Journées de l'Entrepreneur : "Le management du 3ème millénaire" à l’EDHEC

Journées de l'Entrepreneur : "Le management du 3ème millénaire" à l'EDHEC
Jean-Pierre Largillet, le 17 novembre 2008
L'EDHEC de Nice participe aux Journées de l'Entrepreneur en organisant une table ronde sur le thème de l'entreprenariat mardi 18 novembre à 17h30 dans ses locaux (Amphi 002) au 400 Promenade des Anglais. Plus précisément le débat portera sur le management du troisième millénaire : "Anticiper, créer, innover : Introduction à une nouvelle gouvernance pour un développement durable dans la société de l'information"   Les intervenants seront Michel Saloff-Coste, consultant, Jean-Marc Hallé, Directeur IRCE (Institut Régional pour le Création & le Développement des Entreprises), Joël Scholtès, Président du Centre des Jeunes Dirigeants, André Labat,Directeur de l'incubateur PACA-est et de jeunes créateurs de Sophia, en partenariat avec l'association des EDHEC et les Jeunes Chambres Economiques locales. Le débat sera animé par le professeur de l'EDHEC, Dominique Serio, à l'occasion de la sortie de son nouvel ouvrage "travailler en indépendant".   Contact A l'EDHEC : Isabelle Graniou-Marniquet  Tél. : +33 (0)93 18 78 00

Robert Branche, intervenant à la 3ème journée de l'Université Intégrale le 13/01/2009

Sujet : Et si les organisations, comme les individus, étaient souvent guidées par leurs émotions et leurs mécanismes inconscients. A partir de cette hypothèse novatrice, Robert Branche propose une approche nouvelle du pilotage de l'entreprise : Neuromanagement ou comment manager en s'appuyant sur les processus non conscients. Le corps social de l'entreprise d'aujourd'hui s'apparente en effet au corps humain : mémoire, réflexes, émotions relèvent autant des personnes morales que des individus. Pourquoi, dès lors, ne pas recourir aux neurosciences pour modéliser son fonctionnement En s'appuyant sur les contributions les plus récentes des recherches cognitives, l'auteur démontre qu'il est possible de diriger une entreprise dans un environnement chaotique, à condition de mettre en œuvre des grilles de lecture appropriées.

Bio : Polytechnicien, ingénieur des Ponts et Chaussées, Robert Branche a commencé ma carrière en 1979 au sein de l'administration avant de rejoindre le groupe L'Oréal en 1985. En 1988, Il s'est orienté vers le conseil stratégique de groupes internationaux, d'abord comme associé dans de grands cabinets (Bossard Consultants, Mercer Management Consulting), puis en indépendant.

Blog : http://robertbranche.blogspot.com/

Video : http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=1481B76A2410CE24

"Stimulant et instructif, cet ouvrage dresse un parallèle éclairant entre les sciences cognitives - et plus particulièrement les récentes avancées de la recherche sur l'inconscient - et le fonctionnement des organisations complexes. 
L'auteur dresse un parallèle entre le fonctionnement de l'Homme décrit par la neurobiologie et le comportement des organisations. 
Il met en évidence qu'on peut modéliser l'entreprise comme un corps social qui - tout comme l'Homme - agit en fonction de ses interprétations, a des émotions et s'appuie largement sur son inconscient pour assurer sa survie et son adaptation à l'environnement. L'auteur combine ensuite son expérience et l'éclairage apporté par ce modèle pour proposer des principes de pilotage de l'entreprise qui bousculent parfois les idées reçues, mais surtout acquièrent une résonance stimulante conférée par la richesse de la métaphore. 

Un livre qui invite, dans un langage simple et imagé, à un exercice rafraîchissant de prise de recul sur le management des organisations." 

