Capitalism is in crisis and climate change disruption is now beginning to hit the bottom line. Insurance companies know this well. According to a report by the Bank of England, insured losses have risen from $10 000 million in 1985 to $50 000 million in 2015. Climate change cannot be reversed, and extreme weather events  will undoubtedly get worse in the future strengthening the disruptive effects shown in the CLD.  Another dynamic is that companies will continue to automate and, as The Economic Policy Institute has shown, fail to reflect  productivity gains in workers' salaries. The result, stagnating salaries is disastrous for demand, given that capitalism needs endlessly rising demand and consumption. A further serious problem is that as climate change gets worse there will be increasing demands for companies to assume their responsibility and bear the costs of negative externalities.  The CLD shows these factors which are likely to lead to the collapse of the system: when capitalism can no longer generate 'capital' it has stopped to serves any useful purpose. 

Peak oil occurs not when there are no more reserves, but when it is too expensive to bring them to the surface. The diagram describes a dynamic where peak oil leads to oil prices that are too low for oil companies to produce oil. There are two keys to understand this counterintuitive situation. First, it is important to realize that without energy (oil) no economic activity can take place. Second, when supplies of oil become scarce, non-elite workers  - because of the contraction of the economy - will lose their jobs or suffer salary cuts. This will make goods containing (or using) oil products too expensive for the masses. Demand for those products (most things on the market) will decline and with it demand for oil - oil prices will drop too low for oil companies to produce oil!

These ideas stem from Gail Tverberg's blog: 'Our Finite World'. https://ourfiniteworld.com/

Capitalism is in crisis and climate change disruption is now beginning to hit the bottom line. Insurance companies know this well. According to a report by the Bank of England, insured losses have risen from $10 000 million in 1985 to $50 000 million in 2015. Climate change cannot be reversed, and extreme weather events  will undoubtedly get worse in the future strengthening the disruptive effects shown in the CLD.  Another dynamic is that companies will continue to automate and, as The Economic Policy Institute has shown, fail to reflect  productivity gains in workers' salaries. The result, stagnating salaries is disastrous for demand, given that capitalism needs endlessly rising demand and consumption. A further serious problem is that as climate change gets worse there will be increasing demands for companies to assume their responsibility and bear the costs of negative externalities.  The CLD shows these factors which are likely to lead to the collapse of the system: when capitalism can no longer generate 'capital' it has stopped to serves any useful purpose.