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COLLAPSE: An Ethical Book Review
ABSTRACT
The book Collapse by Jared Diamond clearly illustrates the consequences of not observing some of the ethical commandments on this little ball on which we are traveling through space. Most civilizations collapse, and a primary cause of the demise of these societies, of which several are mentioned, is destruction of their environment. The author of this review ties environmental awareness and need for solutions to environmental problems to ethical considerations. Collapse is a great work of case studies, and it deserves our attention. This review should provide an excellent springboard for student discussions of these important questions.
Having recently read the book Collapse by Jared Diamond, geography professor at UCLA, which clearly illustrates the consequences of not observing some of the ethical commandments on this little ball on which we are traveling through space, I thought I would share my reactions with you.
A fact of history is that most civilizations collapse, and a primary cause of the demise of these societies is destruction of their environment. The Maya in Mexico's Yucatan, whose population exceeded their crop-growing area; the Anasazi in New Mexico, whose population exceeded their water supply; the Norse in Greenland, who settled during a warm period and then endured falling temperatures to extinction; the statue builders of Easter Island, who cut every tree on which their civilization depended; the Mesopotamians in the formerly Fertile Crescent, who exhausted their soils and brought up salt with their irrigation water; and many others succumbed to various combinations of environmental degradation, climate change, aggression from enemies, and declining trade with neighbors. We know, or should know, better!
These combinations of undermining factors were compounded by cultural attitudes, preventing those in power from perceiving or resolving the crises, and are not dissimilar to present-day attitudes because of three misconceptions. The first is that we must balance the environment against human needs-that is, exactly upside down, it is humans who need a clean environment, clean water and air, food from land and sea, sunlight, and uneroded soil. The strongest argument should be selfishness-do we not want a healthy environment for ourselves and our children, should there be profit for greedy despoilers who neither swear truthfully nor honor their parents by selling...