Futurecasting: How Civilization Will Drive Off a Cliff in 2040
By Julian Scaff
In 1972, the book The Limits to Growth warned that if left unchecked, exponential economic and population growth would push the Earth’s systems past critical tipping points. Using a systems model called World3, the authors, Donella Meadows and colleagues, projected that without radical changes in policy and behavior, the planet’s finite resources would eventually be overwhelmed, resulting in widespread ecological, economic, and social collapse by the mid-21st century. Nearly fifty years later, a 2020 follow-up study by Gaya Herrington at KPMG compared real-world data to the original model and found disturbing alignment with the worst-case Business-as-Usual (BAU) scenario: a scenario in which resource depletion, pollution, and climate breakdown converge to trigger global decline starting around 2040.
The Limits to Growth report presented four core scenarios generated by the World3 computer model, each based on different assumptions about population growth, industrial output, resource availability, and environmental resilience.
The first and most well-known scenario, Business-as-Usual (BAU), assumed no significant policy changes and projected that continued exponential growth would lead to resource depletion, pollution, food shortages, and population collapse starting around 2040. A second scenario, BAU2, adjusted for greater resource availability, slightly delays but does not prevent collapse. The Comprehensive Technology (CT) scenario explored the effects of major technological advances in efficiency and pollution control, which postponed the decline but failed to entirely prevent it due to feedback delays and rebound effects.
Only the Stabilized World (SW) scenario, where humanity voluntarily limited growth, invested in renewables, and implemented global policies to balance consumption with planetary limits, avoided collapse entirely. Each scenario was derived from simulations using real-world data available at the time, calibrated to reflect observed relationships between population, capital, resources, and ecological limits, revealing how even optimistic technological fixes would be insufficient without systemic changes.
The 2020 follow-up study by Gaya Herrington, published through KPMG and later shared by Stanford’s MAHB, systematically compared empirical data from 1970 to 2020 against the scenarios modeled in the original Limits to Growth report. Using updated metrics for population, industrial output, food production, pollution, and nonrenewable resources, Herrington found that the world closely tracked the trajectory of the Business-as-Usual (BAU) scenario, one that leads to a global collapse beginning around 2040. While not a precise prediction, this alignment verified the core insight of the original forecast: that exponential growth within a finite system leads to overshoot and eventual decline. The study concluded that, absent significant course corrections, global industrial and agricultural systems are on a path toward systemic breakdown, reinforcing the urgency of transitioning to sustainable policies and economic models.
Recent climate modeling indicates that worst-case scenarios are increasingly plausible under current Business-as-Usual (BAU) trajectories. RCP 8.5, developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), stands for “Representative Concentration Pathway” and models a worst-case emissions scenario where greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise without significant mitigation efforts, leading to substantial global warming by the middle of the century.
While some studies suggest that RCP 8.5 may be less likely due to potential policy changes and technological advancements, the pathway remains a critical reference for understanding the possible impacts of unmitigated emissions. Notably, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report emphasizes that without immediate and substantial reductions in emissions, global temperatures are likely to exceed 2.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2040, and exceed 4.0°C by 2100. This trajectory aligns with the BAU scenario, underscoring the urgency for comprehensive climate action to avert the most severe outcomes.
After 2040, global economic growth will halt as critical resources and population levels begin a steep and irreversible decline. The intertwined collapse of ecological stability, industrial output, global supply chains, and demographic momentum will make traditional growth-based economic models obsolete. What follows is not a recession or downturn, but the official end of growth, forcing humanity to reinvent economies based not on expansion but regeneration, redistribution, and resilience.
One of the more unsettling predictions in the report is a sharp decline in global population in the 2040s in the BAU scenario. This rapid decline in the worldwide population will not occur primarily through declining birth rates, but rather through a surge in death rates driven by systemic collapse. As food production falls due to soil degradation, water scarcity, and climate shocks, famine spreads rapidly, particularly in the Global South.
Simultaneously, rising temperatures, especially in humid equatorial zones, create lethal “wet bulb” conditions, causing mass heat-related deaths in uncooled regions. Infrastructure breakdown, economic collapse, and state failure ignite wars over dwindling resources, displacing hundreds of millions and accelerating mortality through conflict, disease, and social collapse. This population decline represents not a gentle demographic transition, but a period of profound human suffering and mass death, potentially involving billions of lives disrupted or lost. We must keep this prediction front and center when considering future scenarios beyond 2040.
