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Protect Your Trees
Oct 2009
Collapse - Jared Diamond - Penguin, 2005
* * * * *
I was walking down Cornmarket Street in central Oxford the other day when I passed a Christian proselytiser who was talking about the greatest threat to our society. His answer was crime. I had this book in my bag, so I pulled it out and waved it. "No, you fool, the greatest threat to our society is eco-collapse! And this book will tell you far more than yours does about what causes it and how to avoid it!"
Now the foregoing is of course a lie. I am much too polite to interrupt a nutter in mid-rant, much less call him a fool. But I wish I had, because this is, I think, an important book. It follows on from Guns, Germs and Steel, but reverses its premise by asking why some societies die out rather than develop. His answers have relevance to us all.
The first dismaying thing is just how many societies have collapsed. They range from small island communities (Easter, Pitcairn and Henderson Islands) to settlements in marginal environments (the Anasazi of the central United States, the Vikings in Greenland) to sophisticated civilisations in rich environments such as the Mayans. With such a variety it might seem hard to identify applicable lessons, but Diamond comes up with a framework of five factors - environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbours, withdrawal of trade and the society's own response to its problems - which contribute to a greater or lesser extent. He also reviews several societies that have successfully avoided catastrophe by using both top-down and bottom-up approaches to environmental management (Japan and New Guinea respectively).
For me the most interesting tale was that of the two Norse settlements in Greenland, which I hadn't come across before. These were far from failed colonies. They lasted almost 500 years and were sufficiently advanced to support the colony of Vinland on the American seaboard for a short period, and regular trips to "Markland" (probably the Labrador coast) to collect timber for some time after. The inhabitants built a 100' x 50' cathedral with an 80' high bell tower at Gardar and there were thirteen parish churches (such as Hvalsey). Their collapse early in the fifteenth century occurred for a variety of reasons which fit into Diamond's five-point framework. The Norse deforested large areas for buildings, firewood (particularly important when you have dairies that need to be regularly disinfected with hot water) and for manufacturing iron. Ice cores suggest that temperatures declined during the late 1300s and early 1400s, making it difficult and unprofitable for ships from Norway and Iceland to get through the sea ice and reducing production of the hay needed to keep cattle alive during the long winters. Trade with Europe was in any case declining as walrus ivory, the major export, was replaced by elephant ivory from the crusades. The settlements also had hostile neighbours in the form of the Inuit - the Norse annals mention them only three times (extraordinary given that they were living side by side for centuries) and in each case it is clear that there was conflict. This hostility may also explain why, when times got hard, the Norse refused to abandon their cattle farming and feed themselves on fish, seals and whales as the Inuit did. The archaeological evidence is that the people starved or froze to death after a harsh winter.
The third part of the book is a survey of modern societies, covering, inter alia, why Haiti is a disaster when the neighbouring Dominican Republic is not, the causes of the Rwandan genocide (population density, it seems, may have been a more important factor than tribal antagonisms), and the prospects for China and Australia. This leads into a more general (and less convincing) discussion of why societies so frequently ignore environmental warning signs, which covers the usual bases of tragedy of the commons, crowd psychology and fear of change. One factor that Diamond doesn't think is important is the behaviour of big business - he cites several examples of oil and mineral extraction, some done in an environmentally sensitive fashion and some not, and concludes that the expectations of the public control the decisions and policies of corporations rather than the other way round. In other words, it's our fault when environmental disasters like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occur. Well, there's undoubtedly some truth to that. But I don't like the idea that chief executives are helpless pawns of the socio-economic environment in which they are working and are therefore not morally responsible for their decisions. If that's the case then they should be paid less.
In the final chapter, Diamond goes global and discusses the twelve big environmental dangers that threaten the whole world. His warning - and hope - is that everything is interconnected. Environmental disaster in one part of the world will lead to a wave of migrants that could trigger collapse elsewhere. His hope is that the rise of global communications will lead to a general awareness of the dangers that will force leaders to take a more long-term view and implement environmentally-friendly policies. As he says, the environmental problems are not insoluble; the challenge is to get people to turn from their local concerns and face up to them.
Which, of course, is what this book is trying to do and why it's important. It is far from perfect - Diamond's style is too dry and academic and his constant listing of abstract factors and overuse of examples makes it difficult to turn the pages sometimes. His stories, however, are compelling and we need to learn from them. One lesson that stood out for me is the importance of deforestation, which is a feature of all the collapses he describes. Whether it be through climate change, logging for firewood or building, or slash-and-burn agriculture, a society which loses its trees is ultimately doomed. Perhaps the best thing we can do if we want to survive as a species is to plant more of them and ensure that they thrive. The word for world really is forest.
