Doomsday scenario
Environmental destruction killed ancient civilisations and global awareness is no guarantee that our own will survive
GERARD DE GROOT
Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Survive
Jared Diamond
Penguin, £20
IMAGINE a scenario thousands of years from now, when an advanced civilisation sends a team of archaeologists to explore the culture formerly known as California. Buried deep within the barren sands of the lost civilisation they find a remarkably well preserved automobile which, they discover, was once known as a Sports Utility Vehicle or SUV.
But the purpose of this vehicle puzzles the archaeologists, since it seems too big and powerful for the simple task of moving human beings from Point A to Point B. The explorers conclude that the vehicle must have had a ritualistic purpose; that it might have been a symbol of wealth and status in the ancient society. After more digging they find lots of these automobiles, and deduce that the lost civilisation must have been very wealthy and very egotistic. Probing further, they discover that the culture called California was destroyed because of a combination of environmental disasters which turned a one-time paradise into a barren desert.
The Californians, they decide, were architects of their own collapse - their attraction to conspicuous consumption eventually making their very existence untenable. Their indestructible cars helped destroy the environment in which they lived.
To most people, such a scenario seems inconceivable. It is surely preposterous that modern civilisation as we know it would not only collapse but also leave no reliable account of its fate. We assume that cultural extinction, such as occurred long ago with the Mayans of Central America, or the people of Easter Island, is nowadays impossible. Technology and interdependence have, we presume, ruled out such a fate.
Jared Diamond is not quite so optimistic. Each of the civilisations he examines in this intriguing book were once advanced societies in which the possibility of collapse seemed inconceivable. The life they chose to lead eventually destroyed the environment on which they depended. Diamond believes their destruction provides salutary lessons for us all. He also fears that modern technology and global interdependence, rather than proving a safety net today, might in fact hasten our eventual extinction.
Diamond’s discussion of Easter Island in particular is both fascinating and frightening. A society eventually evolved on the island which had the surplus capacity - in raw materials, food and labour - to produce massive stone sculptures. These sculptures had a ritualistic purpose but were also symbols of status - rather like the gas-guzzling SUV. One of the more sobering facts about the ancient civilisation was that the last sculpture to be erected was also the largest. The obsession of clan chiefs to outdo their rivals by erecting ever more impressive monuments resulted in an environmental disaster that destroyed the entire race.
Visitors were long puzzled as to how 50-ton pieces of rock could be transported for miles on an island that had no large trees and no suitable vegetation to make rope. Investigation has, however, revealed that Easter Island was once a tropical paradise rich in a wide variety of plant life. Large trees provided the mechanisms on which the sculptures were transported, and the wood with which to make a fishing fleet. The wood was also used for cremating the dead.
In time, the demands of monument-building and cremation exhausted the supply of wood. Deforestation destroyed the habitat of birds which were part of the islanders’ diet, and also resulted in erosion of the topsoil, causing an agricultural crisis. Without wood the islanders could not make canoes and could not, therefore, fish. They took to eating rats, which they had accidentally brought to the island, and were extremely harmful to the ecosystem. Eventually the people started eating each other. It seems likely that mass starvation caused the peasants to turn on their masters, which might explain why all the sculptures were found toppled when European explorers discovered the island.
DIAMOND FEARS Easter Island might be a metaphor for the modern world. "Thanks to globalisation, international trade, jet planes and the internet, all countries on Earth today share resources and affect each other - just as did Easter’s dozen clans," he argues. "Polynesian Easter Island was as isolated in the Pacific Ocean as the Earth is today in space. When the islanders got into difficulties there was nowhere they could flee, nor turn for help."
This book is not, however, a dire warning of doom based on the isolated example of one ancient civilisation’s collapse. Diamond has investigated many different instances of cultural extinction, including the Mayans, Pitcairn Islanders, the Anasazi, Norse Greenlanders and the Vikings. From these examples he has discovered common experiences which are of relevance to our situation now.
He identifies five factors which can spell doom for a civilisation. The first three are somewhat obvious: environmental damage, climate change and hostile neighbours. The fourth factor - dependence on friendly trade partners - can be both a blessing and a curse. A society which is dependent on trade (as the US is dependent on Arab oil) can be brought down when its partner collapses, as was case with Mangareva, Henderson and the Pitcairn Islands, which collapsed precisely because of their tightly knit symbiosis.
Diamond’s fifth factor is the most significant. The extent to which a society recognises and responds to crisis is crucial. His examples from the past reveal that greed, hubris and selfishness often impeded recognition of a problem until it was too late. The subtitle of his book is crucial: societies choose to fail or survive. Diamond has achieved a brilliant synthesis of ecology, archaeology and history into an examination of the past and a lesson for the future. Seldom does one come across a book which intertwines politics, culture, science and human behaviour in such convincing and readable fashion.
The second half applies Diamond’s lessons from the past to the situation that confronts us now. It looks in particular at how problems in the Middle East, Rwanda, East Timor and elsewhere are essentially political manifestations of environmental crises relating to competition for scarce resources. It also examines the consequences for us all if the Chinese should achieve their goal of realising a First World standard of living for each and every one of their billion-plus citizens. What, for instance, will happen if the Chinese start craving SUVs?
Collapse is not a pleasant book. It scared the hell out of me. Anyone who thinks environmental disaster means merely the loss of a few cute animals or the destruction of some pretty forests should read this book and then buy a few copies for their friends. It demonstrates that we are destroying not just nature but ourselves.
Diamond describes himself as a cautious optimist. He ends the book with some suggestions as to how we might navigate our way out of the mess we have made. But for me, that was the least convincing part of the analysis. I suspect we might all be doomed.
Gerard De Groot is professor of modern history at St Andrews University
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