The Shape of Collapse, #1: China and India
by Jason GodeskyTo date, we have discussed the impacts of collapse primarily as they affect the First World. The Worldwatch Institute’s “State of the World, 2006” report provides an excellent occasion to take stock of how these issues are likely to play out in some other locales. This year’s report takes a special focus on China and India, the two most populous nations on earth, accounting for more than 1/3 of the total human population over just 8.7% of the earth’s available land surface between them. The fate of China and India in a state of collapse is of far greater concern to the bulk of humanity than the fate of the privelaged First World. Unfortunately, their prospects are perhaps the most grim.
Today, China and India are both largely self-sufficient in terms of food, even with a near doubling in Chinese grain consumption since the 1980s. One of these trends, however, will eventually need to give: to continue its prosperous trend, China will need to sacrifice its self-sufficiency. If Chinese grain consumption doubles again, they’ll be near the European level–and they’ll need roughly 40% of the world’s grain supplies, or upwards of 10% of the earth’s surface, to meet their dietary needs.
At the same time, cropland in India and China is becoming less productive from erosion, waterlogging, desertification and other forms of degradation. To compensate, China and India will become more dependent on the Green Revolution, with a growing reliance on industrial products and petrochemicals to sustain their crop yields. By 2030, China is expected to be importing three-quarters of the oil it needs, while India imports more than 90 per cent. At the moment, oil only accounts for something between one quarter and one third of the total energy consumption in both countries; most of it comes from coal.
However, it is not food or fossil fuels that represents the most acute problem for China and India, but water. Ross Gittins‘ synopsis of the report for The Age sums up the situaton:
According to a special article in this year’s State of the World report by the Worldwatch Institute in New York, China has just 8 per cent of the world’s fresh water to meet the needs of 22 per cent of the world’s population, while the World Bank has described India’s water situation as “extremely grave”.
The First World is made possible only by its exploitation of the Third. Our ecological footprint is enormous, and made possible only because so few of us are able to live this way. Gittins again:
Since 1980, China’s economy has been growing at a rate averaging about 9.5 per cent a year. That means it doubles in size every eight years. India’s economy has been growing by only about 5.5 per cent a year, meaning that it doubles only every 13 years.
The US, with less than 5 per cent of the world’s population, requires a remarkable quarter of global biocapacity to support itself. Europe and Japan, with 10 per cent of the world’s population, require another quarter. At present, China and India, with almost 40 per cent, require another quarter.
China already uses 26 per cent of the world’s crude steel, 32 per cent of the rice, 37 per cent of the cotton and 47 per cent of the cement.
While xenophobic economists worry about the impact the emerging economies of China and India will have on First World employment, there is a much more significant ecological problem involved: what happens when some 40% of the world’s population starts living more and more like First Worlders? The Worldwatch Institute’s report makes this prediction:
Limits on the ability to increase oil production, shortages of fresh water, and the economic impacts of damaged ecosystems and rapid climate change are among the factors that make it impossible to continue current patterns on such a vastly larger scale. Humanity is now on a collision course with the world’s ecosystems and resources. In the coming decades, we will either find ways of meeting human needs based on new technologies, policies and cultural values, or the global economy will begin to collapse.
In a state of collapse, China and India are unlikely to fare well. Their farmland has suffered greatly from erosion and desertification, and though they are primarily self-sufficient in their food production at the moment, that may change when they begin to lose the ability to leverage the Green Revolution towards failing cropland. Yet it is the availability of fresh water which seems more likely to be the important, salient issue in China and India. Without a complex society, the ability to deliver what little fresh water is available to such a large population is very prone to breakdown. Without water, humans die within a matter of days; if that ability breaks down, the cities of China and India will likely end in horrific violence.
Surviving a Chinese or Indian collapse doesn’t seem like an easy prospect. Both countries are densely populated. In China, the mountains are probably the best bet–assuming one can find a reliable source of food and water in them. India’s population seems to be more evenly distributed across the entire country, leaving few options on the subcontinent looking for a place far away from large crowds of people.
Simply pursuing a simpler, agrarian life seems like a sure-fire way to perish in such a collapse, though. With degrading farmland and little available fresh water, an agrarian life is set up directly in the line of fire for most of the problems China and India face.
Other articles planned for this series: the Middle East, Venezuela and Africa.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 15 February 2006 @ 11:56 AM
Nice article, I look forward to the one about Africa.
Do you think that there will be a war about clean water?
Comment by gunnix — 15 February 2006 @ 12:48 PM
Somewhere, definitely. There already has been. And there will be more.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 15 February 2006 @ 1:19 PM
Yeah, whenever I read that China is going to dominate the world in the near future I just smirk. They are constantly trying to play catch-up to try to do something about all the villagers trying to move to the cities. To do so they are totally trashing their environment and many problems are severe already and are realy going to limit their ability to expand soon. It’s not for nothing that there’s a riot every day there.
