What if our civilization were to collapse? Not many centuries into the
future, but in our own lifetimes? Most people recognize that we face
huge challenges today, from climate change and its potentially
catastrophic consequences to a plethora of socio-political problems, but
we find it hard to face up to the very real possibility that these
crises could produce a collapse of our entire civilization. Yet we now
have a great deal of evidence to suggest that we are up against growing
systemic instabilities that pose a serious threat to the capacity of
human populations to maintain themselves in a sustainable environment.
In this important book, Pablo Servigne and Raphaël Stevens confront
these issues head-on. They examine the scientific evidence and show how
its findings, often presented in a detached and abstract way, are
connected to people's ordinary experiences - joining the dots, as it
were, between the Anthropocene and our everyday lives. In so doing they
provide a valuable guide that will help everyone make sense of the new
and potentially catastrophic situation in which we now find ourselves.
Today, utopia has changed sides: it is the utopians who believe that
everything can continue as before, while realists put their energy into
making a transition and building local resilience. Collapse is the
horizon of our generation. But collapse is not the end - it's the
beginning of our future. We will reinvent new ways of living in the
world and being attentive to ourselves, to other human beings and to all
our fellow creatures.
