The world is racing towards a large-scale impending collapse, and if humans want to avoid a future filled with social, political and environmental catastrophe, they would do well to devolve and democratize society’s decision-making process, currently in the hands of a select few.

So said Sarnia-born author Kevin MacKay, during a presentation at the Sarnia Public Library on Thursday.

The Mohawk College sociology professor and union activist touched on a number of themes related to the collapse of industrial society and also the shifts needed to avert such a fate. Those subjects are covered in MacKay’s recently released book, Radical Transformation: Oligarchy, Collapse and the Crisis of Civilization.

Six years in the making, the book is a product of research, reading and conversations with experts in a variety of fields, as well as activists in several grassroots movements, MacKay said.

With a world that appears to be veering off course, he said Radical Transformation is a guidebook to understand why society seems to be becoming more chaotic. It’s also a book of solutions, he said, pointing the way to a better, more egalitarian and just future.

“My book deals with some discourse that’s emerged recently – there are people, very knowledgeable people, who are basically talking about the threat that our society could actually collapse, that our civilization is going to hit the wall,” he said. “There are a number of scientists and ecologists who have been saying that over the past several years, so my book is looking at this idea: are we in fact driving industrial civilization off a cliff? I explore the crises we’re facing, whether that’s in the ecological, political or economic areas. And then I end up looking at what we can do to change course.”

MacKay admitted the subject of a global apocalypse is heady stuff. Yet he’s convinced that if society doesn’t change its current trajectory, a host of potentially disastrous events – environmental and political – are almost certain to occur.

“If we don’t change course, I’m very pessimistic,” he said. “What a number of people who are very close to the ground say – and these are people who are looking at climate, ecology as well as our political and economic structures – they would say it’s almost a foregone conclusion at this point. Unless there are significant changes made to the way in which we live that we will see the collapse of global industrial civilization.

“And what that entails is mass population die-off, a sort of regression in terms of political complexity and economic interconnection,” MacKay added. “Unless we change course, I do think things look very bleak.”

While the idea of an imminent massive population loss and breakdown of social order might send people running to the nearest bomb shelter, MacKay said he does see a way to avoid that barren and dark vision.

“I do think it’s possible to change course. I’m not that much of a nihilist,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t think it’s time to kick back and accept the fact we’re done. But I do think we have to ask some very difficult questions on how we organize our societies.”

While most people are aware that many of their decisions are impacting the planet negatively, they do it anyway – a product of not being able to understand the scale of their collective power to damage or to heal the planet. People are also sorely lacking in knowledge and awareness about the simplest things that go on around them, whether it’s the origin of their food or electricity, MacKay said.

Letting more people in on the decision-making process is key to ensuring a brighter future, he believes.

“The title of the book is Radical Transformation, but really I think that the key problem that I found in my research is that it’s our decision making systems that keep failing us,” MacKay said. “We know what we should be doing and we have the information and the technology even to be doing the right thing – to be living sustainably, living in a way that’s equitable. The problem is we can’t seem to make those decisions. So what I focus on in my book are those decision making systems.

“And really I make the argument that, while we like to think that we live in a very democratic societies, in fact they’re quite oligarchic in character, in the sense that decision making is tightly controlled by a very small group of individuals,” he continued. “What I’m saying is that we need to radically democratize our society – that’s the way through this crisis. That’s the way we can integrate the information from First Nation communities, scientists and activists who are saying sane and reasonable things, we can integrate that feedback and start making the right decisions.”

While speaking in his hometown was particularly special – MacKay was introduced by his sister Kathleen – he said people across Canada have responded well to his message.

“So far the talks have gone really well, it’s a topic that people are definitely interested in,” he said. “There’s a real concern about what ‘s going on and what’s coming down the road.”