Comment by DigitalDjigit — 15 February 2006 @ 1:25 PM
Jason, congratulations! You have made the big time. You are now in illustrious company.
From Navigating the Collapse of Civilization: a Spiritual Map:
“Recently, I seem to have been bombarded from every direction with the theme of collapse. Whether in the writings of Mike Ruppert, Richard Heinberg, William Kötke, Jason Godesky, James Howard Kunstler, or Jared Diamond, the theme of collapse keeps reverberating, unsettling me, relentlessly reminding me that the demise of human civilization is in process and will not go away.” Carolyn Baker, Ph.D.
http://www.karavans.com/a_spiritcollapse.html
Comment by Peter — 15 February 2006 @ 1:29 PM
Also, China is no longer self-sufficient:
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update36.htm
numerical data:
http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2005/05-05/graintoc.htm
Comment by DigitalDjigit — 15 February 2006 @ 1:30 PM
I have read Amory Lovins or one of those people talk about China’s water situation. And how they would affect grain prices when they start needing to need to import more grain in the future. I have also tried to raise awareness a little about Coke’s bottling factories taking India’s water back in my awareness-raising days. China has a tribes though that may survive. Pastoral Chinese people in the countrysides that might possibly be left alone on the theory that the people will stick to cities and spread to arable land. That reminds me of the population growth video I saw that goes throughout history fastforward with a map of the world with red dots representing 100,000 people or something like that. And there was a time when in China there was a rapid decline for some historical reason I forget. I have heard it written by Ruppert how China could maybe do their complex society trading what they previously made for America among themselves after it falls.
Comment by planetwarming — 15 February 2006 @ 1:47 PM
Oh yeah, it was Lester Brown, not Amory.
Comment by planetwarming — 15 February 2006 @ 2:29 PM
Woa! Wow, that is some pretty good company. Makes me feel as good as when the Thirty Theses were cited by G. Daniel Bednarz in his presentation at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (Philadelphia, 14 December 2005)
It’s good to know we’re making an impact!
Comment by Jason Godesky — 15 February 2006 @ 2:42 PM
I just looked at the latest issue of Rolling Stone about NASA planning to go to Mars since they have concluded that life on Earth is DOOMED. I didn’t really read it, but I don’t see how they see Mars as habitable. If it is, they better hurry up. I wonder if the elite will still bother to pursue stuff like this even after collapse.
Comment by planetwarming — 15 February 2006 @ 2:44 PM
Its Scary to think that India’s collapse will be even worse, since so many areas of that country are in a horrible state currently.
People keep mentioning water as a resource that will be fought over, perhaps Global warming will create a DUNE (the movie) like environment over much of the earth in combination with severe pollution of the magic H20.
Comment by bubba — 15 February 2006 @ 2:45 PM
Mars isn’t habitable, but some of the plans for “terraforming” aren’t so far-fetched. That is, it’s not habitable now, but with a little work, we might be able to make it habitable.
Desertification is a big problem, but you don’t need deserts in order to have insufficient water. We’ve already got significant water shortages in the western United States, less because it’s a desert, and more because of the intense water needs of the type of agriculture they’re trying to do out there.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 15 February 2006 @ 2:48 PM
Speaking of water, I’m trying to get a copy of this new documentary on water “Thirst”.
FILM SYNOPSIS
Population growth, pollution, and scarcity are turning water into “blue gold,” the oil of the 21st century. Global corporations are rushing to gain control of this dwindling natural resource, producing intense conflict in the US and worldwide where people are dying in battles over control of water.
As revealed in “Thirst,” the world is poised on the brink of epochal changes in how water is stored, used, and valued. Will these changes provide clean water to the billions of people who need it? Or save the child who dies every eight seconds from contaminated water? Examining water conflicts on three continents, “Thirst” shows that popular opposition to the privatization of water sparks remarkable coalitions that cross partisan lines. When it comes to water, many people demand local control and fear the arrival of multinational corporations with large lobbying budgets and little local loyalty.
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2004/thirst/about.html
Comment by Peter — 15 February 2006 @ 3:08 PM
Saw that documentary. It’s extremely scary.
Best
Bill Maxwell
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 15 February 2006 @ 3:21 PM
I’m past the point of being scared, so many issues as the complex world breaksdown, thus the ‘complexity’ of civilization as it stands. Water, Oil, Food all are tied together under the current system to some degree.
I keep my information gathering to a limited flow at this point, since once you have determined that many things will occur, your energy is best used at that point figuring out how you will adapt & begin to attain skills (many that we don’t attain from normal types of modern day employment).
“We have no control over some of the things life throws at us (collapse), but we always have choices in how we prepare and respond.”