The moral responsibility for the preventable mass deaths and suffering caused by the climate crisis will rest overwhelmingly on the wealthiest nations, fossil fuel corporations, billionaires, and political leaders who knew the risks, possessed the means to act, and chose profit and power over planetary survival.
If we assume the worst-case climate outcomes (which are becoming more likely each year), global temperatures surpassing 2.5°C above pre-industrial levels by the early 2040s and sea levels rising over a meter by century’s end, The Limits to Growth ceases to be a theoretical warning and becomes a blueprint for collapse. In this future, life splinters into drastically different realities depending on geography, wealth, and political power.
The World in the 2040s
The following future scenarios represent a sampling of cities and regions around the world. They are intended to give us a snapshot of the world in the early 2040s under the BAU scenario. This is our current trajectory, the world we will live in just 15 years from today, unless we change course in the next decade.
By the 2040s, the regions most likely to suffer mass deaths from climate-induced disasters include parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, and Central America — areas already facing high poverty levels, water stress, and political instability. Countries like Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, and Afghanistan are expected to experience catastrophic famine and water scarcity, exacerbated by conflict and collapsing governance.
In densely populated nations such as India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, extreme heatwaves and “wet bulb” conditions will make large areas periodically uninhabitable, especially those without access to cooling or healthcare.
As Himalayan glaciers rapidly disappear due to rising global temperatures, the collapse of major rivers like the Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, and Yangtze could trigger water crises and agricultural collapse across India and China, threatening the livelihoods and survival of over a billion people.
Coastal megacities across Southeast Asia and West Africa will be battered by sea level rise and intensified storms, displacing millions and overwhelming infrastructure.
Meanwhile, rural populations dependent on rain-fed agriculture across Latin America and the Sahel will face livelihood collapse, triggering mass migration, social unrest, and widespread mortality, turning these regions into epicenters of human suffering in the age of climate collapse.
North America
In 2040, the United States is dangerously behind in climate adaptation, crippled by a rapid defunding of infrastructure, science, and education that began in 2025, triggering a brain drain and leaving the nation ill-equipped for accelerating climate shocks. As southern cities become uninhabitable from heat, drought, storms, and sea level rise, a massive internal refugee crisis overwhelms northern states, fracturing the country politically and socially as it scrambles to survive amid rising instability.
In Los Angeles, the city reels under relentless heat waves, wildfires, and faltering water infrastructure. Homelessness skyrockets, and gated enclaves, powered by solar microgrids and guarded by private security, become the new norm for the wealthy. San Francisco remains a technological and financial hub protected by seawalls and wealth, but faces staggering inequality, wildfire smoke, and water scarcity. Sacramento and Fresno experience rapid population growth from climate refugees, but face mounting pressure from extreme heat, water shortages, and aging infrastructure, forcing them to balance expansion with urgent climate adaptation.
Seattle becomes a strategic climate haven with abundant water and moderate temperatures, but soaring housing costs, climate migration, and forest fires in the Cascades strain its infrastructure and social fabric.
Denver swells with internal migrants fleeing coastal and southern disasters, but persistent droughts, extreme heat, and dwindling snowpack from the Rockies destabilize water supplies and agriculture.
Houston and Dallas face relentless heat waves, collapsing energy grids, and waves of climate migrants from the Gulf Coast. Houston is repeatedly flooded by supercharged hurricanes, and Dallas is strained by water scarcity and infrastructure stress , turning both into volatile battlegrounds of adaptation and abandonment.
New Orleans lies in ruins, abandoned after a series of devastating hurricanes and storm surges finally overwhelmed its levees and forced mass evacuation, leaving behind a drowned cultural memory.
Miami becomes largely uninhabitable as chronic flooding, saltwater intrusion, and rising seas engulf neighborhoods, forcing a chaotic retreat inland. At the same time, developers and elites relocate to higher ground or out of state.
Under crushing heat waves, drought, and the drying of the Colorado River, Las Vegas and Phoenix begin to depopulate.
New York fights to stay afloat with massive climate infrastructure — sea walls, elevated transit (abandoning the flooded subways), and managed retreat. However, economic inequality and tidal flooding fragment the city into zones of high-tech resilience and neglected collapse.
Millions of American climate refugees flee inland and northward to cities like Minneapolis, Madison, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh — places with stable freshwater, cooler climates, and lower sea level risk — transforming them into overcrowded, contested hubs of migration, adaptation, and survival.
