All About Collapse

Welcome

More people are talking about collapse, but it’s still a pretty unwelcome topic. It’s frightening, and threatens almost everything we rely on. So thank you for your courage, curiosity, and commitment in visiting this page!

Talking about collapse isn’t pessimistic or “negative”. Being curious about potential danger is smart. Analyzing evidence and making conscious decisions is positive. Learning from our ancestors’ mistakes is wise. Telling necessary truths is kind and respectful.

Humans have survived crises before. All civilizations before us have collapsed. But this time, the situation is more dire because “civilization” is now global, humans have overpopulated the planet and harmed its ecology, and we’ve created technologies with the power to annihilate our species and many others.

No one knows what will happen, or when, or exactly how. But collapse has already begun. Knowledge, community, and spiritual maturity will enable us to meet this moment. Hopefully you’ll find resources here to spark your curiosity, soothe your grief, ignite your heart, and inspire your action.

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“All things have a cycle. After destruction, rebirth.

Knowledge gives us ways to survive the destruction

until the rebirth arrives.”

~Dr. Sorn, Foundation

What is “collapse”?

Collapse* is “the fall of a complex human society.” In current times, it means “the uneven ending of modern (industrial, consumer) ways of sustaining human life.”

Collapse involves the rapid and enduring loss of (1) societal complexity, (2) institutional reliability, (3) functional infrastructure, (4) social order, (5) social structures and norms, and (6) cultural identity. Collapse involves a loss of previous ways of obtaining food, shelter, safety, services, pleasure, and meaning. Collapse usually includes a rise in violence.

The process of collapse is one of increasing instability and breakdown. It may be gradual or episodic (happening in bursts). It’s “generally quick, but rarely abrupt.”

Other terms for collapse include The Great Turning, The Great Simplification, and The Great Unraveling. The “metacrisis” is both a driver and a symptom of collapse.

** Drawing on definitions from Luke Kemp, Jem Bendell, Daniel Yun Kim, and Deep Adaptation Forum.

Eco-anxious? Take my class!

What does “collapse aware” mean?

Being collapse-aware is “personal, inner recognition that environmental collapse and, consequently, societal collapse of a globally dominant industrial-consumerist civilization, is either likely, inevitable or already unfolding.” ~Nenad Maljković

Resource: Climbing the Ladder of Awareness, Bodhi Paul Chefurka, October 2012.

“Just because we’re in decline doesn’t mean the future

has to be a nightmare.”

~John Michael Greer

Community: Deep Adaptation Forum

Deep Adaptation Forum (DAF) is a body of work, a movement, and a global community with online gatherings, workshops, resources, and practical guidance.

Its mission is “to embody and enable loving responses to our predicament.” The predicament refers to societal collapse, resulting mainly from the climate emergency and other global crises such as biodiversity loss and soil degradation. The DAF has established guiding principles including compassion, curiosity, and respect, and a stance of non-violence.

The DAF agenda is “a new meta-framing of the implications for research, organisational practice, personal development and public policy” (source: Jem Bendell’s 2020 original paper), articulated in the following “4 R’s”:

Resilience: what do we most value that we want to keep, and how?
Relinquishment: what do we need to let go of so as not to make matters worse?
Restoration: what could we bring back to help us with these difficult times?
Reconciliation: with what and whom shall we make peace as we awaken to our mutual mortality?

Resource: DA Member Map

Deep Adaptation is …

“an agenda and framework for responding to the potential, probable or inevitable collapse of industrial consumer societies, due to the direct and indirect impacts of human-caused climate change and environment degradation.”

Source: Deep Adaptation, 2021, Jem Bendell & Rupert Read, editors.

Knowledge: Books, Videos, Films & Podcasts

Non-fiction books

Foundational

The Collapse of Complex Societies, Joseph A. Tainter, 1990.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition, Jared Diamond, 2011.
Deep Adaptation, Jem Bendell & Rupert Read, editors, 2021.
Who Do We Choose To Be?, Meg Wheatley, 2017. (Second revised edition, 2023.) [Excellent for organizational leaders and consultants working with those leaders.]

Important

Ishmael, Daniel Quinn, 1995.
Beyond Civilization, Daniel Quinn, 1999.
Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update Paperback, Donella H. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, Dennis L. Meadows, 2004.
The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, David C. Korten, 2007.
Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism, Vanessa Machado de Oliveira, 2021.

Collapse-Adjacent

The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future, Riane Eisler, 1988.
The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image, Leonard Shlain, 1999.
The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, Iain McGilchrist, 2012.
Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, Anand Giridharadas, 2018.
How Democracies Die, Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt, 2019.
The Myth of Normal, Gabor Maté, 2022.

Practical

Collapsing Consciously, Carolyn Baker, 2013.
Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist, Kate Raworth, 2018.
The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption, Dahr Jamail, 2020.
How to Prepare for Climate Change: A Practical Guide to Surviving the Chaos, David Pogue, 2021.
Reclaiming Your Community: You Don’t Have to Move out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One, Majora Carter, 2022.
Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in with Unexpected Resilience and Creative Power, Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone, 2022.
Undaunted: Living Fiercely into Climate Meltdown in an Authoritarian World, Carolyn Baker, 2022.
I Want a Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humor, Andrew Boyd, 2023. [Also see this cool flowchart of the book’s concepts.]
Eye of the Storm: Facing climate and social chaos with calm and courage, Terry LePage, 2023.

Fiction books and TV shows

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler, 1993, (and the rest of the Parable trilogy)
Sung Home, Laura Ramnarace, 2019, (and the rest of the Sung Home trilogy)
Station Eleven, 2021, HBOMAX, 10 episodes (or read the book)
Foundation, 2021 – present, Apple+, 20 episodes (or read the books)

Non-fiction videos and films

How to Enjoy the End of the World (one hour lecture), 2019. Dr. Sid Smith presents at Virginia Tech. Also see his ongoing video series.
Living in the Time of Dying (One hour documentary), 2020 – also see their website
The Great Simplification, (30 minute documentary), 2022 – also see their website
Energetics of Collapse, 2022, Dr. Sven de Causmaecker (Excellent, robust explanation of the science, plus additional resource list.)
Daniel Schmachtenberger: “Artificial Intelligence and The Superorganism”, incredible 3-hour interview with Nate Hagens, 2023. (This glossary I created can help you understand the concepts.)
Living in the Metacrisis with Jonathan Rowson, Perspectiva, October 2023.
See “collapse” playlist on my WWW youtube channel

Podcasts

This is The End: Episode Zero – Daniel Jun Kim, the Pop Mythologist, 11/5/21. Great introduction to collapse!
Crazy Town podcast (Post Carbon Institute). Brainy and hilarious!
Breaking Down: Collapse – Episode 22: Interview with John Michael Greer, 2/16/21
Live Like the World is Dying – Margaret Killjoy, 2020 – present.