I believe we have entered a period of global full-system civilisational collapse: a collection of interconnected collapses which will be catastrophic for this civilisation and probably for life on this planet.

The following are the collapses I can see happening:

• Climate - Global heating
• Ecological diversity - the sixth mass extinction
• Ecological health - PFAS, plastics, deforestation, ocean acidification, over-exploitation (fish, acquifers)
• Socio-political - the decay of liberal democratic and social democratic systems and the rise of authoritarianism, oligarchy, techno-feudalism. Fresh wars of expansion. Polarisation and fragmentation.
• Technological - 'enshitification', AI slop, planned obsolescencea anti-intellectualism
• Economic - the "AI" and housing bubbles, Trump's tariffs and trade wars
• Demographic - the Boomer bulge and falling birth rates
• Truth - Trump, Putin, Xi, and the oligarch-owned media, and LLMs
• Story - Neoliberal Capitalism and "Endless Growth" meets finite limits

They are interconnected in complex ways. Global heating is accelerating the mass extinction and will drive mass migration exacerbating socio-political tensions. An economic collapse will likely reduce industrial activity which might reduce greenhouse gas emissions, delaying global heating, but making it harder to mass produce renewables. The boomer bulge has inflated house prices but after it works through, house prices could collapse.

Action to prevent each of these collapses unfortunately depends on the other systems being relatively healthy. A concerted global response to global heating would be possible if there was a healthy political system. A healthy political system would be possible if the economic system ensured enough for all.

Further reading:

• The Limits to Growth, and subsequent updates
• r/Collapse
• Doughnut Ecomomics
• Planetary Boundaries