From Evolution’s Edge: the Coming Collapse and Transformation of Our World. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, BC, September 2008. By Graeme Taylor 

Rapid Collapse

The majority of the world’s political and business leaders resist making major changes and continue with business as usual. As a consequence the pace of environmental destruction will increase and resource shortages will rapidly worsen. The response to shortages will be to increase the rate of exploitation of the planet’s remaining natural capital, a process that will accelerate the destruction of major ecosystems. At some point in the near future cascading environmental, economic and political crises will become uncontrollable. This will cause irreversible damage to social and biophysical systems and bring about the catastrophic collapse of industrial civilization.

Delayed Collapse

The majority of political and business leaders proactively introduces environmentally friendly technologies and provide emergency economic support to prevent unrest and conflict. These efforts will temporarily stabilize the industrial system and slow the pace of global warming and environmental destruction. However, attempts to improve the system without making fundamental changes to its unsustainable culture and economy will fail. The environment will continue to degrade, and efforts to manage crises will consume more and more scarce resources. Although system failure will be delayed, the eventual result will be the same as in the first scenario: the inevitable collapse of major ecosystems and human societies.

Transformation

As regional and global crises grow and the world economy begins to fail, it becomes increasingly clear to people all over the world that the current global system is unsustainable and heading for catastrophic collapse. More and more people will then question the destructive values and institutions of the industrial system and begin to look for constructive alternatives — pathways to survival. Large numbers of people will be attracted to the developing systems-based vision of a sustainable future. The emergence of this new paradigm will enable the rapid constructive transformation of global views, values, technologies and social structures.