WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT ?
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
The 4 ticking bombs that cannot be fixed
Why I decided to write this book
There are no solutions to the fertility crisis
The poly-crisis: The society faces many dilemmas
- What is this book about?
This book aims to describe how energy, the economy, the environment and human behaviour all fit together and what this might mean for our future. I hope to inform about lesser known realities and inspire more people to change their attitudes and vision in the coming decade of our civilisation's prosperity collapse.
This book is about the unavoidable major threats to our industrialied civilisation, the existential risks that will undeniably lead to societal collapse, why we are now in this irreversible situation, why there is no solution to avoid a massive loss of living standards, an erosion of the social system, riots, civil war and an imminent major collapse of civilisation.
This book is about demography and the fact that we are having fewer and fewer children in the industrialised world. This will cause a prolonged economic crisis in the coming decades, leading to the end of the social welfare state, governments going bankrupt and printing money, high inflation, societal breakdown and civil unrest. The demographic collapse does not affect only Europe, but 80% of countries worldwide, affecting six billion of the eight billion people on the planet. Most developed nations are affected, including South Korea, Japan, China, Thailand, Poland, Germany, Spain, Canada, Brazil and Chile. Even India and Nepal now have a fertility rate below 2.1 children per woman, meaning they have more 10-year-olds than 2-year-olds, which turns the classic age pyramid upside down and causes major issues in an unprecedented scenario in human history. There are exceptions, of course, and some countries or locations are attractive enough to retain only young adults, such as Dubai, Bali, Singapore and Switzerland. These places have a few children, lots of young workers and very few people over 60, which creates a booming economy and high living standards. However, these areas are the exception, not the rule, and do not reflect the state of the planet: a human demographic collapse with unsustainable living standards and social welfare expectations.
Why are we having fewer children? and what consequences does this have for society? When you stop having children, you eventually end up with a shortage of young adults, which leads to an economic collapse. When your economy declines, social welfare erodes, solidarity and peace vanishes, and civil war erupts. A societal breakdown and civilisational collapse are unavoidable in all industrialised countries due to our demographics and declining birth rate, especially countries with a high social redistribution systems like in Europe.
Potential solutions involve drastically reducing our social welfare, lowering our living standards voluntarily and abolishing our democracy, but the vast majority of people reject those solutions. This is why our society will have to hit rock bottom before we can implement drastic measures to counter denatality, revive our economies, and maintain a good standard of living.
This book addresses some lesser-known narratives, such as:
Why fossil fuels are the bedrock of our modern civilisation, and why burning them is unavoidable.
Why solar panels and wind turbines are a net negative on the electrical grid.
Why climate change and biosphere degradation are unavoidable destinies.
Why the rich keep getting richer and the middle class poorer.
Why social inequalities will continue to increase.
Why high inflation and loss of purchasing power and decline in living standards are inevitable.
Why AI and technology will not save us, but will actually exacerbate environmental impact and social inequalities.
Why will fertility rates keep declining in the coming 2 decades.
Why our social welfare state, public pensions and free unlimited healthcare are about to disappear.
Why women's emancipation may have had more negative than positive effects on our modern societies.
Why our democracies and political systems are bound to fail in an ageing population.
- The 4 ticking bombs that can not be fixed
Apart from an obvious 3rd world war, the use of nuclear weapons and all possible AI doomsday scenarios, the 4 major threats we face imminently in the developped industrialised world, which have absolutly no solution, are:
1. Our dependency on fossil fuels, the mainstay of our lifestyle, and their inevitable depletion.
2. Climate change, environmental degradation, rising temperatures, more frequent and impactful natural disasters and limited access to fresh water.
3. The public debt trap, which will lead us to social poverty, hyperinflation and civil war.
4. Demography, an ageing population having far too few babies, making our social system unsustainable.
With a scientific background, my intention is to describe the situation as it is, based on facts and figures, without preconceived ideology, and to debunk the misconceptions spread by mainstream media propaganda. My purpose is not to judge whether a fact is good or bad, or to judge who is evil in this world. My intention is to project the present facts into the inevitable future and to shed some light on all the nonsense ideologies of the world.
