Why everything will collapse

why is everything gonna collapse and be warned this video won't make you feel better it's meant for those who wish to know what's expect I won't merely state that we're in trouble instead I'm going to summarize what I now know of a rough climate change and how it will play out for all of us but mostly I'll explain why it's completely unavoidable by now you're probably aware we're in the midst of a biodiversity collapse we are experiencing the sixth mass extinction at a rate greater than when dinosaurs were wiped out when you take a 50% of all terrestrial wildlife in 50 years there's gonna be some repercussions regarding oceans the loss of 90% of whales and sharks has unprecedented impact on phytoplankton whales have eBoost effect on both phytoplankton and krill while sharks are the apex predators that regulate the entire marine food chain without them this chain will topple from its base which happens to be phytoplankton what is phytoplankton it's micro vegetation that absorbs co2 and produces oxygen it's estimated that over 50% of our oxygen originates from oceans yet another problem is that reduced phytoplankton means less co2 absorption the oceans can no longer purify the air in a world where pollution is increasing for phytoplankton the loss of whales and sharks aren't the only threats there's also plastic waste acidification dead zones oil spills noise pollution that prevents mammals from seeing and mating and for the rest of marine life it is estimated bad and recent findings would show this to be extremely optimistic our oceans will be empty by 2048 if this happens or if we go anywhere near it we are entirely screwed I will conclude by talking about coral reefs which migrate from south to north and are undergoing massive bleaching in tropical regions an absolute disaster for local biodiversity only tropical coral is not particularly an adaptable to temperate climates and it mostly just throws a big fat wrench in the engine of temperate zones biodiversity there's also the exchanges of warm and cold bodies of water that are changing at a staggering speed because of the melting of glaciers which has a direct impact on major ocean currents but the Gulf Stream if this stops and some scientists now refer to it as nearly certain that's virtually all temperate climates that's said to be affected with less heat comes less evaporation and less clouds and less rainfall we don't just have oceans there's land biodiversity as well and this one happens to be in complete agony on the topic of agriculture alone you need only know that nearly 95% of our soils life has been lost in the past 60 years you can blame this on the use of pesticides fungicides and herbicides on the reasoning that fields must be plowed on a production based approach that inherently disrespects the life of soil resulting in diseased vegetables designed to withstand pesticides are sorely lacking in genetic diversity which threatens their resilience as far as terrestrial mammals go we've encroached upon their turf so badly that they struggled to survive or have no other choice but to live near humans a good example is the wolf we know that each wolf covers immense territory but we insist on leaving them increasingly little space we then wonder why they attacked sheep is our response to concede land of course not we kill them in friends alone they are killed at a rate of 40 per year in a population of only 300 brilliant turning now to humanities of voracious and growing appetite for energy our society is terminally addicted to energy and most of our political and economic decisions perpetuate the misconception that energy sources are somehow infinite so about energy we mainly use oil coal and gas to produce energy all three currently represent 92 percent of the world's energy production as for the remaining 8 percent 4 comes from nuclear three from dams and one from what we call renewable energy today we're literally betting the farm on these last three but they're just a drop in the bucket as far as global production goes and they're not exactly the Holy Grail the energy production itself doesn't lead to emissions but it kicks in with a vengeance come storage toilet batteries storage is required for such forms of energy unless you intend on using your solar-powered lights in broad daylight and shutting them off when the sun's out would you probably not the most carbon stingy Energy's today are nuclear and hydroelectric dams but this raises a whole bunch of other major concerns radioactive waste and risks of meltdowns for nuclear environmental devastation and habitat destruction for dams in short there is no such thing as clean mass energy production it just doesn't exist and in terms of oil production oil wells are seeing their returns on investment plummet fast it's defined as the number of barrels of oil you produce for every barrel spent on extraction in the 1920s the ratio is a hundred to one today it is dangerously close to ten to one or even as poor as four to one in some cases in short we're consuming more and more oil in order to extract and produce less oil has never been so costly and inefficient in fact this Peak Oil you've heard so much about was in 2006 we haven't produced more in a year ever since experts believe that this will remain through 2020 at which time we will observe a steady decline by the way there is peak gas as well and this happened in 2010 peak coal will hit by 2020 and I sincerely doubt that we have the necessary resources to make a full switch to renewable energies speaking of which the production of metal can't last forever either and demand for metal grows with every passing day largely thanks to electronics but very much across all industries the problem being that most metals simply isn't recyclable less than a single percent of rare metals in our phones gets recycled into reuse here's an example 95% of titanium we use isn't in the form of a metal it's used as a universal white pigment it's therefore in all our titanium white paints think we'll start sanding our white walls to recycle that titanium no it's long it's the same with the three percent of tungsten alloy present and some car doors who will never be recycled back into pure tungsten this doesn't just apply to metals which theoretically could be recycled almost endlessly plastic can be recycled no more than seven times after that it loses its properties in short a circular economy is a pipe dream it can't be done with a problem with rare metals mines are bearing less minerals which means we need to dig more for the same yield once again we're seeing a declining return on investment I won't list out all the metal Peaks we can expect but rest assured metal shortages are coming all this to say that given the context building solar