Bazz, good question.

What we know is that as civilisations advance in complexity, so to does the degree of economic specialisation. The converse is also true. Modern telecommunications are based upon extremely high degrees of economic specialisation. How long this can be sustained in a civilisation that is reducing in complexity is a good question. Given its importance, I would imagine that it would be a high priority for government and industry, but the costs of maintaining a highly sophisticated network may not sustainable long term (several decades plus). Makes you wonder about the NBN, perhaps we should stick to copper!

Leckos; Tks for the reply.
Well Belly and I will be OK we can talk on HF radio and I even have
a HF data system in operation.
All the rest of you will have to suffer withdrawal symptoms from the internet !

Interesting article Cameron.

I've read Homer-Dixon's Upside of Down and I've come across the catagenesis concept. I also read earlier this year Overshoot by William Catton Jr, which I can thoroughly recommend. Catton makes what is in effect the Peak Oil argument that 'homo colossus', as he terms modern humanity (or at least the 1 billion of us enjoying Northern lifestyles) is, in the absence of radical change, destined for collapse because we've become overly dependent on a single non-renewable resource which we're burning like there's no tomorrow.

Two comments:

1.I was a bit concerned when you said you were less interested in understanding the causes of our predicament than in proposing corrective action. I understand where you're coming from, but as I think Mac said, unless we understand the causes properly, any corrective action we take may be based on faulty premises and in fact make things worse. We see this already happening with the ETS. Nicholas Stern described climate change as the 'biggest market failure in history', so what do governments do? Create another market mechanism to 'solve' it. The market orthodoxy is so powerful that governments believe they can only act within its terms. We need to change our way of thinking, change the boundaries of what we believe is politically and economically possible. Thinking outside the growth paradigm is a start; thinking beyond capitalism is also necessary in my view.

2. What Homer-Dixon says about catagenesis and avoidance of synchronous failure is persuasive. However we need to be very careful in assuming we can transfer what we understand of natural ecosystems and their processes to human societies. There's absolutely no guarantee that a) collapse in human societies won't be catastrophic and b) whatever comes after it will follow the 'regeneration and regrowth' cycle suggested by the proponents of 'panarchy'. The fundamental problem now is that if collapse is catastrophic we may lose a large chunk of our technology and infrastructure (not to mention access to cheap oil) in the process. That would make regeneration and regrowth very much more difficult

Toyb & leckos;

Yes, governments and individual members of those governments have
grown up with the belief that the market is God and will fix
everything no matter what.

The market is a feedback mechanism in what is a quite complicated
control system.
However all control systems require that there be no non linear input
parameters, ie if the system calls for more of one input, it will be
supplied in the requested amount.

However, if one of the current outputs, namely growth, needs to be
increased, but one of the inputs has become somewhat non linear and
cannot supply all the requested input,it will cause failure in the
system. It is expected to be a limited input in future, and in the
longer term the maximum input available may in fact decrease.

In our case this parameter is energy and in a normal three term
controller this causes the controller to lock its output in one state
and the system is then out of control.
The only solution is to recalibrate the system to operate with a lower
energy parameter.
The output, growth, will change its sign and become negative.

That is it, no argument can be considered.

I find putting the argument this way eliminates the illogical
behaviour of economists who believe that money is the main input
required.
It also avoids the alphabet soup phraseology used by financial people
who do not seem to understand what is going on.

Yes Toyb, the crazy ETF will not fix the problem as it is designed
for the wrong problem.
It is interesting but I recently read of a conspiracy theory that
said global warming was cooked up (ha) to hide peak oil and to try
and get mechanisms in place that will be acceptable to the public
until peak oil can no longer be hidden !

That is this weeks theory anyway.
Well it certainly fits the denial attitude of politicians to peak oil.

Hello Toyb,
ref the causes, I take your point. I didn't explain myself very well. In my view the causes are pretty clear, an economy that demands more of everything to continue without imploding being the main one. You are right that it is crucial to understand the causal factors in developing a response, the GFC being a prime example. Despite their being two main drivers (oil price and credit crunch) only one has been considered in the responses, meaning that we have set the pre-conditions for another oil price spike whilst doing nothing to reduce our dependency on oil.

As far as panarchy goes, I don't foresee the next growth cycle resembling anything like our current circumstance. Whatever emerges will be at a much lower level of complexity. How much lower will depend upon how we prepare, or how high our adaptive capacity is. By ignoring the possibility of collapse we are limiting our options in the future which is why I believe 'collapse' needs to be part of our discourse and public debate now.

Bazz

I too have felt for a while that, largely due to the likely impacts of peak oil, we (nationally and globally) are probably destined for a (shorter, longer, or perhaps semi-permanent) period of 'de-growth' (aka depression). A big problem as I see it is that our social and economic structures are not all geared to cope with such periods. Quite simply, they 'do not compute'. Included amongst the many major challenges facing this generation is how to make the transition away from the crude measure of GDP towards a more sophisticated, qualitative measure of societal well-being. This conversation has at least begun, with ideas like the Happy Planet Index and Tim Jackson's new book Prosperity without Growth.

Cameron

I agree that there needs to be a willingness on a social and political level to consider the possibility of 'collapse', whatever that might mean. However in some ways this discussion has already started, and it is being driven by Hollywood in very apocalyptic directions (eg 2012, The Road). Having a rational discussion in the mainstream media about collapse in the way you are proposing will I think be exceedingly difficult, because it has become taboo in mainstream discourse to even consider such topics. If it's to happen it will probably be at a lower level, in the alternative media and amongst grassroots groups like Transition Initiatives, local food networks, etc. At the same time, it's pretty clear that at higher political levels governments have given the topic some thought and made some planning around it. The militarization of our societies on the alleged justification of the spurious 'War on Terror' is relevant here: did you see how the Danish police treated peaceful protesters in Copenhagen? Collapse planning is already under way, but not in the way you & I would like to see it. If you haven't come across it, read Gwynne Dyer's Climate Wars for an insight into the sort of climate-driven collapse planning scenarios and responses the Pentagon has mapped out. I'd be very surprised if something similar didn't exist for Peak Oil.