Book: Collapse; how societies choose to fail or survive
Collapse; how societies choose to fail or survive.
Jared Diamond, Penguin Books.
What was going through the head of the man who chopped down the last tree on Easter Island?
Had he been reflective he would have realised that there would be no more fishing boats with a famine that would reduce the stone statue civilisation to a small band of cannibals.
This book traces many historic civilisations. Some of which have destroyed their environment through exploitation ( see Dirt review ) Other island cultures have preserved trees, valued wildlife and limited human reproduction and have thrived from millennia. The collapse of the Greenland Norse and Maya civilisations are well told.
One illustration of the book’s title is provided on the single island that makes up Haiti and the Dominican Republic. One side has deforestation, topsoil erosion and corruption whilst the other maintains forests and farmland.
The final chapters look at the choices facing the western economies. To scale back on expansion and live quietly within environmental limits, maintaining soil and trees in stable low carbon communities, or to continue headlong with increased growth and exploitation over the cliff of peak oil and climate change.