I’ve been pretty down for the last couple of months. In that time I have re-evaluated the topics I follow, and found that climate change is becoming difficult to monitor – not because of lack of information, but because of the flood. This is to say that while it is today’s actuality, it is yesterday’s news. There’s is not much point following phenomenon making its way to the mainstream media.

What then are todays news topics? The various resource crisis. The oil energy crisis being the least interesting one, for the reason above. The gravity of that (as the climate change) is however underestimated. The global scope of water crisis is ill-understood as is the forthcoming food crisis, which might be the most prominent of all. They desreve some monitoring. The danger of worst financial brakedown ever is also there. As are some of the social. I think I will also give space to some religious issues.

Lets’s take a look.

The Club of Rome published The Limits to Growth in 1972 and in its 30-year update sternly marked that the development had unexpectedly accurately followed the robust predictions laid out in the initial report. I mean predictions layed out in the business as usual scenario.

In case you are unfamiliar with this report, the bottomline is this: back then in the BAU -scenario they expected exponential growth (that is, growth with respect to the previous year) in most indicators at nearly every year. Obviously this has been true for population, energy production, pollution, food production etc. Some things varied slightly from their initial estimations to one way or another, but these were generally balanced by other changes elsewhere. In general, the exponential growth they expected to continue for some four decades has happened.

But their argument went further. The world is a ball of dust of finite size. There are just so many fishes in the seas. They reproduce at a given speed only. If we fish them fasted than the stocks are renewed, the stock gets smaler. There is just so much iron in the ground. We first take it from where it is easiest to access. The more we take it, the deeper he have to dig and the more expensive it becomes. (Still, this only boosts the economy, because of increased spending in mining.) Basically the same with fossile fuels, like carbon and oil. It seems that we are about to hit – or have already hit – the peak oil production, point in time after which the net oil production on the entire world can only go downward, because of physical and economical realities. They may well be plenty of oil in the stocks – but when after we reach a point where it takes more than a barrel of oil to gat a barrel of oil to the markets, we can ask if it really matters.

Even for a layman it should be clear, that anything we can call “sustainable” way of life must fullfil the following condition: we don’t take from the nature anything that we don’t fully return. Otherwise we will eat our own resources and one day the humanity will find out that it has to do without what is is used to go with – and that isn’t too sustainable, is it?

By this insight, as long as we don’t produce the fossile fuels refilling the coalmines and oilfields, our use of them cannot be and is not sustainable. Basically they are the thing that has allowed as the exponential growth. So, inevitably, the day will come when we will run out of that cheap energy they have given us. And the Limit to Growth report estimates that to be somewhere in the next decade.

When that day comes, the problem will not only be that we cannot have growth anymore. By then – or even, by now, or nearly two decades ago – we have overshoot a level that was once estimated to be sustainable. And all this time we have only consumed the resources we could have used to soften the landing. Therefore, the “peak level of humanity” our generation is expected to see will be followed by a fall, at least to the level that is sustainable – probably initially below that. And that level is likely to be below what it could have been.

From the news it seems people are beginning to be more concious about the energy market tightening. But other critical resources, like food, have gained less attention. These things are complicated by the fact that pollution (causing e.g. climate change) is expected to severely damage our capacity to grow food (as the conditions where the crops grow change, their harvests tend to fall). On the other hand, exponentially growing population means increased global demand. A recent FAO report indicates that the world cereal stocks are tightening, and have been for quite some time.

In India thereare widespread problems with water, basically from overconsumption. Overconsumption is the same as not sustainable. Wells are digged deeper while they are running drier. Eventually – rather sooner than later – they will be dry.

The waterproblem also has impacts on food. Many rice varieties taken into widespread use only few decades ago because of their high yelds (to feed growing population) rely on abundant water. Change the climate, pump the wells empty with fossile fuels – there you go.

At the same time, in the west. The american economy is sitting at it’s worst bubble in history. It’s currency not bound to anything but international demand (dollar being by far the most important expot of US) it is not producing what it should. Still investments there pay off better than investments elsewhere? Why? Because Americans spend.

The problem is that they don’t have the money to spend. So they take a loan. Usually mortage. During the past five years the construction industry has been the most booming industry in US, resulting overheating housing markets and bubble in that area of economics. In other words: due to great demand, building new house is more expensive than it should. People cover this by mortage, but the value of their house is not as high as the cost of it.

As all bubbles, this is bound to burst, leading house prices to dive, initially probably below realistic levels. However, the detoriation of the value increases their indebtedness when measured against the equity. This will cause them to be even more reluctant to get more indebted and consume.

We already see signs of this. The Christmas season wasn’t too nice to the retail sector. It wasn’t bad, but the growth… well it just wasn’t what was expected, if it even was there. People are trying to get rid of cars they can’t afford by burning them and claiming the insurance. And so on. Expect a burst anytime.

Being the “global consumer,” where other countries export their products, such a failure in American economy would inevitably radiate elsewhere. A more subtle, but potentially even more disastrous is the effect that could follow from the recent trend of growing future markets of different kinds. I believe I am not exagurating, when I say that there is a potential for a worldwide financial system failure here. To say the least.

Apart from that, it seems that the western societies begin to be ripe for the ideas of Karl Marx. On the other hand, seeing a future with potentially billions of premature deaths, we might start considering if we should reconsider reading the Book of Revelation.