UCL Centre for Research on the Dynamics of Civilization

Institute of Archaeology (UCL)

University College London
Spring Term 2016

Conference
Could Modern Civilization Collapse?
A multidisciplinary approach from Archaeology, Climatology and History
on Climate Change and the possible Collapse of Civilization

The dynamic of the collapse of civilizations has been widely (and critically) treated by historical
and social sciences during the XIX and XX century in several fields like Archaeology, History and
Art. It has also been a common theme in popular culture and mass media for decades. While
certainly from different points of view, some of the most common discussions in this subject have
been, for example, the fall of the Roman Empire, the destruction of American civilizations and
the collapse of ancient Rapanui society, etc.

Furthermore, the perspective of collapse has been a regular part of intellectual and artistic
discussions in Western civilization: for instance, in the case of the outbreak of the First World War
and the statement made by the Polish thinker Rosa Luxemburg: "Socialism or Barbarism".
Another example of this was the social, cultural and artistic paranoia that surrounded the nuclear
arms race between USA and the USSR during the second half of the last century. So it can be
said that the notion of collapse has been an important part of the intellectual and artistic inquiry
and self-representation of Western society until today, playing also a crucial role in shaping some
of the most important aspects of contemporary world like science, art, literature and mass media.

This conference will try to figure out how the notion of climate change has increasingly replaced
previous "discourses of collapse", for example the danger of nuclear war during the Cold War.
This will be achieved by carrying out an evaluation of the "discursive structures" of this concept
from several perspectives: Archaeology, Climatology and History. One of the main goals will be
to assess the ways in which the concepts of climate change and collapse have been culturally
and historically mixed in recent times, seeking to discuss some of the main features and tensions
of the particular notions of civilization that underlie this process.

The first part of this conference will consist of a discussion on the concept of climate change and
collapse from a scientific and archaeological perspective, aiming to answer the question: Could
modern civilization collapse? The main goal here will be to evaluate the magnitude, scale and
rhythm of current climate change and its main characteristics and tendencies in comparison with
previous events of climatic transformations that occurred in the geological past, this taking also
into consideration the possible impacts of these processes on human civilization today.

We will also discuss several scenarios of climate change during this century and its possible
impacts on human society, this attempting to establish some linkages between the current climatic
situation and some cases of climate change in the archaeological past. Potentialities and limits of
social and technological resilience of human societies will be discussed. Relevant cultural
questions will be considered such as: what could be the importance of ecological factors on the
development of human society during the current century? How can we compare the role of
climate change on societies in the archaeological past with current situation? How can we
measure the possible impacts of climate change in the future, for example considering
archaeological data?

Taking into consideration the possibility of collapse of modern civilization from an archaeological
and climatic perspective, our conference will seek to challenge the traditional notions that underlie
the concept of civilization in the Capitalist Western World and its supposed properties of socio-
political and techno-economic superiority and stability.

This will be done by discussing, from a historical and cultural perspective, the possible connection
between the current situation and different past scenarios where social crisis led sometimes not
only to the destruction of previous social systems, but also to an important reconfiguration of
societies and artistic expressions: for example, in the case of the collapse of the Roman Empire
and its consequent reconfiguration into European Middle Ages Societies. The objective here will
be to understand, from a scientific and archaeological perspective, how climate change and the
current ecological crisis could lead in the present to important transformations of the current social
system and culture.

Organizers

Miguel Fuentes Muoz
PhD Student. Institute of Archaeology
uczlfue@ucl.ac.uk

Dr. Francisco Diego Fras
Senior Teaching Fellow Astrophysics Group (UCL)
fd@star.ucl.ac.uk

Grupo de Seguimiento de la Crisis Climatica Mundial
https://www.facebook.com/seguimientocrisisclimatica

This 3-4 days Conference will be carried on December 2016. It will consider a digital publication.

Sponsorship

UCL Centre for Research on the Dynamics of Civilization

Institute of Archaeology (UCL)



For more information about this conference contact to Miguel Fuentes: uczlfue@ucl.ac.uk

Previous conferences and audio-visual materials produced by Miguel Fuentes:

1-Peter Wadhams Interview1:
Could Modern Civilization Collapse? (Nov 2015)
Institute of Archaeology - UCL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO1mdHYSEV8

2- Peter Wadhams Interview:
Could Modern Civilization Collapse? (Nov 2015)
Institute of Archaeology - UCL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O854kS0-AYw

Grupo de Seguimiento de la Crisis Climtica Mundial

https://www.facebook.com/seguimientocrisisclimatica

Peter Wadhams is Professor of Ocean Physics and Head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group in the
Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics of the University of Cambridge.