(Résumé et critique de mon livre "Neuromanagement" fait par Manageris, site qui sélectionne les meilleures publications en management - livres, articles d'experts, etc.- et en rédige des synthèses mises à disposition de ses clients sur ce site) 

( http://www.managementplace.com/php_livre.php3?Idlg=1&Management=3&IdObjet=2096&IdMotClef=5395&mc=neuromanagement&HP=0&Navig=0&Retour=4 )

Solen Penchèvre, intervenante à la troisième journée intégrale du 13 janvier

Solen Penchèvre est diplômée de l'Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris (Escp-eap). Au milieu de sa scolarité, comme tous ses autres camarades, elle a été amenée à étudier et travailler à l'étranger. Elle a rencontré des peuples et des hommes surprenants ; elle a notamment vécu plusieurs mois avec des tribus d'Amazonie. De retour en France, elle a cherché à intégrer ses expériences à sa vie sociale et professionnelle. Elle exposera les obstacles qui ont depuis freiné son partage d'une vision intégrale du monde, mais aussi ses espoirs de pouvoir compter sur une pédagogie à la croisée des traditions de l'humanité pour relever les défis des temps nouveaux.

Antonella Verdiani intervenante a la troisième journée de l'Université Intégrale le 13 Janvier 2009

Erwin Laszlo        avec         Antonella Verdiani

Antonella Verdiani s’intéresse à l’Inde et en particulier à l’expérience d’Auroville où elle y a menée une recherche de Doctorat (avec l’Université de Paris 8) sur l’éducation intégrale en tant que pratique transdisciplinaire. 

Antonella Verdiani présentera les résultats de sa recherche sur l'éducation intégrale comme exemple d'éducation à la joie. Son hypothèse est que l'éducation intégrale représente aujourd'hui une voie possible pour le bien-être à l'école et la joie intérieure des principaux sujets investis dans le processus éducatif, les élèves et les enseignants. Elle prend le pari que dans la vision intégrale, éduquer et s'épanouir dans l'acte éducatif est possible car cette approche correspond à un processus vers la liberté et la joie de l'être. Ce chemin sous-entend qu'une synthèse des approches occidentales et orientales en philosophique de l'éducation soit opérée en amont, selon une approche transdisciplinaire. Les courants philosophiques auxquels Antonella fait référence replacent l'acception du terme joie dans son sens étymologique d'origine selon lequel elle est la manifestation de «l'union de l'âme individuelle avec l'esprit universel». En particulier, dans sa recherche Antonella analyse l'expérience de l'éducation intégrale issue de la pensée de Sri Aurobindo et de la Mère (Mirra Alfassa) dans le contexte multiculturel d'Auroville, en Inde. Défini par ses habitants, un « laboratoire d'humanité vivant » ce lieu représente le terrain idéal aussi du point de vue de l'éducation, surtout par la pédagogie du Libre Progrès et deux aspects ressortent de la recherche à Auroville : la formation de l'enseignant comme « guide » et le bien-être existant dans ces écoles « libres ». En ce qui concerne cette dernière question, la liberté est une composante nécessaire dans l'éducation, pour le développement intégral des dimensions de l'enfant (physique, mentale et spirituelle) : c'est d'elle que la joie de l'être peut ressurgir.

 

 

The hypotheses that Antonella Verdiani's work intends to make is that presently, Integral Education can be one of the approaches adopted for school education which can promote a sense of "well-being" and an inner joy for the students and the teachers, who are important constituents and investments in the educational process. Here one accepts that with an Integral vision for education, it is possible to educate and to grow because this approach follows the path of liberty and the "joy of the being". This process is a synthesis of occidental and oriental visions in the philosophies of education through a transdisciplinary approach. The term Joy in its etymological and original philosophical sense means that experience which it is the manifestation of "the union of the individual soul with universal spirit", especially from the analyses, research and experiences of integral education that emerge from the thoughts of Sri Aurobindo and the 'Mother' and more so in the multicultural context of Auroville in India. Defined by its inhabitants as a "laboratory of living humans", Auroville represents an ideal ground, from a multicultural point of view, for research on education, especially through the pedagogy of Free Progress. Two aspects come to light through this investigation: the training of teachers as "guides" and the sense of "well-being" present in these "free" schools. The latter supports what Antonella's hypothesis states, consequent research too indicates the same, which is that freedom is a necessary component of education, for an integral development of the child (physical, mental and spiritual): that it promotes and helps recreate the experience of "Joy of being".

BIOGRAPHIE

Après avoir exercé la profession d’architecte/urbaniste en Italie de 1980 à 1987, Antonella a initié une carrière de fonctionnaire internationale à l’UNESCO qui s’est déroulé d’abord en Afrique et après à Paris jusqu’à 2005. De 1997 à 2005, elle a été spécialiste de programme au secteur de l’éducation de l’UNESCO, en charge de programmes d’éducation à la paix et la non-violence. Entre temps (2002), elle a obtenu un Master en Sciences de l’éducation avec un travail sur la médiation en tant que méthode d’éducation non –violente.

