Economy got you down? 4 ways it could get (way) worse

Milla Jovavich dealing with a collapsed economy.

The way I see it, there are four main ways for society to come crashing down.

I'm actually pretty optimistic. It's just that a post-apocalyptic world appears to be gaining interest amongst the geek set yet again. My first brush with this mindset began with the off-grid moves inspired by early 1970s works like the "Last Whole Earth Catalog," evolving to the fiscal depression that accompanied the decade's end and the first of the real resurgence of zombies with "Dawn of the Dead."

Don't grok that? Sky-high interest rates and crap job prospects. Remember Foghat?

For the record, I have nothing against Foghat, or Foreigner for that matter. And the Sonics won the NBA championship so it wasn't all bad.

But back to the topic at hand. Dealing with all forms of the societal destruction I have in mind would require talents of survivalists, off-grid enthusiasts and teachings of pioneers from the past who created all they needed with a Bowie knife, some twine and spit.

Of course, my premise is heavily influenced by the devolving political global landscape, spiraling ecological devastation and science fiction with a good dose of Hollywood suspension of disbelief.

Scenario No. 1: Trickle-down. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the cyberpunk culture foreseen by writer William Gibson, specifically in his Bridge Series. In the third and final book, "All Tomorrow's Parties," he paints a society where the Golden Gate Bridge has become shanty housing and various corporations control everything except cardboard chic.

Scenario No. 2: Climate change. The never-ending pursuit of profits pushes the planet over the edge. Oceans rise, island nations disappear and hordes of refugees from low-lying coastal communities pour into higher ground, triggering economic disaster.

Even the Sub-Mariner can't stop the rising sea

Back during the Golden Age of comics, Bill Everett in 1939 conceived of the under-sea superhero Namor, the Sub-Mariner, as a scourge against evil.

His target, initially, was the Nazis.

"He is a rare hybrid endowed with great strength, power over the undersea world, the ability to breathe both in and out of water, and the gift of flight," writes blogger and Sub-Mariner expert J. Chivian at chivian.com. "He fought valiantly with the Allies in both the Atlantic and Pacific during World War II. He has been King of Atlantis."

Namor left the comic scene in 1955 but returned in the 1960s, or Silver Age as it's known to fans. But this time around, he was furious not with the Axis powers but with earth-dwellers in general for fouling his oceans with leaky barrels of nuclear waste and assorted garbage and for exterminating sea life with nets and pollution.

Prince of seas was right to worry
 
He's likely less pleased today (although I stopped buying the Marvel books in the early 1980s and know nothing of his present-day adventures). A two-page release issued sometime back by the California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy Research Program said that rising sea levels will have significant impacts, causing coastal flooding and erosion.

"Melting of the land-based ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, as well as the thermal expansion of warming seawater, has contributed to a rise of global sea level at an average rate of approximately 3 millimeters per year from 1993 to 2010," the release said.

Climate change: Water woes haunt Californians

California would sidestep most of the effects of climate change.

The state already is hot and dry, and its coastal areas, with some exceptions, are blessed with some elevation, enabling them to avoid disaster should the seas rise significantly. But one region, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, faces distinct peril, says climate risk analyst Richard Snyder.

"You'll have a problem," says Snyder who spoke at the 2012 International Green Industry Hall of Fame event in Fresno. "Water and climate change are big issues, especially in California."

The Delta is a complex network of levees and channels and the source of water for two of three people in the state. Fresh water from the Sierra Mountains is sent by way of a massive aqueduct and a sophisticated and energy-intensive network of pumps down through the San Joaquin Valley and up over the Grapevine pass to Los Angeles.

When the levee breaks

Should that aging network of levees fail, disaster would strike. Years of farming the roughly half million acres caused large swaths of the peat-rich soil to drop, so that now much if it is below sea level. Some more than 20 feet below. Salt water intrusion would poison the Delta fresh water source, causing extreme economic cost on a scale hard to imagine.

Unleash the Toxic Avenger on climate change

The year 1984 may be famous -- especially amongst high-schoolers -- for the angst of Winston Smith. He's the guy trying to cope with illegal daydreams of individual freedom in the repressed collective created by George Orwell.

But 1984 also brought "The Toxic Avenger," a low-rent cinematic romp with environmental themes. Described as an action comedy horror film, it broke new ground by being surprisingly entertaining and launched the B movie careers of directors Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz.

Mitch Cohen, who later appeared as a bit player in Kevin Smith's incomparable "Clerks," stars in Toxic as Melvin, the Tromaville Health Club mop boy. Cohen's Melvin "inadvertently and naively trusts the hedonistic, contemptuous and vain health club members, to the point of accidentally ending up in a vat of toxic waste," says Cinema Fan on imdb.com.

For the good of the people

Rather than becoming a mindless monster, as would normally be the case in this genre, the "transmogrification effect" turns Melvin into the Toxic Avenger, royally irritated by "corruption, thuggish bullies and indifference."

Imagine then Melvin's response to climate change. Truly pissed.

Climate change has emerged as a summer blockbuster this year with more than half the United States experiencing drought. Still a far cry from the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s, the phenomena is increasing popular awareness of the fragility of the environment. And rising average temperatures appear all but a certainty at this point, giving credence to predictions of future difficulties.

Nate Seltenrich of the East Bay Express writes about how sea level rise, brought on by climate change, would affect the San Francisco Bay region. He says the toxic legacy of polluted old industrial sites ringing the bay could unleash some particularly bad news for residents.