panels and generators using all these metals in order to offset other energy sources is misguided but they're still gonna be an economist who will state otherwise and the dream might catch on now on to animal farming breeding and feeding animals consumes large amounts of food and water instead we could be using this to feed our own selves or to offset our heavy reliance on production fields farm animals also produce methane a greenhouse gas considered to be 30 times more potent than co2 livestock consumes an astronomical amount of water which contributes to deforestation in the Amazon and overfishing as fish byproducts are often used to feed pigs as for slaughterhouses I won't dare dig into the ethics though I certainly could energy production metals transportation animal farming all of them pollute and as such they all contribute to the increase in global temperatures if all countries signed on to the cop21 agreement make good on their promises which isn't a given we could expect global temperatures to rise by 3.5 degrees by 2100 3.5 might not seem like all that much but trust me it's disastrous are you sitting down here's what that number represents the Arctic melts completely oceans expand sea levels rise Florida no longer exists Miami and New York are gone Bangladesh and a bunch of Pacific Islands get wiped out the glaciers of Tibet melt Saku summer the three major rivers of Asia including the Ganges run dry major problems would befall densely populated areas Shanghai is located advocates of a desert rainfall turns rare across the Mediterranean Basin crop yields drop forcing millions to migrate north where resources are insufficient to accommodate exploding populations oh and for those who might say relax that's in 2100 do you honestly believe that everything will run smoothly up until December 31 2099 if the three point five degrees scenario plays out and it is apparently rather optimistic according to many Miami and New York are actually gone by 2050 among other scenarios one is labeled with a 10% chance of occurring which would see a 6 degree global increase in this case expect total annihilation of mankind and if you feel 10% is low enough to rest easy I dare you to hop on a plane that has a 10% chance of crashing you'd probably think twice what about that 2 degree increase you might ask well we've already released enough carbon to raise global temperatures by 1.25 degrees which only gives us 0.72 5 degrees worth of wiggle room to meet that target I'll make this short to achieve that we would have to divide our current standard of living by 6 immediately this isn't what we're doing nor is it in the plans of any of our governments let's move on to more immaterial things though central to the argument over systemic collapse the human collective what better way to address this than to discuss our financial system the crisis of 2008 showed us that risky bets taken by a few banks where all it took to trigger a global financial crisis this is very much due to the interconnected nature of our reckless miscalculations on Wall Street can cause job losses in Spain all financial experts agree the next major crisis will strike within five years my limited knowledge of this field make me fear this as well a population that is already suffering from economic inequality is more exposed than ever before economic inequality is more glaring and it's only expected to rise this increases the risk of revolt given everything I've described so far major societal unrest could greatly complicate things I've given you a broad view of the systemic risks that we will be facing I will now explain why given the context a global collapse is completely unavoidable here are the reasons humanity doesn't perceive these dangers is truly imminent but rather as hypothetical and seemingly distant and it will refuse to fully prepare for them or make the necessary changes to avert catastrophe also actions being taken by our governments are not aiming at true emission reduction we continue to feed and maintain a system that is slowly but surely killing us big change will not happen from the ground up globally we are not sufficiently coordinated here's a simple example someone decides to avoid taking the plane as an environmental gesture his body becomes a minimalist his sister goes vegan and her cousin decides to consume organic only great the gestures are individually relevant but collectively they lose their importance the vegan sister will go meatless while others don't the action gets drowned out the cousin cuts on heating but others still have it on full-blast gesture lost to be effective the changes need to be applied across the board furthermore it might be fairly feasible for groups of friends to coordinate their actions but not so on a self-managed global basis change from the ground up is in my view unattainable now imagine for a moment if a government dared imposed drastic sweeping measures to limit the height of the fall prior to collapse it would be besieged by its angry population and should probably expect to be thrown out come election time people would never ever agree to something as Extreme as a six-fold reduction in living standards regardless of the how a majority of people would never renege on their comforts and that's without counting those that don't have what Westerners call basic comforts how do you figure they'd react to being told to scale back considering many don't even have running water the indian president said ahead of cop21 all you Westerners and your kind words I will take global warming into consideration the day my people enjoy your standards of living the fight against inequality is a pressing issue and that is up to wealthy countries to lead by example sadly they won't do it because nothing fundamentally drives into it and chances are they wouldn't even know how to divide their standard of living by 6 at the political level the fix is in the most glaring evidence being virtually any environmental adviser within government ranks there are ultimately powerless they must operate within the system and as such been to its every whim our governments which reflect our society do not account for ecology when planning nothing will change on that front either in short a change from the ground up is a big stretch and policy change is just about impossible it's a deadlock with no solution in sight hence a collapse is inevitable so what do we do you might ask we continue to live we prepare for blissful simplicity we aim for zero waste reduction and reuse we strive to inflict the least possible harm around us we nurture all things local we grow our own vegetables we learn new skills we build communities towards sharing independence resilience but above all and most importantly we must not forget to love each other you