My aim is to give an explanation of the facts and truths of our world. I am not here to give solutions, what we should do, or to blame any group of people for the situation we are in. I am simply observing patterns, behaviours and measurable facts, and trying to give reasons why this is happening, without judging the facts. If you understand why the world is the way it is, you will understand that it is not going to change for the better, it can only change for the worse, whether it is worsening climate change, more pollution, more inequalities, an unfair capitalist system, falling fertility rates, growing debt. These trends of the last 40 years are here to stay and will continue in the decades to come until society collapses.
<< Renewable energy will decarbonise the world. We will stop using fossil fuels and reach zero carbon emissions by 2050. An ageing population simply requires a redistribution of wealth and taxation of the richest people and corporations. Our welfare system can cope with an ageing and shrinking population. Debt is only a social construct on paper, defaulting on debt will restart the system with no human consequences. Technology will make us more productive and save us from all problems. AI will do wonders for productivity, we will work 2 days a week and earn good money thanks to robots. We will have a circular economy and recycle every material so that we don't need mining at all. >>
These are the kinds of feel-good stories and myths I want to address and deconstruct, based on the facts and figures of reality. These preconceived notions are simply lies that we want to believe are true.
- Why I decided to write this book
During the Covid lockdown in 2020, with the only free time options being to stay at home and surf the internet, I started researching climate change, how bad the situation is and what we can do to stop it.
I realised that our world is doomed somewhere between 2040 and 2080, before the end of the century, and that it's all caused directly or indirectly by our discovery and addiction to fossil fuels.
Then I started to look into energy, how our world is powered, why fossil fuels run the world. Even though fossil fuel reserves are probably enough to meet human needs for the next 100 or 200 years, we will eventually run out of fossil fuels by the year 2200. This will take our civilisation back to the Middle Ages, powered by human and animal labour. Yes, it's a long way off, but the transition from today's society to the Middle Ages style will be extremely painful, whether it's fast or slow, whether it's wanted and planned, or whether it's suffered and forced upon us by nature.
I have also come to realise that in spite of any political intervention in any country, in spite of any regulation, belief, will or opinion, any capitalist society will end up using as much fossil fuel as possible and consuming as cheap energy as is available on the market. Increasing fossil fuel consumption will eventually lead to catastrophic climate change, pollution, rising temperatures and massive migrations. Also, our increasing consumption of materials, combined with the fact that we have already exploited the abundant, easily accessible and ore-rich areas of the world, means that we now need more and more energy to extract the same amount of material.
I realised that our ever increasing consumption of fossil fuels is triggered by our economy, capitalism, growth and debt. Debt is what creates the money and the demand for energy consumption. Debt is a claim on future energy and future materials. I realised that most of the industrialised world has unsustainable debt that we will mostly not be able to pay in about 20 years, aiming for a national debt default or hyperinflation by 2040-2050. Yes, sovereign debt is a more pressing issue than oil depletion or climate change.
Then I realised that the only way to service the debt over the next 30 years is to grow the economy, but I realised that the economy will shrink because of a shrinking workforce due to low fertility rates over the last 5 decades, mainly due to the great living standards of the last 60 years as a result of fossil fuel consumption. I realised that by 2035-2040 Europe will be in a structural recession, poverty, collapse of the social system. Yes, demography is an increasingly pressing and more devastating issue than sovereign debt.
Before the consequences of climate change are really felt by most of us, we will face this population and debt crisis much sooner: The ageing population with falling fertility rates since the 1980s will lead to a collapse of the working population, pushing our economic output downwards and thus leading us to even more debt crises, high inflation, manpower shortages in human-labor jobs, collapse of social services such as pensions and public health care. And all this will happen very soon in the next 2 to 3 decades.