Collapse - Jared Diamond - Penguin, 2005
* * * * *
I was walking down Cornmarket Street in central Oxford the other day when I passed a Christian proselytiser who was talking about the greatest threat to our society. His answer was crime. I had this book in my bag, so I pulled it out and waved it. "No, you fool, the greatest threat to our society is eco-collapse! And this book will tell you far more than yours does about what causes it and how to avoid it!"
Now the foregoing is of course a lie. I am much too polite to interrupt a nutter in mid-rant, much less call him a fool. But I wish I had, because this is, I think, an important book. It follows on from Guns, Germs and Steel, but reverses its premise by asking why some societies die out rather than develop. His answers have relevance to us all.
The first dismaying thing is just how many societies have collapsed. They range from small island communities (Easter, Pitcairn and Henderson Islands) to settlements in marginal environments (the Anasazi of the central United States, the Vikings in Greenland) to sophisticated civilisations in rich environments such as the Mayans. With such a variety it might seem hard to identify applicable lessons, but Diamond comes up with a framework of five factors - environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbours, withdrawal of trade and the society's own response to its problems - which contribute to a greater or lesser extent. He also reviews several societies that have successfully avoided catastrophe by using both top-down and bottom-up approaches to environmental management (Japan and New Guinea respectively).
For me the most interesting tale was that of the two Norse settlements in Greenland, which I hadn't come across before. These were far from failed colonies. They lasted almost 500 years and were sufficiently advanced to support the colony of Vinland on the American seaboard for a short period, and regular trips to "Markland" (probably the Labrador coast) to collect timber for some time after. The inhabitants built a 100' x 50' cathedral with an 80' high bell tower at Gardar and there were thirteen parish churches (such as Hvalsey). Their collapse early in the fifteenth century occurred for a variety of reasons which fit into Diamond's five-point framework. The Norse deforested large areas for buildings, firewood (particularly important when you have dairies that need to be regularly disinfected with hot water) and for manufacturing iron. Ice cores suggest that temperatures declined during the late 1300s and early 1400s, making it difficult and unprofitable for ships from Norway and Iceland to get through the sea ice and reducing production of the hay needed to keep cattle alive during the long winters. Trade with Europe was in any case declining as walrus ivory, the major export, was replaced by elephant ivory from the crusades. The settlements also had hostile neighbours in the form of the Inuit - the Norse annals mention them only three times (extraordinary given that they were living side by side for centuries) and in each case it is clear that there was conflict. This hostility may also explain why, when times got hard, the Norse refused to abandon their cattle farming and feed themselves on fish, seals and whales as the Inuit did. The archaeological evidence is that the people starved or froze to death after a harsh winter.
The third part of the book is a survey of modern societies, covering, inter alia, why Haiti is a disaster when the neighbouring Dominican Republic is not, the causes of the Rwandan genocide (population density, it seems, may have been a more important factor than tribal antagonisms), and the prospects for China and Australia. This leads into a more general (and less convincing) discussion of why societies so frequently ignore environmental warning signs, which covers the usual bases of tragedy of the commons, crowd psychology and fear of change. One factor that Diamond doesn't think is important is the behaviour of big business - he cites several examples of oil and mineral extraction, some done in an environmentally sensitive fashion and some not, and concludes that the expectations of the public control the decisions and policies of corporations rather than the other way round. In other words, it's our fault when environmental disasters like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occur. Well, there's undoubtedly some truth to that. But I don't like the idea that chief executives are helpless pawns of the socio-economic environment in which they are working and are therefore not morally responsible for their decisions. If that's the case then they should be paid less.
In the final chapter, Diamond goes global and discusses the twelve big environmental dangers that threaten the whole world. His warning - and hope - is that everything is interconnected. Environmental disaster in one part of the world will lead to a wave of migrants that could trigger collapse elsewhere. His hope is that the rise of global communications will lead to a general awareness of the dangers that will force leaders to take a more long-term view and implement environmentally-friendly policies. As he says, the environmental problems are not insoluble; the challenge is to get people to turn from their local concerns and face up to them.
Which, of course, is what this book is trying to do and why it's important. It is far from perfect - Diamond's style is too dry and academic and his constant listing of abstract factors and overuse of examples makes it difficult to turn the pages sometimes. His stories, however, are compelling and we need to learn from them. One lesson that stood out for me is the importance of deforestation, which is a feature of all the collapses he describes. Whether it be through climate change, logging for firewood or building, or slash-and-burn agriculture, a society which loses its trees is ultimately doomed. Perhaps the best thing we can do if we want to survive as a species is to plant more of them and ensure that they thrive. The word for world really is forest.