Parmi ses activités à l’UNESCO, elle s’est occupée de stimuler et diffuser dans différents pays les pratiques de résolution de conflits dans le contexte éducatif, avec une attention particulière aux méthodes innovantes. A ce sujet, elle a écrit des articles et édité plusieurs publications sur l’éducation pour la culture de la paix et la transdisciplinarité dont le livret  Bonnes pratiques de résolution de conflits en milieu scolaire et non scolaire , UNESCO, 2002. Elle s’intéresse à l’Inde et en particulier à l’expérience d’Auroville où elle y a menée une recherche de Doctorat (avec l’Université de Paris 8) sur l’éducation intégrale en tant que pratique transdisciplinaire. Consultante internationale pour des agences des Nations Unies et pour des Hautes Ecoles, elle est également chercheuse pour la « Chaire UNESCO de culture de la paix et développement humain » de l’Université de Florence (Italie) qu’elle a contribué à créer en 2005.

Liens

• http://www.auroville.org
• http://www.barbier-rd.nom.fr/DEA.Verdiani.PDF
• http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001266/126679f.pdf

3ème journée inaugurale de l'Université Intégrale ÉDUCATION ÉPISTÉMOLOGIE ET CONSCIENCE INTÉGRALE

Introduction à la troisième journée de l'Université Intégrale le13 janvier 2009

Le Club de Budapest France a le plaisir de vous proposer de participer, le  13 janvier 2009,  à la troisième journée de l'Université Intégrale.

 

3ème journée inaugurale de l'Université Intégrale

ÉDUCATION  ÉPISTÉMOLOGIE 

ET 

CONSCIENCE INTÉGRALE

Mardi 13 Janvier 2009 au FORUM 104

104 rue de Vaugirard, 75006 PARIS de 8h30 à 17h30.

 

Journée conçue par Michel Saloff Coste, co-animée  avec Bénédicte Fumey, organisée avec la participation d ‘André Copin, Carine Dartiguepeyrou, Charlotte de Silguy, membres du comité exécutif du Club de Budapest .

 

Participation musicale exceptionnelle de Hanna Castera[1].

 

Nous sommes aux prémices d'un grand changement de civilisation, dont le nouveau paradigme sociétal est fondé sur la perspective intégrale.

« Le moteur de l'esprit intégratif, c'est la conscience dans son mouvement d'expansion, dans son désir de grimper toujours plus haut sur l'échelle de l'évolution, dans son élan d'auto-transcendance vers l'Un. Le résultat de l'esprit intégratif, quand l'intégration s'est bien passée, c'est le sentiment d'être réconcilié enfin avec sa vraie nature, c'est à dire réconcilié avec le Tout qui aime s'exprimer sous d'infinies facettes. » Alain Gourhant

 

 Cette troisième journée de l'UI nous aidera à mieux cerner

« Education, Epistémologie et Conscience Intégrale »

 

 Nous explorerons :

·         Quelles sont les grandes caractéristiques de la pédagogie intégrale ?

·         En quoi l’épistémologie intégrale est différente de l’épistémologie moderne et traditionnelle ?

·         Comment favoriser une qualité de relation entre enseignant et enseigné ?

·         Comment échapper aux différentes formes de dérives sectaires et aux dépendances physiques, psychologiques et spirituelles contemporaines ?

 Une place particulière sera laissée aux échanges et aux interventions des participants. Merci de nous faire parvenir les sujets sur lesquels vous souhaiteriez intervenir.

 Cette journée nous donnera des clés pour  impulser le changement de manière active : créative, concrète et enthousiaste !

 Les différentes interventions et nos échanges seront l'occasion de réfléchir et d'expérimenter ensemble la façon dont nous pouvons enseigner la pensée intégrale aux niveaux individuel et collectif pour  la transformation intérieure et extérieure. 

