ABSTRACT
Human society is charging forward, setting records for population, GDP and material consumption. By these measures, we live in the most successful era of human existence that there has ever been. However, this comes at the price of being the most destructive society this planet has ever hosted, with record levels of deforestation, habit loss and environmental degradation. There have been great civilizations in the past; ranging from the Maya in South America, to the Roman Empire stretching across Europe into Africa and Asia, and the British Empire which reached around the globe. Each has reached a pinnacle of success before collapsing. It seems that humans become so confident from success, and so sure of continued success, that they fail to take account of the uncertainty of the future and become architects of their own downfall (Scott 1998). Perhaps the nature of modern humankind is excessively ambitious, meaning people continually strive for ever more success, whatever the cost. Or perhaps people have become too indolent to look past evident success and foresee impending collapse. Our current civilization is more globalized, more connected, more interdependent than any that have gone before. If history is our guide, our current complex society will collapse eventually (Tainter 1988), and when it does, in our globalized world, it will affect us all.
