This is the topic of Jared Diamond’s book ‘Collapse – how societies choose or fail to survive’. A geography professor at UCLA, Diamond has studied past failed societies, from the ancient ones like Easter Island or the Mayans to modern examples like Haiti or Rwanda, looking for trends and patterns of decline. His theory is that ecological factors are the most important, rather than natural disasters or political unrest. Time and again, societies have asked too much of their environments, and seen problems such as de-forestation and soil erosion bring their civilizations to their knees. You can read a case study, the viking settlers in Greenland, here.
Taking these lessons from the past and applying them today, Diamond has this to say about where we are at the moment:
‘Our world society is presently on a non-sustainable course, and any one of our problems would suffice to limit our lifestyle within the next several decades. Because we are rapidly advancing along with this non-sustainable course, the world’s environmental problems will get solved, in one way or another, within the lifetimes of the children and young adults today. The only question is whether they will be resolved in pleasant ways of our own choice, or in unpleasant ways not of our choice, such as warfare, genocides, starvation, disease epidemics and collapses of societies.’
The Earthbound Report 