Canada becomes one of the most sought-after climate refuges in the world, with abundant freshwater, arable land, and relative political stability. In response to massive waves of desperate U.S. climate refugees fleeing collapse in the American South, Southwest, and coastal cities, Canada militarizes its southern border. It imposes strict immigration controls, igniting humanitarian controversy and internal political rifts.
Asia
China leads the world in climate adaptation technologies. It has scaled its “Sponge City” program nationwide, deployed advanced AI-driven disaster response systems, and built the world’s largest renewable energy and water recycling infrastructure, positioning itself as the global hub for climate resilience innovation amid accelerating ecological collapse.
Shanghai is battered by typhoons and rising seas, forcing the Chinese state to invest in massive climate adaptation while using digital authoritarianism to maintain order. Shenzhen becomes a hyper-surveilled techno-enclave, where advanced automation and vertical farming sustain a more austere middle class. Surrounding regions collapse under water shortages and factory closures, turning Chinese cities into a gleaming but brittle island of stability amid widespread ecological and economic breakdown. In rural areas, China uses high-tech soil remediation and geoengineering to turn formerly arid regions into farmland.
Singapore functions as a climate-adapted citadel, powered by desalination, vertical agriculture, and AI-managed logistics. Still, its survival depends on tight authoritarian control, exclusionary immigration policies, and uneasy regional alliances as surrounding Southeast Asian nations face escalating climate disasters and mass displacement.
Seoul grapples with sweltering summers, erratic monsoons, and energy grid stress but leverages advanced technology and a strong central government to maintain order. It enforces strict carbon quotas, automates food distribution, and deploys AI surveillance to manage climate-induced unrest and rural displacement.
Tokyo stands as a meticulously engineered stronghold against climate chaos, with towering sea walls, underground flood tunnels, and AI-managed resource systems. Yet aging demographics, food import disruptions, and growing climate migration strain the city’s resilience, forcing Japan to confront its isolationist legacy amid a global unraveling.
South Asia
New Delhi is engulfed in deadly heat waves surpassing 50°C, with chronic air pollution, collapsing water infrastructure, and waves of climate refugees overwhelming the city’s strained governance and social cohesion. Mumbai is battered by rising seas, extreme heat, and monsoon chaos, with large swaths of the city submerged or uninhabitable, forcing millions into precarious high-density settlements as the government struggles to manage one of the world’s largest urban climate refugee crises. Calcutta is engulfed by a confluence of rising sea levels, lethal humidity, and saltwater intrusion from the Bay of Bengal, transforming the surrounding Sundarbans into a submerged wasteland and driving millions into the city, overwhelming its aging infrastructure and igniting a relentless struggle for water, shelter, and survival. Bangalore becomes a magnet for rural climate refugees, overwhelming public services as the city is paralyzed by water scarcity and failing electrical grids.
Islamabad endures relentless heat waves, water scarcity from glacial melt disruption, and agricultural collapse. Political instability deepens as rural populations migrate en masse to the capital, overwhelming infrastructure and fueling unrest amid dwindling international aid and growing regional tensions.
Bangladesh faces catastrophic sea level rise and intensifying cyclones that displace tens of millions, turning vast coastal regions into salt-poisoned wastelands; the government struggles to manage mass internal migration as urban centers like Dhaka swell beyond capacity, becoming humanitarian pressure cookers on the edge of collapse.
The Middle East
The Gulf States, Qatar, Dubai, and the UAE, become gleaming, climate-controlled islands of wealth surrounded by unlivable desert, where extreme heat renders outdoor labor nearly impossible and desalination fuels elite survival. Migrant labor systems begin to fracture, and authoritarian regimes tighten control as resource nationalism and internal dissent rise.
Riyadh endures extreme heat and growing water insecurity, relying heavily on desalination infrastructure. Saudi Arabia’s once-grand vision for The Line city has been drastically scaled back and transformed into an exclusive, climate-controlled enclave for the ultra-wealthy, isolated from the surrounding collapse and sustained by imported labor and high-tech resource management.
As the Tigris and Euphrates rivers dwindle, Baghdad is scorched by unrelenting heat and water scarcity. Power outages and agricultural collapse deepen sectarian tensions, and the government’s grip weakens, giving way to localized militias and resource-based conflict amid the ruins of once-fertile lands.
Beirut teeters on the edge of collapse, wracked by economic decline, political paralysis, and climate-driven disasters like fires and floods. Coastal neighborhoods are lost to rising seas, and a disillusioned population oscillates between protest, exile, and makeshift resilience in the face of a failing state.