Channel: The 4th monkey

Views: 560,678

Rating: 4.5270476 out of 5

Keywords: collapse, resources, global collapse, crisis

Id: YsA3PK8bQd8

Length: 14min 36sec (876 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 25 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/Intrepidxc]

I think presenting the very real issues with climate change in the doom and gloom manner doesn’t stir people to act. Instead people say fuck it, we’re screwed and nothing I do will matter so I won’t do anything. Perhaps we should start talking about what we are doing and the impact it has. Let’s show the world we can make a change if we’re willing to act. That’s the story we need to hear now.

[u/PickledPokute]

Narrator claims that we have already reached peak oil and gas. To prove it, show graphs of estimates from 2006 and 2004. If people swallow this without critique, then everything will indeed collapse.

I watched a few seconds more and there's claim of peak coal at 2020. This is perhaps true for peak **usage** of coal. In fact, I would gladly welcome peak coal usage at 2020 since the proved recoverable coal reserves would last well over 100 years at the current rate of production. If we planned for a conventional peak coal due to running out of coal then we would have to get starting hellaforming the earth by ramping up excavation by more than 1000% to create the barbeque party worthy of the end of the earth.

How could they choose Titanium as the example of recycleable metal when it's one of the most common elements in the soil on earth? Proven titanium reserves last 50 years at current production.

There have been other documentaries and publications that expertly show the need for something to be done. This one uses bad data and lame examples which severely diminishes it's credibility.

[u/Burlsol]

Not entirely accurate.

• The last few years have seen remarkable leaps in terms of solar efficiency and storage methods which are not battery based.
• Hydrogen power is starting to become more viable for industrial applications.
• Power consumption typically peaks during daytime hours due to heating/cooling office buildings, running industrial equipment, or operating vehicles. Although electric vehicles still are battery based, as many of these are municipally run or run by companies which would be continually using these vehicles, it still ends up being better than diesel or gasoline.
• Warm and Cold fusion is still on the table for power sources. Although the press has gone silent on the nickel hydrogen reactor, there was marked interest from governments for use as deployable power generation and can likely be scaled up.
• Thorium fission reactors are another option which are still being pushed to viability.

Although the US government currently seems to be pushing the 'clean' coal and oil story, much to the joy of lobbyists and companies, other countries are actively seeking alternatives and usually listening to science.

[u/OzzieBloke777]

A lot of fear-mongering. A lot of it justified, but a lot of the figures and projections are outright wrong as well.

Yes, we need to do something, and it needs to be done now. I guess this sort of video will push people to think more about it, but it's not entirely honest, and that bugs me.

[u/AtomicBarbarian]

Who makes this video and where do they get their information?

[u/[deleted]]

Thanks for sharing. Look, many of the comments are rightly pointing out flaws and exaggerations. There is still hope for humanity, but the basic argument of this video really does run true. We are not on a good path environmentally. Living standards are improving at an amazing rate, but our living standards are not sustainable in their current form.

[u/heeerrresjonny]

Other commenters have done an excellent job of pointing out specifics on why this video is low quality, so I won't rehash that. However, I'd like to share my disdain for the "it's too late" or "there's nothing we can do" or "it's over" trash that is becoming a bit trendy recently.

I am going to call it out anytime I see it. This is bullshit, and if it catches on, it will mean the creation of a self-fulfilling prophecy where so many people give up that we really are doomed.

We need people to keep working on solutions and ways to mitigate climate change or mitigate the damage. We need everyone to convince as many people as possible to consume less and make lifestyle changes that will reduce their contribution to GHG emissions.

Stop trying to kill people's motivation...it is less than worthless to do that. We don't need to sugarcoat shit either, don't get me wrong. Things seriously look bad. But if you lie to people and tell them there's no hope, some of them will believe you, and that is inexcusable.

[u/stujimmypot]

Nothing about the population? There was 2.5 billion people when my dad was born (47). Now there is 8 billion... what is 16 billion going to look like?

[u/pgriss]

The claims about peak oil in 2006 and peak natural gas in 2010 are false.

https://www.indexmundi.com/energy/?product=oil&graph=production

https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy/natural-gas/natural-gas-production.html