Museums and societal collapse : the museum as lifeboat / Robert R. Janes

List of figures -- Foreword / Ronald Wright -- Introduction -- 1. Harbingers of collapse: Civilizational overshoot ; Ecological overshoot ; Climate trauma ; Political incompetence and corporate deceit ; Blundering hubris – ecomodernism ; The madness of humanity -- 2. The anatomy of collapse: Global scenarios ; The five stages of scietal collapse ; The truth hurts -- 3. The myth of sustainability: Curse of the baby boomers ; Energy blindness ; Clean technology? ; Child servitude ; The UN’s unsustainable development goals ; Comfort or contraction? ; Beyond green -- 4. Why museums?: Civil society and social capital ; Branding adaptation ; The ethical obligations of museums ; Fragmentation is good and bad ; A new narrative -- 5. The museum as lifeboat: Adaptation or a litany of sorrows? ; The four questions ; Hopeless but not helpless -- 6. Afterthoughts: Needed: new institutions ; Hospicing museums: an alternative ; The small picture ; The big picture ; Calling all museum people -- 7. Coda: Indivisible benefits ; Who will steward the future? -- References -- Index.