So in my research I jumped from one problem to another and each problem has absolutely no solution, no solution if we consider the side effects. We will never 'create' 5 year old children or 15 year old teenagers out of thin air. Past birth rates are what they are, and the demography of a country is extremely predictable. The more easily accessible and abundant oil is consumed first.The best copper mines are already depleting. The carbon we put into the atmosphere stays there for centuries, so the climate can only continue to change for the worse.
As I contemplated our doomed future with no escape, no practical solution or fix at either the individual or societal level, I realised there was only one thing I could do: To inform others about the coming collapse of our civilisation, to prepare other people for the coming poverty, social unrest and civil wars, the authoritarian regimes that will take over the democracies in the future, and our need to be aware of the dramatic situation we are in, especially in Europe. The last 50 years of increasing comfort and living standards have come at a price. We are about to pay the price for our past and present over-consumption of the good things in life.
When I have delivered my message orally to friends and relatives, I have experienced 2 types of reaction. The first type of reaction is: <<Humanity will be fine, we will find a way to continue to live in harmony as we have since the 1950s. Human ingenuity will find a solution.>>
The second type of reaction was: <<I don't want to know, I want to stay optimistic, stop telling me this ugly story, I prefer to ignore reality and continue to live happily and optimistically in the present moment.>>
That's why I decided to put my words on paper, to have a factual and evidence-based approach to my words, and to inform only those who are willing to listen or read my words.
In the coming age of AI, this content has been written entirely manually, with a great deal of research, manual time spent on text typing and formatting with only minor corrections by AI. I am not naive about the limited success my book will have. People want distraction and entertainment, not pessimism without solutions. They do not want hard facts, reality checks or negativity; they prefer to share opinions, philosophical debates and morals that are not based on realistic figures. Also, the format no longer fits today's society. Nobody has the time, energy or concentration to read a 1,400-page book. People prefer short videos and 10-minute summaries of TV shows and radio programmes, or audio podcasts rather than textbooks.
I do not intend to change the world or your lifestyle. I do not intend to become rich or famous from this book. I just want to tell the real truth about our alarming future to those who are willing to accept reality. We love to be utopians and create the virtual reality of an idealistic world. We like to create an imaginary bubble world with a simplified and rosy vision of how the world should work, just to feel good about ourselves, our actions and our behaviour, to feel that we are a valuable human being who does no harm to anyone. We want to believe in a better future as a neurological response to stress. I have always been an optimist and a very happy person in general. I still enjoy life and want the best for my child. But since 2020, my view of the world and my vision for myself and my son in 20 years has been completely turned upside down. I am a realist doomer, a fact-based alarmist. I am not a utopian idealist like most Europeans. There are no black and white facts, all good or all bad. Everything in our society has both good and bad effects, the 2 sides of the same coin. Our cars, our health system, our immigration policy, our tax system, our food production, our food consumption, the internet, etc. Everything is ambivalent, both good and bad.
You don't have to be aware of the reality of our current world, you can continue to take the blue pill and ignore the bad news, the science, the reality of how our world works and stay in your comfortable bubble every day, hoping for a better future and ignoring the threats and stresses of a dark future. Or you can take the red pill and learn about how fossil fuels, debt, the economy, mining, finance, climate change, capitalism, human psychology and demographics are defining the world we live in. All of these are interconnected. You need to know about all of them. If you focus only on the science of climate change, you will miss the point, you will not understand why every year we pollute more than the year before. If you focus only on economics, you will not understand why a finite planet with limited resources combined with a declining working population is bound to destroy our economy and our standard of living. You need to understand multiple disciplines to really see that the system is in multiple crises with no light at the end of the tunnel. I hope this book will be the light at the end of the tunnel.
- There are no solutions to the fertility crisis
From the 1960s to the 2000s, industrialised countries experienced a significant increase in the number of working people: The baby boomers in their working years, and also many women entering the labour market. This created an unprecedented boost to the economy and an increase in living standards. This prosperity and comfortable economic and federal budget growth enabled societies and governments to provide generous social privileges and support of all kinds, which were funded back then. These included public pensions at 60 years of age, free and unlimited healthcare, the development of railways, nuclear programmes, ramp-up of electrical grids and road infrastructure, as well as other public spending. When the economy grows, the population is happy to see increased purchasing power and improved living standards, and is more likely to support peace, diplomacy and moral humanitarian values. When the economy grows by 5% per year, a democratic regime is well suited to allocating the added revenue to citizens in the best way possible.
