Why Collapse is Ramping Up Now : The Big Picture

The four interdependent, intensifying faces of collapse

Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

This is going to be a hard essay to write. I’ve been mulling it over for a while, and I concluded that the problem itself — human-caused collapse — is so vast that it’s almost impossible to fully describe or comprehend. Yet … that’s not a reason to give up, or to reject the possibility of better understanding our common dilemma.

It’s a near-impossible task — but I have to try. Personal sanity, humaneness, and compassion demand it. Things in our society and our world are spiraling out of control so fast now, that we need to find some way to grasp what’s going on and prepare ourselves for what’s coming.

More and more, I see the underlying ‘back story’ of collapse in terms of four interdependent processes: first, the accelerating imbalance and disruption of our planetary ecosystems; second, the accelerating, wild unfairness of our capitalist economic system; third, the intensifying “moral health crisis” that’s undermining society and democracy; and fourth, the deepening mental and spiritual health crisis that is being spawned or intensified by all these other forms of collapse.

Of course, it’s possible to dispute all these points, or insist that they develop in a different order, or present an…