Separating out the biosphere and anthroposphere for sake of argument.

Would an economic collapse be good or bad for the biosphere?

On the bad side we have:

• There are 2,000 or more protected species in the world right now. With economic collapse, every one of these would be back on the dinner plate. Expect a new era of extinctions.
• Lack of food will cause the mass migration of people from cities into the previously unspoiled countryside.
• Loss of the pill and condom will lead to increasing overpopulation.
• Loss of grid electricity, and metal and concrete, leads to the cutting down of timber for building material and fuel. Deforestation.
• I expect that economic collapse will not stop the manufacture of bullets and poison, they’re too useful in a post collapse society.
• The increase in slash and burn agriculture.

On the good side we have:

• Less global warming.
• Greenies have a chance to practice permaculture.

On the uncertain side we have:

• It’s not clear to me whether pollution would increase or decrease. Charcoal production, a major industry after economic collapse, is the dirtiest industry ever invented. Without catalytic converters and sulphur dioxide scrubbers even the greatly reduced transport and industry will yield more air pollution per unit. More faecal matter in our waterways would tend to offset less water pollution by industry.

mollwollfumble said:

Separating out the biosphere and anthroposphere for sake of argument.

Would an economic collapse be good or bad for the biosphere?

On the bad side we have:

• There are 2,000 or more protected species in the world right now. With economic collapse, every one of these would be back on the dinner plate. Expect a new era of extinctions.
• Lack of food will cause the mass migration of people from cities into the previously unspoiled countryside.
• Loss of the pill and condom will lead to increasing overpopulation.
• Loss of grid electricity, and metal and concrete, leads to the cutting down of timber for building material and fuel. Deforestation.
• I expect that economic collapse will not stop the manufacture of bullets and poison, they’re too useful in a post collapse society.
• The increase in slash and burn agriculture.

On the good side we have:

• Less global warming.
• Greenies have a chance to practice permaculture.

On the uncertain side we have:

• It’s not clear to me whether pollution would increase or decrease. Charcoal production, a major industry after economic collapse, is the dirtiest industry ever invented. Without catalytic converters and sulphur dioxide scrubbers even the greatly reduced transport and industry will yield more air pollution per unit. More faecal matter in our waterways would tend to offset less water pollution by industry.
  

An economic collapse worldwide could lead to a World War as everyone keeps what they make/grow for themselves and many go without and decide to take it by force.

>Greenies have a chance to practice permaculture

was that bit facetious, or what

humans have a substantially high tolerance of increased death rates (per time) regard their own species, evidenced by tolerance of exceptional abundance of their own kind, which inevitably results in more death (per time), the joy of new life sort of makes for an effective distraction from the other end, the end of the journey

on the more civilized front, humans have a keen interest in longevity, which sort of requires a group commitment to the idea, a cultural commitment, so there’s natural deaths and unnatural deaths, the latter’s avoided. An unnatural death is the end, or what ended a life, that a civilized culture might have helped avoid. Something of that generosity of humans is also extended by humans to other animal life, there are possibly a few anomalies of equality about that, the generosity extended, but how far does a person go with it, the entire thing (life, organic life etc) seems to have got started and since been propelled by things eating each other, a person needs sleep at night and rest, so the potential horror of the reality is self-limiting, if you want to enjoy your lamb chops

the real indications of possible economic collapse, locally, speaking of Australia, will be seen in broad-scale rapidly falling property values, and incapacity to pay down debt, from lack of employment that pays enough to pay the debt to maintain value

fortunately an economic collapse is probably highly unlikely, courtesy some special attributes humans have, being the capacity to defer expectation of the entire reward for work done, deferring (some of) it into the future (distributing it over more time). What that means is capital diversifies, it’s not tied (so entirely, so tightly) to the usual forms of exchange that represent value

well, that’s how I see it, they’re ideas I worded out, how reality pans out could be quite different

one thing I think important, is humans tend to think in terms of a human lifespan, granted it’s extended by culture, devices of government, the state, that’s by comparison immortal, but broader nature, say for example the coal used for energy, that’s been around and came to be over timescales that could be said to be alien to people

Separating out the biosphere and anthroposphere for sake of argument.

—-
Nah.

dv said:

Separating out the biosphere and anthroposphere for sake of argument.

—-
Nah.

Why not? Because the anthroposphere is part of the biosphere? Or because the biosphere and anthroposphere are so distinct that they should never be considered together?