However, since the financial crisis of 2008 and the 2010s, when the baby boomers started to retire and the active population began to shrink due to low birth rates, economic growth has slowed down and democracies have struggled to decide where to make budget cuts. With the active population shrinking and supported only by immigration, public debt and government investment to make statistic look better, the middle class is losing purchasing power and most people lose in purchasing power. The ageing population's pension and healthcare costs are forcing governments to raise taxes, generating discontent and social protest. Immigrants are becoming increasingly polarising and more difficult to integrate compared to 30 years ago. Real economic growth is close to zero and is even turning negative. People are starting to protest and vote for extremist parties, and governments can no longer finance their social welfare states.
Most industrialised countries are now caught in a vicious spiral from which there is no happy escape: They are spending more on an ageing population via debt, raising new public debt faster than their economy can service the interest, which is pushing countries towards inevitable bankruptcy or hyperinflation. If they raise taxes, they will see jobs going abroad and people losing purchasing power, which will push social unrest and lower the affordability of having kids. This will make the young adult population shrink decade after decade, worsening the long-term situation. Reduce spending on pensions and healthcare, and it will be political suicide, as most voters are over 55. Another alternative is acquiring land and resources by force, as has recently happened in Eastern Ukraine and Venezuela, and potentially in Greenland and Taiwan in the future. Unfortunately, the most effective political regime for the next three decades of demographic collapse is an authoritarian regime with the power and authority to make decisions that reduce social welfare and living standards. This could be a selfish, amoral and pragmatic regime, as seen in Russia, China and the USA, which can acquire land, people, businesses and resources, even if the local population is not happy about it and despite local environmental degradation. The post-WWII world order of peace, stability, global trade and growth is over, largely due to demographic realities. Xi Jinping, Putin and Trump understand what is at stake, but Europe seems to have been left behind with its utopian moral values, which will destroy Europe and its comfortable way of life very soon.
I always wonder how people think they have a simple answer to big problems and are convinced of their opinions, such as "The industry should do this, politicians are bad and corrupt, they should do that". It seems that everyone knows better and could easily fix the system. The complexity and interconnection of the social, economic, financial, energy and political systems is such that any change in one policy has unexpected ripple effects and unintended consequences elsewhere. Every solution to one problem creates another problem somewhere else. The truth is that any solution to any of the 4 major threats is futile and will have devastating consequences in another area, making any solution unrealistic.
We've known for decades that fossil fuels pollute and warm up the air. Do you really think that running the world on solar panels and wind turbines is the answer? Do you really think that the political and industrial leaders of the last 20 years have all been stupid and corrupt, that's why we keep burning fossil fuels? If it were easy to fix these 4 threats, these problems would have been solved by now! Do you really think that we were ignorant in the past, but now we know about it and we are determined to change the world, so we will switch to green energy and keep our same lives, same habits, without impact on our lifestyle? Do you really think it is that simple? If we burn more and more fossil fuels every year, it is because every other alternative is really painful and has much worse consequences! That's why we continue on the same path. It is by far the best alternative for the current world.
The same goes for debt and public deficit: Do you think the simple solution for the government is to go back to a balanced budget and not overspend on public money? If politicians started to limit spending on pensions, hospitals, infrastructure, etc... people would go to the streets in civil war and riots to demonstrate hard to "get back" the social privileges they are used to. That's why every year the government continues to spend more money than it has by issuing debt. Politicians are extremely clever. All of them. There is no better alternative to spending beyond your means: It buys you time and appease the population.
And that is my point: All the mess we are in, in terms of climate change, the debt trap and fossil fuel dependency, we are in because all the other alternatives are extremely painful. We are better off standing still and postponing the inevitable future crisis. We are just kicking the can down the road to avoid making the hard choices now.
