Climate change map

A freeze-frame from a new NASA animated map shows warmer temperatures extending across much of the continental United States in a scenario of increased CO2 release into the atmosphere. Climate is one of the factors, working with others, that a new study says can trigger a civilization's collapse (NASA)

A NASA-funded study being widely discussed this week says "humanity is pretty much screwed,"

. The theory says advanced civilizations throughout history collapse when their over-consumption of resources, especially by elites, runs up against changes in such factors as climate, energy, agriculture and population.

Think that idea's a bunch of left-wing hooey? You're not alone; the study has been ripped already. "

This is rehashed 1960s Club of Rome defeatist thinking all over again," blogger Keith Cowing posted on the site nasawatch.com as he promised to find out how much NASA paid to underwrite the study.

But it's a peer-reviewed scientific paper just accepted for publication with its formula posted for others to try, and some are taking it more seriously. After all, it has happened before to civilizations from Rome and the Mideast to dynasties in China.

The study completed in late 2012 opens with the sentence that says in part "the possibilities of an overshoot and collapse remain unclear and controversial." And even if you think collapse is looming, the study says it can be avoided if the "r

ate of depletion of nature is reduced t

o a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed equitably."

and

in Britain's

Guardian

newspaper.