Istanbul becomes a chokepoint of climate migration from the Middle East and Central Asia, straining Turkey’s political stability as the country battles with chronic drought, food insecurity, and growing authoritarianism under a militarized state trying to hold together a fracturing republic at the crossroads of collapsing regions.
Europe and Central Asia
Russia exploits its thawing permafrost and newly navigable Arctic for resource extraction and geopolitical leverage. However, it faces rising internal instability as crumbling and outdated infrastructure, uncontrollable wildfires, and mass climate migration into central and eastern regions fracture the country. As millions flee climate collapse in South and Southeast Asia, new breakaway states emerge in Siberia and the Russian Far East — shaped by a distinctive blend of Siberian, Afghan, Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, Chinese, and Southeast Asian cultures — marking the end of Russia as a unified geopolitical entity.
The European Union faces mounting internal fractures as it struggles with climate migration from the Global South, energy shortages, and political polarization. Southern member states like Spain, Italy, and Greece are ravaged by heatwaves, droughts, and agricultural collapse, pushing millions northward, while northern states like Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands tighten borders and prioritize national interests over EU unity. Populist and nationalist movements gain ground, exploiting economic stress and cultural tensions, while core institutions weaken under the pressure of constant crisis management. The dream of a unified Europe gives way to a fragmented bloc of semi-cooperative states, with some regions, especially in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, facing partial de-integration or authoritarian regression. EU membership could significantly shrink to its original core of Western European nations. Amid rising seas, internal displacement, and climate-driven economic instability, the EU’s future becomes a balancing act between disintegration and adaptation.
Scandinavia emerges as a relative climate haven with abundant freshwater and arable land, attracting waves of climate migrants from southern Europe and beyond. While nations like Sweden and Norway attempt to uphold democratic values, rising xenophobia, resource rationing, and pressure on social systems test the region’s famed stability and solidarity.
The UK grapples with rising sea levels, supply chain disruptions, and intensifying climate migration. London transforms into a heavily surveilled enclave of elite stability while much of the country faces social unrest and strained public services. Scotland seriously considers leaving the UK to join the EU.
Ireland becomes a temperate refuge on the edge of a collapsing Europe, attracting climate migrants and off-grid communities. However, it struggles to maintain its infrastructure and social cohesion under growing population pressures and resource scarcity. Ireland is relatively more climate resilient in 2040 due to its temperate climate, abundant rainfall, and strong renewable energy capacity. Dublin emerges as a key northern tech hub, attracting climate-conscious investment and skilled migrants seeking stability in a rapidly destabilizing world.
Africa
North Africa is scorched by extreme heat and water scarcity, with the Nile and other critical rivers under severe stress, forcing millions from rural areas into already strained cities like Cairo, Algiers, and Casablanca, while political instability and migration pressures ripple across the Mediterranean.
Morocco stands out as North Africa’s most climate-resilient nation, investing heavily in renewable energy, water management, and sustainable infrastructure. The country has developed a robust green energy ecosystem, including solar and wind power. It is actively pursuing green hydrogen production to support its energy transition and reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels. Additionally, Morocco’s efforts in water conservation, such as renewable energy-powered desalination plants, have enhanced its resilience to climate-induced water stress.
West Africa is gripped by searing heat, worsening droughts, and coastal flooding, driving mass migration from the Sahel to urban centers like Lagos and Accra, where infrastructure collapses under the weight of climate refugees, food insecurity, and rising social unrest.
Central Africa faces escalating climate instability marked by intense rainfall, deadly flooding, deforestation, and food insecurity, as the Congo Basin, the world’s second-largest rainforest, begins to degrade, undermining regional rainfall patterns and carbon storage. Countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, and parts of Cameroon struggle with fragile governance, poverty, and conflict, making it difficult to respond to the growing humanitarian crises. Rapid population growth collides with collapsing agricultural systems. At the same time, mining-driven deforestation and land grabs intensify displacement, violence, and ecosystem collapse, turning Central Africa into a critical but destabilized frontline of the global climate emergency.
East Africa faces alternating cycles of devastating drought and flash flooding, with countries like Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia struggling to maintain food security and political stability as rural populations are displaced into overcrowded cities, intensifying resource conflict and humanitarian crises.
Southern Africa endures prolonged droughts, collapsing agricultural systems, and widespread water shortages, with countries like Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and parts of South Africa facing escalating food insecurity, economic instability, and internal displacement as climate stress outpaces adaptation efforts.