Do you really think that we can have a society today where every second woman does not have children and expect the society to continue to function in 30 years time when there is almost no one left to work, contribute to welfare and pay taxes for us as old adults? If no one is making babies, how do you expect the economy to continue to run, your bread to be baked, your heating to be maintained, your roads to be repaired and your houses to be renovated? The ever-decreasing birth rate is a trade-off, a short-term benefit for long-term troubles, in which adults enjoy more freedom in our present lives but destroy any chance of a decent life for the remaining adults in the next generation. Our behaviour in every way, from our welfare to our over-consumption to our rejection of the family, is a ticking bomb about to explode.
- My intention and message
This book focuses primarily on why people stopped having children, and the impact this has on society. Climate change and public debt are two more unsolvable and unavoidable issues that will contribute to the negative consequences of a population collapse.
The intention of this book is to tell you the truth that the mainstream media won't. It is based on facts and scientific research. The truth is very unpleasant, not empowering and can be a source of despair. If you are emotionally fragile, you may not want to look at this book.
I have no good vision or plan to fix the world, because there is no escape from our vicious cycle of over-consumption. And that's the point of my book: To spread the word that there is no viable and positive outcome to this great societal crisis and civilization collapse. I have tried to connect the dots and look for optimistic outcomes, but unfortunately there are no solutions, and I am not here to pretend otherwise.
Everything I write in this book is a summary of the work of the experts and specialists I mention in the "References" section, like Nate Hagens, Art Berman or Daniel Schmachtenberger, among other great people. These inspiring people are the real authors, I am just relaying their work through this book. Nothing I write is my own invention or creation, I simply extract and reformulate the work of other experts.
Most published books and articles offer a solution to an existing problem. I have looked at all sorts of possibilities, but there are really no enjoyable solutions to the 4 major threats. And that's what this book is about:
We are all doomed and there is nothing we can do about it.
My goal is not to make money or become a celebrity. I am not here to entertain or to be click-bait. I just want to express my thoughts, the reality based on numbers and facts, and my frightening vision for the future. Call me a doomer if you want. The reality is I am not a pessimist, I am a realist with a logical mind and a scientific background, and our society has no possible solution. You can stay in your comfort zone and pretend that the world will always be fine, or you can educate yourself and realise that our time is fast running out. Choose the blue pill of ignorance and comfort, or choose the red pill of knowledge and reality.
I know people like to be positive and optimistic. People have more interesting things to do in their spare time than read about the apocalyptic end of the world. People want to believe in happy outcome.
<< We will be net zero by 2050, the energy transition will take us away from fossil fuels. Technology will improve and save us. We will find solutions for the ageing population. We will be fine. Life has been better every decade for the last 70 years, why should it not be better in the decades to come >>.
Let me be realistic and pragmatic: This is all bullshit!
We will continue to burn fossil fuels and pollute the planet because oil, gas and to a lesser extent coal are the most efficient and convenient way to get energy so that machines can work for us to provide a better lifestyle. The government debt trap is on and inflation will continue to rise to hyper-inflation leading to social unrest and civil war. Our standard of living and quality of life will be drastically reduced. It has already begun with post-covid inflation. Led by the lower income class who suffers the most, we will have civil wars, social unrest, riots, authoritarian regimes taking over. The state/government will have very few money for social security, pensions, public spending like basic public infrastructure. The energy revolution will not happen. We will be stuck with fossil fuels until there is no more cheap and abundant oil and gas to extract, and then we will have to go back to a very simple life like in the 1960s. The planet will continue to warm up, and droughts, floods, wildfires and hurricanes will become more frequent, and access to fresh water will become scarce, leading to massive social protest, conflict of use and climate migration.
