NASA claims no role in paper about possible societal collapse

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In the wake of recent media reports about a NASA-funded paper spelling out conditions for societal collapse, the space agency has distanced itself from the paper's conclusions.

The paper, titled "Human and Nature Dynamics (HANDY): Modeling Inequality and Use of Resources in the Collapse or Sustainability of Societies," states that collapsed societies, such as the Roman Empire, seem to share two features: over-exploitation of natural resources and economic stratification into elites and masses or "commoners."

Dated March 19, the paper has been accepted for publication in Ecological Economics. Under "acknowledgments," the authors state that the work was partially funded through NASA/GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Center) grant NNX12AD03A.

On March 20, NASA issued a statement regarding "erroneous media reports crediting the agency with an academic paper on population and societal impacts."

NASA's statement said the paper was not solicited, directed or reviewed by the space agency.

"It is an independent study by the university researchers utilizing research tools developed for a separate NASA activity," the statement said. "As is the case with all independent research, the views and conclusions in the paper are those of the authors alone. NASA does not endorse the paper or its conclusions."

Loaded with mathematical formulas, the paper describes various hypothetical types of societies and their resource consumption. The authors state that the experimental scenarios most closely reflecting the world today are those that include economic stratification.

"Under such conditions, we find that collapse is difficult to avoid, which helps to explain why economic stratication is one of the elements consistently found in past collapsed societies," the paper states.

The lead author is Safa Motesharrei, a University of Maryland graduate student in mathematics and public policy and a graduate research assistant at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) at the University of Maryland.

The other authors Jorge Rivas of the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota and now the Institute of Global Environment and Society; and Eugenia Kalnay, Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology at UMD.

An earlier version of the paper, dated Nov. 13, 2012, was posted online under the title "A Minimal Model for Human and Nature Interaction."