Failing States, Collapsing Systems: BioPhysical Triggers of Political Violence (SpringerBriefs in Energy)

This work executes a unique transdisciplinary methodology building on the author’s previous book, A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save it (Pluto, 2010), which was the first peer-reviewed study to establish a social science framework for the integrated analysis of crises across climate, energy, food, economic, terror and the police state. Since the 2008 financial crash, the world has witnessed an unprecedented outbreak of social unrest in every major continent. Beginning with the birth of the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring, the eruption of civil disorder continues to wreak havoc unpredictably from Greece to Ukraine, from China to Thailand, from Brazil to Turkey, and beyond. Yet while policymakers and media observers have raced to keep up with events, they have largely missed the biophysical triggers of this new age of unrest – the end of the age of cheap fossil fuels, and its multiplying consequences for the Earth’s climate, industrial food production, and economic growth. This book for the first time develops an empirically-ground theoretical model of the complex interaction between biophysical processes and geopolitical crises, demonstrated through the analysis of a wide range of detailed case studies of historic, concurrent and probable state failures in the Middle East, Northwest Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Europe and North America. Geopolitical crises across these regions, Ahmed argues, are being driven by the proliferation of climate, food and economic crises which have at their root the common denominator of a fundamental and permanent disruption in the energy basis of industrial civilization. This inevitable energy transition, which will be completed well before the close of this century, entails a paradigm shift in the organization of civilization. Yet for this shift to result in a viable new way of life will require a fundamental epistemological shift recognizing humanity’s embeddedness in the natural world. For this to be achieved, the stranglehold of conventional models achieved through the hegemony of establishment media reporting – dominated by fossil fuel interests – must be broken. While geopolitics cannot be simplistically reduced to the biophysical, this book shows that international relations today can only be understood by recognizing the extent to which the political is embedded in the biophysical. Although the book offers a rigorous scientific analysis, it is written in a clean, journalistic style to ensure readability and accessibility to a general audience. It will contain a large number of graphical illustrations concerning oil production data, population issues, the food price index, economic growth and debt, and other related issues to demonstrate the interconnections and correlations across key sectors. Contents 5 Chapter 1: Introduction 7 Chapter 2: The Crisis of Civilization as an Analytical Framework 12 2.1 The Human-Environment System as a Complex Adaptive System 12 2.2 The Energy Metabolism of Human Civilization 14 2.3 The Physics of System Failure 16 Chapter 3: Net Energy Decline 19 3.1 The Decline of Conventional Oil 20 3.2 The Rise and Decline of Unconventional Oil and Gas 22 3.3 The Rise and Decline of Shale Gas 24 3.4 The Decline of Coal and Uranium 25 3.5 Peak and Terminal Decline of Net Energy 25 Chapter 4: Permanent Secular Stagnation 28 4.1 Empirical Blindspots of Economic Theory 28 4.2 Economy as Embedded in Energy 28 4.3 Plateau and Decline of Economic Growth 30 4.4 The Mythology of Decoupling 31 Chapter 5: Earth System Disruption 34 5.1 Ocean Acification 35 5.2 Heat Waves 36 5.3 Food Production 39 Chapter 6: Human System Destabilization 40 6.1 Intrastate Violence 41 6.2 Civil Unrest 42 6.3 Militarization 44 6.4 Terrorism 46 Chapter 7: Biophysical Triggers of Crisis Convergence in the Middle East 51 7.1 From Syria to Iraq 51 7.2 Yemen 54 7.3 Is Saudi Arabia Next? 57 7.4 The New Normal 59 Chapter 8: Biophysical Triggers of Crisis Convergence in Africa 62 8.1 Behind Boko Haram in Nigeria 62 8.2 Regime Rotation in Egypt 65 8.3 Authoritarian Turn 69 Chapter 9: Biophysical Triggers of Crisis Convergence in Asia 70 9.1 The End of the Indian dream 70 9.2 China: Paper Tiger 73 9.3 Arrested Development 76 Chapter 10: Biophysical Triggers of Crisis Convergence in the Euro-Atlantic Core 77 10.1 Europe 77 10.2 North America 81 10.3 Post-2030–2045 84 Chapter 11: Conclusions: From Systemic State-Failure to Civilizational Transition 86 11.1 Global Phase-Shift 86 11.2 Clean Energy and Environmental Restoration 88 11.3 Circular Economy and Post-Capitalism 89 11.4 Information Revolution and Social Liberation 90 11.5 A New Action-Research Agenda 92 Bibliography 94 Index 105 Front Matter....Pages i-vi Introduction....Pages 1-5 The Crisis of Civilization as an Analytical Framework....Pages 7-13 Net Energy Decline....Pages 15-23 Permanent Secular Stagnation....Pages 25-30 Earth System Disruption....Pages 31-36 Human System Destabilization....Pages 37-47 Biophysical Triggers of Crisis Convergence in the Middle East....Pages 49-59 Biophysical Triggers of Crisis Convergence in Africa....Pages 61-68 Biophysical Triggers of Crisis Convergence in Asia....Pages 69-75 Biophysical Triggers of Crisis Convergence in the Euro-Atlantic Core....Pages 77-85 Conclusions: From Systemic State-Failure to Civilizational Transition....Pages 87-94 Back Matter....Pages 95-110