That recent NASA-sponsored study about the collapse of global industrial civilization? Despite getting a lot of uncritical attention, including here (http://www.dailykos.com/... and http://www.dailykos.com/...), it now seems the Guardian story is so seriously inaccurate, and that the paper it discusses is so seriously flawed, that neither should be taken seriously.
The story was originally posted by Nafeez Ahmed as a contribution to The Guardian's blog:
A new study sponsored by Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilization could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution. http://www.theguardian.com/...
As it turns out, the study was
not sponsored by NASA or "Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center". According to
NASA, the study
was not solicited, directed or reviewed by NASA. It is an independent study by the university researchers utilizing research tools developed for a separate NASA activity. As is the case with all independent research, the views and conclusions in the paper are those of the authors alone. NASA does not endorse the paper or its conclusions. http://www.space.com/...
Keith Kloor, who writes for Discover and Slate, teaches journalism at NYU, edited Audubon magazine and fellowed at the Center for Environmental Journalism, takes the story and the study apart in considerable detail on his blog; I encourage you to read it for a more granular discussion of how bad the story and study are:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/...
The paper itself appears to be deeply flawed, perilously close to junk science. It fails to define "collapse", depends on a simplistic and poorly substantiated model, and cites ancient societies as if they were comparable to far more advanced technological societies.
Of the paper, Joseph Tainter, the (highly reputable) author of The Collapse of Complex Societies and the go-to guy on resource/climate-based cultural collapse, states
Overall I found the paper to be trivial and deeply flawed. It is amazing that anyone would take it seriously, but clearly some people do (at least in the media). You are correct that they cite my work a lot, but they seem not to have been influenced by it, or even to understand it ...
Contrary to the authors’ unsubstantiated assertion, there is no evidence that elite consumption caused ancient societies to collapse. The authors simply have no empirical basis for this assumption, and that point alone undercuts most of the paper...
In other words, there is no empirical or substantiated theoretical basis for this paper’s model.
Robert Wilson, a UK Mathematical Ecology PhD Student, notes that the paper uses a mere 8 equations to model all of humanity, whereas it takes far more to model something so simple as plankton. He continues:
There appears to be no evidence that the paper in question has been peer-reviewed. Mr. Ahmed claims it has been accepted for publication by Ecological Economics. Yet, the paper is not on the Ecological Economics website, although it is in submission.
http://carboncounter.wordpress.com/...
Please note: I'm
not a climate denialist by any means. I believe the planet is well on its way to becoming a hellhole barring major intervention. I'm afraid, though, that misrepresenting scientific papers and promoting flimsy science that hasn't even been peer-reviewed is bad for science and bad for the earth.
Nor am I a scientist, so, while I welcome correction, anyone who wants to discuss details will have to find answers elsewhere. It's sobering to realize that even on Daily Kos stories can be accepted without substantiation, corroboration, or sufficient criticality. This diary is simply a heads-up, and to let folks know that promoting this story could leave us all with egg on our faces and FOXes nipping at our ankles.