 

Merci de consulter les vidéos et documents concernant les journées précédentes. Nous vous invitons à vous documenter sur les auteurs et les œuvres concernées afin de participer à la journée avec pertinence. Voir le site internet de l’Université Intégrale : http://www.universite-integrale.org

 

Intervenants:

Alain Gourhant, André Staropoli, Antonella Verdiani, Bénédicte Fumey, Carine Dartiguepeyrou, Caroline Guidetti, Chris Peythier, Henri Conze, Justine Caulliez, Marc Fleuriet, Martine Laval, Michel Saloff Coste, Robert Branche, Solen Penchèvre, Sophie Laleman

 

Renseignements pratiques

Lieu et horaires :

3ème journée de l'Université Intégrale

Le 13 Janvier 2009  de 9h00 à17h30– Accueil dès 8h30

Au Forum 104 - 104 rue de Vaugirard – 75006 Paris – Métro : Montparnasse, Duroc ou Saint-Placide

Tarifs :

Particuliers : 150 € (100 € pour une inscription avant le 20 décembre 2008)

Entreprises : 500 € (300 € pour une inscription avant le 20 décembre 2008)

Des bourses sont disponibles, sous conditions, pour étudiants, moins de 25 ans, chômeurs……. (contact : universite.integrale@gmail.com)

Ce montant inclut le déjeuner.

 Pour vous inscrire :

Envoyez votre règlement par chèque, à l'ordre du "Club de Budapest", accompagné de vos noms, adresse mail et coordonnées postales, à l'adresse suivante : André COPIN, 51 bis Avenue des Boulards 45500 GIEN

En parallèle, envoyez un mail de confirmation d’inscription avec votre courte biographie et motivations (15 lignes max) avec une photo à universite.integrale@gmail.com afin d'être référencé(e) sur ce blog de « UNIVERSITÉ INTÉGRALE » : http://universite-integrale.blogspot.com/ 

 

Une question ? Envoyez un mail à : universite.integrale@gmail.com

 

Bien Cordialement,


Le club de Budapest France


http://clubdebudapest.org , contact@clubdebudapest.org  



"A New Path for World Development"

Club of Rome Programme on
"A New Path for World Development"

It is clear that the present path of world development is not sustainable in the longer term, even if we recognise the enormous potentials of the market and of technological innovation. New ideas and strategies will be needed to ensure that improved living conditions and opportunities for a growing population across the world can be reconciled with the conservation of a viable climate and of the fragile ecosystems on which all life depends. A new vision and path for world development must be conceived and adopted if humanity is to surmount the challenges ahead. 

In response to this intellectual and practical challenge, the Club of Rome will undertake a three year programme on "A New Path for World Development" so as to achieve a better understanding of the complex challenges which confront the modern world and to lay solid foundations for the action which must be taken to improve the prospects for peace and progress. 

The Programme will not only engage decision makers and experts and provide them with feasible proposals for action but will also engage with the public through a variety of channels. It will be in part, an "open source" programme. It will undertake only a limited amount of original research, drawing on the wide array of available information and research in progress. It will be implemented in close collaboration with partner organizations, providing a framework through which their ideas and contributions can be integrated. This will increase the credibility and impact of the efforts of the Club itself. 

Un entretien avec Ken Wilber

DYNAMIQUE SPIRALE ET LES VAGUES DE L'EXISTENCE

Les six premiers niveaux sont des "niveaux minima pour vivre" marqués par une "pensée premier palier"." Alors se produit un changement révolutionnaire de la conscience: l'apparition de "niveaux d'être" et de pensée "deuxième palier," dont il y a deux vagues principales. Voici une courte description de chacune des huit vagues, du pourcentage de la population du monde à chaque vague, et du pourcentage de la puissance sociale détenue par chacune. 

Limits to Growth : Prophesy of economic collapse 'coming true'

§       16:05 17 November 2008 by Jeff Hecht

Things may seem bad now - with fears of a world recession looming - but they could be set to get much worse.

A real-world analysis of a controversial prediction made 30 years ago concludes that economic growth cannot be sustained and we are on track for serious economic collapse this century.

In 1972, the seminal book Limits to Growth by a group called the Club of Rome claimed that exponential growth would eventually lead to economic and environmental collapse.

The group used computer models that assessed the interaction of rising populations, pollution, industrial production, resource consumption and food production.

Most economists rubbished the book and its recommendations have been ignored by governments, although a growing band of experts today continues to argue that we need to reshape our economy to become more sustainable.