Be well~
Comment by bubba — 15 February 2006 @ 3:51 PM
Amen.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 15 February 2006 @ 3:59 PM
Water is the resource that will drive men to kill, without any thought or plan.
Jason, great post.
http://www.nasca.org.uk/Strange_relics_/water/water.html
Comment by Rick Larson — 15 February 2006 @ 10:07 PM
In regards to your link Rick, 2025?
I have heard that number thrown around a bit mostly because of a well published study done in the year 2000.
It is now 2006 and among different groups, that number is pretty much agreed to be much sooner now. This has mostly to do with population growth and water usage increasing, go figure.
The numbers range from around 2008-2015.
Interesting time frame, don’t you think? Considering everything else that is set to “go down” in that period of time.
I’ll follow up with links soon (sorry I don’t have any readily available)
Comment by Miranda — 16 February 2006 @ 1:21 AM
This is an interesting map about water:
http://www.princeton.edu/~ina/infographics/water.html
If anyone knows other maps like that, I’d be interested to see them because I think they are very useful to plan where to go before collapse happens…
Comment by gunnix — 16 February 2006 @ 8:01 AM
Noooo, you don’t want to start pumping out fossil aquifers!!! It just creates a food/population bubble that is ensured to go pop in the future.
Like this:
World’s largest aquifer going dry Sun, Feb. 12, 2006
The Ogallala aquifer is the world’s largest underground water system, irrigating one-third of the nation’s corn crops and providing drinking water to Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming. But some water experts have said it is one of the fastest-disappearing aquifers in the world. “Once that water is used, it’s not going to come back,” said hydrologist Brownie Wilson, who monitors water declines at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. “Whether it’s better to use it now or save it for tomorrow is where you get the debate.”
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/13855341.htm?source=rss&channel=dfw_nation
P.S: I have just finished reading Plan B by Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute and humanity is sure facing a real problem especially when you throw declining energy resources into the mix.
Comment by Roxy UK — 16 February 2006 @ 9:43 AM
Hi Jason,
You wrote: “Without water, humans die within a matter of days; if that ability breaks down, the cities of China and India will likely end in horrific violence.”
How likely is that their water infrastructure would break down overnight? I think it is just as likely that water infrastructure would break down gradually or in fits and starts, which could mean that a) people would create their own distributed water systems, b) people would die of diseases by drinking impure water, but not in a particularly violent way, or c) people would leave the cities and move back to their childhood villages where water is not as plentiful or clean as it once was but is still better than the cities.
That last part is fairly feasible in many places in China and India because urbanization has happened so rapidly, meaning that many people actually do have family in rural areas.
Comment by Aric — 16 February 2006 @ 9:47 AM
Overnight? Not likely. But we’re not talking about overnight–we’re talking about half as much fossil fuels in the next ten years, and probably another doubling of China’s population. Not overnight, but still far too quick to do much about.
We’re not really talking about a problem of distribution here, but supply.
That will surely play a role.
Not true. A good hypothesis, but such things have happened in the past, and people go to the cities. A water crisis would actually make that legitimate–you can concentrate your supply and lower the cost of distribution with a more concentrated population. People always percieve spreading out to small towns and villages as a “riskier” strategy, and in this case, they might actually be right.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 16 February 2006 @ 10:31 AM
I want to begin by saying that I am totally serious about this post.
If you want to get a lot of really good information on how long it takes for various infrastructures to break down/shut down, read the Zombie Survival Guide.
Seriously.
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 16 February 2006 @ 12:48 PM
How about a link?
Comment by Peter — 16 February 2006 @ 1:05 PM
Sorry, it only exists in meatspace.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 16 February 2006 @ 1:09 PM
Oh gods that’s funny Chuck. You’re right re: ZSG! I own a copy.
Comment by Bill Maxwell — 16 February 2006 @ 2:37 PM
Hmmm, a relative gave me this book as a Christmas Gift, due to my hobbies & topics of conversation.
ZSG, is an informative book. Zombies are everywhere you just have to have the ’special glasses’ to see them. If your not careful you can become one of them, the good news is you can break free from that mentality, but timing is everything.
Its actually pretty FUNNY how precariously modern day society has become, dependent on SO MANY THINGS from water, food etc. I thought the US was founded on liberty, not dependence.
Comment by bubba — 16 February 2006 @ 2:58 PM
I think you can read the ZSG as an informative surivival guide pretty much straight from the text, with minimal changes; just replace “zombie” with “civilized people.”
- Chuck
Comment by Chuck — 16 February 2006 @ 3:39 PM
Or simply recognize them for the synnonyms they are.
Comment by Benjamin Shender — 16 February 2006 @ 6:01 PM
Hi Jason,
Your work is stimulating and I enjoy your site.
