to deal with the downfall or what’s
known as human societies of today. At this point, it is not a matter of thinking about
“avoiding” this collapse, but a matter of thinking how to bear it slowly, gently, in a
civilized way, as right now is just a matter of time.

However, it could occur in a peaceful way meaning that the conflicts will not be solved
using force. Having billions of humans living in the planet, people need to think about
how liberty and energy consumption each person is willing to let go in order to settle the
footprint of every human on Earth is leaving on the planet. A revolution of humanity
where rich are not forcing the poor to give up their rights.

It is also important to stop and think about the speed of the decline that will happen, as
mankind would expect a slow process for the downfall in a way that people have
enough time and resources to adjust to the change. For example, fossil oils might be
available for consumption 100 years from now, however, the question would be “at what
price?”. What is needed is revolutions at a personal level for everybody around the
world, where people are able to reimagine a lifestyle that requires a lot less material
consumption, through the use of efficient ways to leave, using less, buying less,
repairing things instead of replacing them, and once this personal revolution starts, it will
be passed on to governments and companies taking a long jump in the future when
thinking about setting life goals, that would be way above and significant than just short
term profit.

That said, the next most logical question to ask is: When will be that time where human
beings are ready to strive for ecological and economic sustainability rather than
focusing on their own short term goals?

When the world populations strive for the long term goals and is willing to give up their
current lifestyles through substantial changes of the so-called civil society, then the real
change-revolution will begin, until that happens, humanity is just looking at the clicking
clock passing by.
 Conclusions
1. Mankind needs to adopt the world problematique as personal, as it is the only
way to make substantial and sustainable positive changes on the planet’s
capability to support life as we know it.

2. It is critical to understand that even when it is important to deal with the effects of
climate change, humanity needs to act on the root cause: demographic
explosion, which needs to be stopped, measured and reduced.

3. It’s key to be able to relate female education to the solution to the root cause of
all of the effects that are driving the human race to collapse.

4. Collapse is not avoidable but understandable and projectable. If humanity is

ready to accept the changes that need to be made, and are able to work on
civilized ways to slowly bear with collapse, it will eventually stabilize and
hopefully, disappear.