Now Graham Turner at theCommonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

 (CSIRO) in Australia has compared the book's predictions with data from the intervening years.

'Steady state economy'

Changes in industrial production, food production and pollution are all in line with the book's predictions of collapse in the 21st century, says Turner. According to the book, the path we have taken will cause decreasing resource availability and an escalating cost of extraction that triggers a slowdown of industry, which eventually results in economic collapse some time after 2020.

"For the first 30 years of the model, the world has been tracking along an unsustainable trajectory," he says.

According to Herman Daly of the University of Maryland, Turner's results show that we "must get off the growth path of business as usual, and move to a steady state economy," stopping population growth, resource depletion, and pollution.

Yet Turner reckons his report [pdf format] shows that a sustainable economy is attainable. "We wouldn't have to go back to the caves," he says.

<> http://www.csiro.au/files/files/plje.pdf

Journal reference: Global Environmental Change (vol 18, p397)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2008.05.001

Why the demise of civilisation may be inevitable

• 02 April 2008 by Debora MacKenzie

 

 

DOOMSDAY. The end of civilisation. Literature and film abound with tales of plague, famine and wars which ravage the planet, leaving a few survivors scratching out a primitive existence amid the ruins. Every civilisation in history has collapsed, after all. Why should ours be any different?

Doomsday scenarios typically feature a knockout blow: a massive asteroid, all-out nuclear war or a catastrophic pandemic (see "Will a pandemic bring down civilisation?"). Yet there is another chilling possibility: what if the very nature of civilisation means that ours, like all the others, is destined to collapse sooner or later?

A few researchers have been making such claims for years. Disturbingly, recent insights from fields such as complexity theory suggest that they are right. It appears that once a society develops beyond a certain level of complexity it becomes increasingly fragile. Eventually, it reaches a point at which even a relatively minor disturbance can bring everything crashing down.

Some say we have already reached this point, and that it is time to start thinking about how we might manage collapse. Others insist it is not yet too late, and that we can - we must - act now to keep disaster at bay.

Environmental mismanagement

History is not on our side. Think of Sumeria, of ancient Egypt and of the Maya. In his 2005 best-seller Collapse, Jared Diamond of the University of California, Los Angeles, blamed environmental mismanagement for the fall of the Mayan civilisation and others, and warned that we might be heading the same way unless we choose to stop destroying our environmental support systems.

Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC agrees. He has long argued that governments must pay more attention to vital environmental resources. "It's not about saving the planet. It's about saving civilisation," he says.

Others think our problems run deeper. From the moment our ancestors started to settle down and build cities, we have had to find solutions to the problems that success brings. "For the past 10,000 years, problem solving has produced increasing complexity in human societies," says Joseph Tainter, an archaeologist at Utah State University, Logan, and author of the 1988 book The Collapse of Complex Societies.

If crops fail because rain is patchy, build irrigation canals. When they silt up, organise dredging crews. When the bigger crop yields lead to a bigger population, build more canals. When there are too many for ad hoc repairs, install a management bureaucracy, and tax people to pay for it. When they complain, invent tax inspectors and a system to record the sums paid. That much the Sumerians knew.

Diminishing returns

There is, however, a price to be paid. Every extra layer of organisation imposes a cost in terms of energy, the common currency of all human efforts, from building canals to educating scribes. And increasing complexity, Tainter realised, produces diminishing returns. The extra food produced by each extra hour of labour - or joule of energy invested per farmed hectare - diminishes as that investment mounts. We see the same thing today in a declining number of patents per dollar invested in research as that research investment mounts. This law of diminishing returns appears everywhere, Tainter says.

To keep growing, societies must keep solving problems as they arise. Yet each problem solved means more complexity. Success generates a larger population, more kinds of specialists, more resources to manage, more information to juggle - and, ultimately, less bang for your buck.

Eventually, says Tainter, the point is reached when all the energy and resources available to a society are required just to maintain its existing level of complexity. Then when the climate changes or barbarians invade, overstretched institutions break down and civil order collapses. What emerges is a less complex society, which is organised on a smaller scale or has been taken over by another group.

Tainter sees diminishing returns as the underlying reason for the collapse of all ancient civilisations, from the early Chinese dynasties to the Greek city state of Mycenae. These civilisations relied on the solar energy that could be harvested from food, fodder and wood, and from wind. When this had been stretched to its limit, things fell apart.