PS, I used to live in Squirrel Hill, now in Egdgewood.
Dan
Comment by Dan Bednarz — 17 February 2006 @ 8:50 AM
Hi Jason,
I’m not arguing that the infrastructure won’t break down. I’m saying that if it happens slowly the result won’t automatically be “horrific violence” because “humans die within a matter of days” without water.
It very well could happen, but I don’t think that it is really that likely to happen in such a short period of time, and your comments above suggest that you don’t either. Do you know what I’m trying to say? I’m trying to address the issue of “horrific violence” here, not infrastructure.
Also, do you think it’s likely at this point that China’s population will actually double in ten years? I think that without a massive increase in fossil fuel availability and with the rapid desertification that is happening now that’s unlikely. And even people who look at the issue from a purely demographic perspective believe that China’s population will actually decrease slightly in the future.
I wrote:
You wrote:
“Not true”? There are many historically documented instances of people moving back to family in the country because of problems in the cities. For example during the Great Depression in the US, or the Blitz in London. I’m not saying everyone would or could go, but it does happen. People will move back — it’s just an issue of how many people.
Comment by Aric — 17 February 2006 @ 4:00 PM
Dear Jason,
I don’t really want to get into an argument with you, because I think we agree on most things of relevance.
So I’ll ask what I should have asked in the beginning. If you think that the cities in Asia will end (which I agree with) and if you think that they will end with horrific violence, what specific mechanisms do you think will cause that violence and make it so likely?
Comment by Aric — 17 February 2006 @ 4:49 PM
If agriculture is going to be devastated as you claim, then, uh, starvation is the logical result. Game over. No need for further planning of survivalist scenerios.
You’re all crazy. If the world gets this bad, it’s over. Either people will commit suicide or turn into raging scared neanderthal beasts. How many Avian-drinking, Prada-carrying, maid-comes-on-thursdays-while-i-get-my-nails-done, soccer moms do you think will survive what you guys are discussing on this site? How many rednecks do you know who can survive in the woods without sunblock, mesquito repellent, antibiotics, bic lighters, propane cookstoves, specialty sportsware, batteries, or pre-packaged food - for the rest of their lives?
I actually do believe the world is headed into dangerous territory. We need to conserve non-renewable resources, stop having so many babies, buy a bike, plant a garden, move closer to work, and concentrate on finding more efficient alternative energy sources.
I’m sorry that there are so many stupid people taking your site seriously. Acting like the sky is gonna fall TOMORROW is unnecessarily alarmist and whacko. What basis do you have for assuming imminent collapse rather than either a hard or soft landing?
Comment by logical — 1 August 2006 @ 12:02 AM
That evidence has been discussed at length elsewhere, most completely in the Thirty Theses. And you’re right—most people wouldn’t survive it. But soccer moms and rednecks do not make up all of humanity. The !Kung prosper in the Kalahari, and the Inuit in the Arctic, so while agriculture will likely soon be impossible, there are ways of getting your food that are far more versatile and reliable than the undependable, difficult, dangerous and unhealthy means of agriculture.
Collapse changes the parameters of the game, but not the game itself; it’s still about adaptation. All that changes is what you’re adaptign to. The future belongs to those willing to coexist with the rest of their ecology and become part of it; the strategy of simply dominating your ecology is about to run out of steam.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 1 August 2006 @ 8:58 AM
My options for living out the collapse are China (live there currently) and Australia (born there)… and both these countries get an entire chapter to themselves in Diamond’s ‘Collapse’ as prime collapse candidates…
The 64K question: which one would you pick?
Comment by Eric — 26 October 2006 @ 12:29 AM
Australia. The outback is still there with a relatively functioning native culture to learn from.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 26 October 2006 @ 9:26 AM
What outback? NSW and QLD are more than 60% de-forested, and are rapidly becoming desert as we sit here and type away.
Maybe you mean the Kimberlys? I’m sure that 11 million other people haven’t thought of the same thing, and won’t get in your way in their rush to not die of thirst/starvation/cannabilism.
As for the native culture, there are so few hunter/gatherers left to teach the millions of useless white people how to catch goannas and find witchety grubs that I guess I better start lining one up now to beat the rush!
Comment by Ian Thompson — 28 December 2006 @ 7:51 AM
I was under the impression that the outback had pretty much always been a desert, for the most part.
You’d be right, given how strongly conditioned we are to think of the wilderness as a place of danger we can only brave when we have a strong, civilized core to retreat to. Of course, your prediction is also on solid ground since it’s the same pattern we’ve seen in so many other previous collapses; We typically starve for our cultural constructions, not for lack of food.
There won’t be a rush, but since you have the opportunity, you should take advantage of it. We’re in the U.S. where no such teachers really exist.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 2 January 2007 @ 10:57 AM