Tag Archives: civilization

Collapse of Mayan civilization: drought, mercury poisoning, toxic algae

Preface. Drought is probably reason #1, but collapse is complex, I’ve seen lists of over 200 reasons for the Fall of the Roman Empire, and our own fall will have even more causes, though triggered by energy decline, since for … Continue reading

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Dawn of Everything: self-governance not Kings & Slavery

Preface.  After the Great Simplification new societies will arise, and I hope copy past civilizations that deliberately avoided slavery, war and autocratic kings.  I’ve extracted a few examples of this from The Dawn of Everything below.

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15 Nations that Collapsed because of Drought: will we be the 16th?

Preface.  Another repercussion of drought may be the Muslim religion as Fleitmann (2022) proposes below. This post began with 10 civilizations that collapsed due to drought (below), and I’ve added 5 more. Will the American South West be #16? Lynn … Continue reading

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How sand transformed civilization

Preface. No wonder we’re reaching peak sand. We use more of this natural resource than of any other except water. Civilization consumes nearly 50 billion tons of sand & gravel a year, enough to build a concrete wall 88 feet … Continue reading

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Book: John Perlin’s “A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization”

Preface.  This contains excerpts from John Perlin’s “A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization”. It’s one of my favorite books about natural resources, exploring the role wood has played in the rise and fall of civilizations since they … Continue reading

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What would happen if trucks stopped running?

Preface. In “Why You Should Love Trucks” I showed that essential supply chains depend on trucks nearly completely.  Because of little inventory and dependence on just-in-time deliveries, our civilization would almost immediately feel the repercussions of trucks stopping. In fact, … Continue reading

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Why Civilizations Fail by William Ophuls

[ These are my notes from the book, not a proper book review, and since the notes are disjointed, you’d be wise to buy the book–  it’s excellent!  Plus then it’s on your shelf for future generations to understand what … Continue reading

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Ward-Perkins “The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization”

[ This is a book review of Ward-Perkins “The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization“. What sparked my interest in reading several books on the decline of Rome was when James Howard Kunstler  (KunstlerCast 278) interviewed me about … Continue reading

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Why the demise of civilization is inevitable

MacKenzie, D. April 2, 2008. Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable. NewScientist. Every civilization in history has collapsed. Why should ours be any different? Homer-Dixon doubts we can stave off collapse completely. He points to what he calls … Continue reading

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Peter Turchin: violence and social unrest in the U.S. and Europe likely by 2020

Preface. Peter Turchin, an expert on the cycles of history and the rise and fall of civilizations, has used mathematical models of complex systems to predict political instability. Debora MacKenzie at NewScientist interviewed him about his upcoming book “Ultrasociety” in … Continue reading

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