What might a 21st century collapse look like? A Malthusian nightmare of famine, war and epidemics, much like the collapses of some two-dozen previous civilizations and societies? Or will it be a continuation of present circumstances, where half the human world grows wealthier, prettier and smarter while the other half suffers painfully -- and nearly invisibly, despite Youtube ubiquity. To many in the First World, collapse sounds like an exotic news story heard (in part) on the way to the gym, dinner or the bar. And should one actually grow overly alarmed, re-sedation requires but a pill, the sign of the cross, or a quick genuflection before any of modernity's messiahs: Technology, the Wisdom and Growth of Economy, the Demographic Transition, the Evolution of Consciousness. Until transcended, these inhibit a genuine inquiry into the ways of sustainable existence.

PRODUCER: Carleton Schade

Traveling in the hostile desert lands of Ladakh was a transformative experience for me, because there, in the shadows of the Himalayan mountains, exists a people who live as sustainably and happily by farming as do the primitives by hunting and foraging. Even more than just sustainably, for, in that world of harsh winters and piercing summer sun, more trees grace the valleys now than when these people arrived one thousand years ago. In 1994, I completed my yearlong travels through the human multitudes in South Asia, and witnessed a similar human omnipresence in Europe, and then again felt viscerally the very thickness of it in my adopted homeland of New York. Since 2001, I have been teaching, writing and speaking on the science of sustainability, collapse and spirituality.