Botswana and Namibia stand out as rare examples of African climate resilience. They invested early in solar energy, water conservation, free education and healthcare, and sustainable land management, which allowed them to maintain relative stability amid widespread regional collapse.
Central and South America
Latin America will see some of the world’s most severe climate suffering and death. Brazil, especially the Amazon region and megacities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, will face rainforest collapse, water crises, and extreme heat. Central American nations such as Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador will be devastated by drought, crop failure, and mass migration. Mexico will grapple with lethal heatwaves and widespread water scarcity, particularly in Mexico City and the arid north. In the Andes, Peru and Bolivia will suffer from glacier loss, threatening water supplies for millions in cities like Lima and La Paz. Low-lying coastal cities in Colombia, like Barranquilla and Cartagena, will be flooded, while inland Bogotá strains under internal displacement. Meanwhile, Caribbean nations, including Haiti, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic, will endure increasingly violent hurricanes and economic collapse. Across these regions, poverty, fragile infrastructure, and weak governance will turn climate stress into a widespread humanitarian disaster.
Mexico City is overwhelmed by water scarcity, air pollution, and climate migration from collapsing rural regions. At the same time, Tijuana, straining under its role as a chokepoint for northbound refugees, is transformed into a militarized border zone caught between two unraveling nations.
Central America is gripped by relentless droughts, crop failures, and deadly heat, driving mass migration northward as governments falter and communities collapse under the weight of climate-driven hunger, violence, and displacement.
Costa Rica and Belize remain comparatively stable outliers in a collapsing Central America, thanks to their early investments in renewable energy, forest conservation, and eco-tourism. Still, they face mounting pressure from regional climate migration, coastal flooding, and strained public infrastructure as surrounding nations unravel.
South America is a continent of extremes — while northern and central regions reel from rainforest collapse, drought, and political instability, southern zones like Uruguay and southern Chile emerge as rare pockets of climate resilience, attracting waves of internal and international climate refugees.
Bogotá becomes a highland refuge amid Colombia’s climate chaos, absorbing waves of migrants from flood-prone lowlands and drought-stricken regions, but its aging infrastructure, rising inequality, and political tensions threaten to overwhelm the city’s capacity to remain a stable sanctuary.
Quito, Ecuador, is a rare climate-resilient highland city in South America. It leverages its altitude, equatorial location, and relative stability to become a regional hub for migration, sustainable agriculture, and even emerging aerospace infrastructure amid a continent in upheaval. Its location and altitude make it ideal for a South American spaceport.
São Paulo faces chronic water shortages, surging heatwaves, and mass migration from Brazil’s collapsing interior, transforming the city into a volatile megacity where wealth and security are barricaded behind walls while the majority struggle in sprawling, underserved peripheries.
Under the BAU scenario, the risk of the Amazon rainforest crossing a critical ecological tipping point by the 2040s is alarmingly high. A collapsed Amazon Rainforest will look like a vast, scorched expanse of dry savannah and fragmented forest, stripped of biodiversity, choked by wildfires, and releasing more carbon than it absorbs — no longer a cradle of life, but a planetary warning of irreversible ecological breakdown. Its collapse would unleash a global cascade of consequences, including accelerated climate change, massive biodiversity loss, disrupted rainfall across the Americas, additional sea level rise, and irreversible damage to Earth’s climate stability.
Uruguay and parts of southern Chile emerge as a climate-resilient haven in South America, thanks to relatively strong democratic institutions, robust renewable energy systems, and temperate climates that shield them from the worst effects of heat, drought, and sea level rise.
Climate Havens in the Global South
By the 2040s, a handful of highland regions in the Global South, such as parts of Ethiopia’s mountains, Colombia’s Andean interior, and Rwanda’s temperate plateaus, will emerge as unexpected climate havens, offering moderate temperatures and relative water security. However, rising migration, geopolitical competition, and limited infrastructure threaten their stability.
New Zealand and Tasmania transform into heavily fortified climate refuges, relatively spared from extreme heat and sea-level rise. They become havens for the ultra-wealthy, who secure residency through investment, while strict immigration controls and surveillance systems keep desperate climate migrants at bay.
Navigating Collapse
What will emerge is not one collapse but many: localized failures unfolding simultaneously, fragmenting global civilization into a mosaic of survival zones, sacrificial zones, and isolated green enclaves. By the 2040s, the world is engulfed in a full-blown Polycrisis, a cascading convergence of climate collapse, resource scarcity, mass migration, economic breakdown, and political instability, where interconnected systems fail simultaneously, amplifying global suffering and overwhelming the capacity of nations to respond.