An ineluctable process

Western industrial civilisation has become bigger and more complex than any before it by exploiting new sources of energy, notably coal and oil, but these are limited. There are increasing signs of diminishing returns: the energy required to get each new joule of oilis mounting and although global food production is still increasing, constant innovation is needed to cope with environmental degradation and evolving pests and diseases - the yield boosts per unit of investment in innovation are shrinking. "Since problems are inevitable," Tainter warns, "this process is in part ineluctable."

Is Tainter right? An analysis of complex systems has led Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to the same conclusion that Tainter reached from studying history. Social organisations become steadily more complex as they are required to deal both with environmental problems and with challenges from neighbouring societies that are also becoming more complex, Bar-Yam says. This eventually leads to a fundamental shift in the way the society is organised.

To run a hierarchy, managers cannot be less complex than the system they are managing," Bar-Yam says. As complexity increases, societies add ever more layers of management but, ultimately in a hierarchy, one individual has to try and get their head around the whole thing, and this starts to become impossible. At that point, hierarchies give way to networks in which decision-making is distributed. We are at this point.

This shift to decentralised networks has led to a widespread belief that modern society is more resilient than the old hierarchical systems. "I don't foresee a collapse in society because of increased complexity," says futurologist and industry consultant Ray Hammond. "Our strength is in our highly distributed decision making." This, he says, makes modern western societies more resilient than those like the old Soviet Union, in which decision making was centralised.

Increasing connectedness

Things are not that simple, says Thomas Homer-Dixon, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, Canada, and author of the 2006 book The Upside of Down. "Initially, increasing connectedness and diversity helps: if one village has a crop failure, it can get food from another village that didn't."

As connections increase, though, networked systems become increasingly tightly coupled. This means the impacts of failures can propagate: the more closely those two villages come to depend on each other, the more both will suffer if either has a problem. "Complexity leads to higher vulnerability in some ways," says Bar-Yam. "This is not widely understood."

The reason is that as networks become ever tighter, they start to transmit shocks rather than absorb them. "The intricate networks that tightly connect us together - and move people, materials, information, money and energy - amplify and transmit any shock," says Homer-Dixon. "A financial crisis, a terrorist attack or a disease outbreak has almost instant destabilising effects, from one side of the world to the other."

For instance, in 2003 large areas of North America and Europe suffered blackouts when apparently insignificant nodes of their respective electricity grids failed. And this year China suffered a similar blackout after heavy snow hit power lines. Tightly coupled networks like these create the potential for propagating failure across many critical industries, says Charles Perrow of Yale University, a leading authority on industrial accidents and disasters.

Credit crunch

Perrow says interconnectedness in the global production system has now reached the point where "a breakdown anywhere increasingly means a breakdown everywhere". This is especially true of the world's financial systems, where the coupling is very tight. "Now we have a debt crisis with the biggest player, the US. The consequences could be enormous."

The networks that connect us can amplify any shocks. A breakdown anywhere increasingly means a breakdown everywhere

"A networked society behaves like a multicellular organism," says Bar-Yam, "random damage is like lopping a chunk off a sheep." Whether or not the sheep survives depends on which chunk is lost. And while we are pretty sure which chunks a sheep needs, it isn't clear - it may not even be predictable - which chunks of our densely networked civilisation are critical, until it's too late.

"When we do the analysis, almost any part is critical if you lose enough of it," says Bar-Yam. "Now that we can ask questions of such systems in more sophisticated ways, we are discovering that they can be very vulnerable. That means civilisation is very vulnerable."

We are discovering that networked systems can be very vulnerable. That means civilisation is very vulnerable

So what can we do? "The key issue is really whether we respond successfully in the face of the new vulnerabilities we have," Bar-Yam says. That means making sure our "global sheep" does not get injured in the first place - something that may be hard to guarantee as the climate shifts and the world's fuel and mineral resources dwindle.

Tightly coupled system

Scientists in other fields are also warning that complex systems are prone to collapse. Similar ideas have emerged from the study of natural cycles in ecosystems, based on the work of ecologist Buzz Holling, now at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Some ecosystems become steadily more complex over time: as a patch of new forest grows and matures, specialist species may replace more generalist species, biomass builds up and the trees, beetles and bacteria form an increasingly rigid and ever more tightly coupled system.