People are blind, ignorant and misinformed, so we all tend to believe the lies of politicians and the mainstream media. We are influenced and deceived by our own human biases, mainly believing only what we see and using any confirmation bias to reinforce our own utopian vision of the world's present and future. We are too lazy to do deep analysis and prefer to believe the nice and comfortable general assumptions without checking the feasibility. If you believe that solar panels and wind turbines are the solution to stop carbon dioxide emissions, you are wrong, ignorant and misinformed. If you think you will get a state pension of 2000EUR per month in 20 years when you retire, you are a fool. If you think that prices will stabilise and that inflation in 2022 and 2023 will be a one-off post-covid shock, you have no idea of the massive debt our society is in. If you think you will still be able to drive your diesel SUV for fun at the weekend, that fresh water will still be available from the tap for barely 50 euros a month and that electricity will always be available 24/7, you are making false assumptions.
In the near future, we will have more frequent and more damaging problems with less time and less money to solve them.
- The poly-crisis: The society faces many dilemmas
Increase the birth rate and these babies are future ecological bombs.
Keep the fertility rate low and the ageing population becomes an economic burden.
Allow very few or no immigrants into a country and you do not have enough workers to do the low-paid jobs that are relevant to the system.
Get more immigrants to compensate for the lack of labour, then you get integration and identity issues in society.
Reduce the burning of fossil fuels and you slow down your economic output and shift the emissions elsewhere.
Burn more fossil fuels every year and you accelerate the effects of climate change.
Dilemmas are everywhere and there are no black and white answers, only shades of grey.
You need public funds for natural disaster recovery, for energy transition, for wars and national security, for health care and pension systems, but we are having fewer and fewer babies, which reduces our working population. With fewer workers and more pensioners, social welfare becomes more unbalanced each year, leading to accelerated public debt issuance to appease the current population now and jeopardise the future. We are leaving future generations with an unsustainable level of debt that no one can service without drastic cuts in public spending and a loss of quality in the social system.
There are no easy answers, only painful choices. Pick your poison.
- The last decade
The 2020s are THE LAST DECADE.
The last decade of the illusion that women's empowerment and feminism only have benefits. The last decade of illusion that our standard of living and social welfare can be maintained forever. The last decade of illusion that a world with a low fertility rate is great for adults' lifestyles and has no negative consequences.
We are in the last decade of prosperity and growth of standard of living since WW2. From this decade onwards we will lose quality of life and purchasing power. Our social benefits such as health care, good education, pensions, public infrastructure will decrease. Inflation will largely outstrip pay rises, leaving us with less to buy and less purchasing power. The effects of climate change will have a major impact on our daily lives, with reduced food harvests, scarce access to fresh water and increased damage from natural disasters. We are in the last decade of prosperity. Political far right or far left extremists or authoritarian regimes will come to power and we will be stripped of our rights and freedoms in exchange for more government control. Social unrest, riots and civil wars will break out.
You can either ignore the dark truth out there, or you can pretend that a miracle solution will solve everything. Alternatively, you can understand the scientific, social and psychological motivations behind human actions and finally realise, understand and accept that the only way forward for our societies is a collapse of prosperity. It's like watching a romantic film at home while bombs and rifle fire are being thrown down your street in a war zone. You can either keep watching the film and create your own reassuring world, or you can look outside and confront reality.
This book is THE LAST DECADE, telling the uncomfortable truth about the near future of industrialied civilisation. This book is about connecting the dots between the physics of energy, the financialised economy, human psychology and the Earth's ecosystems, how it has led our society to plummeting birth rates, and what it means for our near future. This book is neither funny nor entertaining. This book has no happy ending. If you came to this book to have a good time, sorry, you are in the wrong place. This book will explain why we are in this situation and why it will get worse as time goes on. I believe my son will be living in a much worse place in 2040 and I will do everything I can to prepare him for the hard times ahead.
I'll try to be as technical as necessary for a better understanding, but not too comprehensive, so that most of you can follow my thoughts. If you are interested in more detailed knowledge, please see my sources and references.
If you prefer to watch a video presentation instead of reading my book, I can recommend the best content out there on the web by Nate Hagens: Watch the first hour of this video or that video and you will get a perfect summary of all the writing on this book outside of the demographic collapse.
Let's get into it!
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- THE LAST DECADE -
December 2025
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