This is the world that Octavia Butler anticipated with haunting clarity in her sci-fi novels Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998). Her vision of America in the mid to late 2020s, ravaged by climate disaster, economic inequality, and authoritarianism, mirrors the systemic decay of the BAU scenario. In Parable of the Talents, Butler chillingly predicted the rise of a populist, right-wing U.S. president who gains power by rallying White Christian nationalists under the campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” nearly two decades before it became a real-world political rallying cry.
Butler’s protagonist, Lauren Olamina, witnesses a society where public institutions have failed, where corporate feudalism replaces democracy, and where survival requires radical adaptability. Her spiritual philosophy, Earthseed, centered on the ideals of strength through community and embracing change, offers a moral compass for collapse and a strategy for rebirth.
These books stand as remarkable examples of futurecasting. In the 1990s, Butler saw where we were headed, just as Meadows did in 1972, and Herrington in 2020. But Butler also looked beyond collapse to explore how individuals, families, communities, and a global civilization might recover from collective trauma and build a better world.
Butler’s insights resonate deeply with our possible post-collapse future. In the ashes of failing systems, new ways of life will emerge: informal barter economies, mutual aid networks, regenerative farming collectives, and decentralized energy cooperatives. These are the seeds of recovery, and they mirror what economist Kate Raworth envisions as the Doughnut Economy, a model in which societies meet all human needs (the social foundation) without overshooting planetary limits (the ecological ceiling).
We must abandon the illusion of endless growth to build such a world in the aftermath of climate collapse. Raworth’s doughnut offers a set of guidelines for post-collapse economic reconstruction: universal access to food, water, housing, health, and education must be guaranteed, not as luxuries of affluence but as non-negotiable rights. Simultaneously, societies must stay within planetary boundaries, phasing out fossil fuels, regenerating ecosystems, and designing circular economies that mimic nature’s closed-loop systems.
In a Doughnut Economy, a business generates revenue by meeting human needs. It creates value within social and ecological boundaries, prioritizing regenerative practices, fair labor, circular production, and long-term community resilience over short-term profit maximization.
Throw-away plastics are out. Repairable, reusable technology is in. Wasteful cloud computing is out. Energy-efficient edge computing is in. Billionaire CEOs and Venture Capitalists are out. Worker-owned cooperatives and B-Corps are in.
In this new world, the economy becomes a tool, not a master. Technologies are repurposed not to maximize consumption but to optimize equity, resilience, and ecological balance. Cities shift from extractive megastructures to resilient bioregions. Politics moves from globalized technocracy to local stewardship.
But as we imagine this post-collapse rebirth, we must not lose sight of the harrowing transition ahead; the sharp and sudden global population decline projected for the 2040s will not come quietly. It will be marked by famine, mass displacement, war, ecological collapse, and deadly climate events, perhaps becoming the most brutal and devastating period in human history. The suffering will be uneven, with the poor, marginalized, and the Global South bearing the brunt of the devastation. The moral responsibility for this mass death and suffering falls on those who knew but didn’t act, or who actively fought against climate action and spread anti-science disinformation.
Yet, in the quiet ruins of collapse, a new humanity may be born, less arrogant, more humble, and deeply attuned to the rhythms of a living planet, forged not by triumph but by collective survival and transformation.
Remember that of the four future scenarios from the Limits to Growth study, three ended in collapse. Only the Stabilized World scenario, where humanity balances consumption and human needs within planetary boundaries, entirely avoided collapse. No technological fix will save us; only behavioral, policy, and worldview changes will.
We were warned. We are still being warned. And while the collapse may already be in motion, so is the possibility of transformation. We still have about a decade to change course, soften the transition, and save lives and reduce suffering for billions of people. Preparing to navigate the collapse is also prudent if Business As Usual continues unabated. Like Butler’s Earthseed, the post-collapse world will belong to those who can embrace change, imagine new futures, and rebuild societies on foundations that honor human dignity and planetary limits.
_
References:
Meadows, Donella H., Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III. The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York: Universe Books, 1972.
Herrington, Gaya. Update to Limits to Growth: Comparing the World3 Model with Empirical Data. Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere, Stanford University, July 2021. https://mahb.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/yale-publication-1.pdf.
Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993.
Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Talents. New York: Seven Stories Press, 1998.