"It becomes an extremely efficient system for remaining constant in the face of the normal range of conditions," says Homer-Dixon. But unusual conditions - an insect outbreak, fire or drought - can trigger dramatic changes as the impact cascades through the system. The end result may be the collapse of the old ecosystem and its replacement by a newer, simpler one.

Globalisation is resulting in the same tight coupling and fine-tuning of our systems to a narrow range of conditions, he says. Redundancy is being systematically eliminated as companies maximise profits. Some products are produced by only one factory worldwide. Financially, it makes sense, as mass production maximises efficiency. Unfortunately, it also minimises resilience. "We need to be more selective about increasing the connectivity and speed of our critical systems," says Homer-Dixon. "Sometimes the costs outweigh the benefits."

Is there an alternative? Could we heed these warnings and start carefully climbing back down the complexity ladder? Tainter knows of only one civilisation that managed to decline but not fall. "After the Byzantine empire lost most of its territory to the Arabs, they simplified their entire society. Cities mostly disappeared, literacy and numeracy declined, their economy became less monetised, and they switched from professional army to peasant militia[f1] ."

Staving off collapse

Pulling off the same trick will be harder for our more advanced society. Nevertheless, Homer-Dixon thinks we should be taking action now. "First, we need to encourage distributed and decentralised production of vital goods like energy and food," he says. "Second, we need to remember that slack isn't always waste. A manufacturing company with a large inventory may lose some money on warehousing, but it can keep running even if its suppliers are temporarily out of action."

The electricity industry in the US has already started identifying hubs in the grid with no redundancy available and is putting some back in, Homer-Dixon points out. Governments could encourage other sectors to follow suit. The trouble is that in a world of fierce competition, private companies will always increase efficiency unless governments subsidise inefficiency in the public interest.

Homer-Dixon doubts we can stave off collapse completely. He points to what he calls "tectonic" stresses that will shove our rigid, tightly coupled system outside the range of conditions it is becoming ever more finely tuned to. These include population growth, the growing divide between the world's rich and poor, financial instability, weapons proliferation, disappearing forests and fisheries, and climate change. In imposing new complex solutions we will run into the problem of diminishing returns - just as we are running out of cheap and plentiful energy.

"This is the fundamental challenge humankind faces. We need to allow for the healthy breakdown in natural function in our societies in a way that doesn't produce catastrophic collapse, but instead leads to healthy renewal," Homer-Dixon says. This is what happens in forests, which are a patchy mix of old growth and newer areas created by disease or fire. If the ecosystem in one patch collapses, it is recolonised and renewed by younger forest elsewhere. We must allow partial breakdown here and there, followed by renewal, he says, rather than trying so hard to avert breakdown by increasing complexity that any resulting crisis is actually worse.

Tipping points

Lester Brown thinks we are fast running out of time. "The world can no longer afford to waste a day. We need a Great Mobilisation, as we had in wartime," he says. "There has been tremendous progress in just the past few years. For the first time, I am starting to see how an alternative economy might emerge. But it's now a race between tipping points - which will come first, a switch to sustainable technology, or collapse?"

It's now a race between tipping points - which will come first, a switch to sustainable technology or collapse?

Tainter is not convinced that even new technology will save civilisation in the long run. "I sometimes think of this as a 'faith-based' approach to the future," he says. Even a society reinvigorated by cheap new energy sources will eventually face the problem of diminishing returns once more. Innovation itself might be subject to diminishing returns, or perhaps absolute limits.

Studies of the way cities grow by Luis Bettencourt of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, support this idea. His team's work suggests that an ever-faster rate of innovation is required to keep cities growing and prevent stagnation or collapse, and in the long run this cannot be sustainable.

The stakes are high. Historically, collapse always led to a fall in population. "Today's population levels depend on fossil fuels and industrial agriculture," says Tainter. "Take those away and there would be a reduction in the Earth's population that is too gruesome to think about."

If industrialised civilisation does fall, the urban masses - half the world's population - will be most vulnerable. Much of our hard-won knowledge could be lost, too. "The people with the least to lose are subsistence farmers," Bar-Yam observes, and for some who survive, conditions might actually improve. Perhaps the meek really will inherit the Earth.