While we are all in this together, the world’s poorest will feel the effects of collapse first. Indeed, some nations are already serving as canaries in the coal mine for the issues that may eventually pull apart more affluent ones.
Syria, for example, enjoyed
exceptionally high fertility rates for a time, which fueled rapid population growth. A
severe drought in the late 2000s, likely made worse by human-induced climate change, combined with groundwater shortages to
cripple agricultural production. That crisis left large numbers of people – especially young men – unemployed, discontent and desperate.
Many flooded into urban centres, overwhelming limited resources and services there. Pre-existing ethnic tensions increased, creating fertile grounds for violence and conflict. On top of that, poor governance – including neoliberal policies that
eliminated water subsidies in the middle of the drought – tipped the country into civil war in 2011 and sent it careening toward collapse.