Allison Mitrovich

From Drmills

Revised Book 1:

‘’’4.1 Collapsed human societies’’’
Populations throughout history have grown and fallen; unless we learn from these prior civilizations we are ultimately heading down the same path. There has been a current brown lash against ideas that our population will fall saying, “the human mind is the ultimate power,” yet nothing ecologically has changed due to this “power.” It is therefore essential to understand what when wrong within preceding societies.
The Polynesians were one of the first civilizations to settle and survive on an island, but they were also one of the first civilizations to collapse. Their inhabitance on Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is a condensed version of what can happen to the whole of the Earth; a civilization rises to an ultimate point where they can no longer sustain living and then the civilization witnesses a collapse (Diamond, 2005). In Jared Diamond’s book Collapse, he believes that according to history there are eight existing factors, that will account for a collapse (Diamond, 2005):
“1. Deforestation and habitat destruction
2. Soil problems (erosion, salinization, and soil fertility losses)
3. Water management problems
4. Over hunting
5. Over fishing
6. Effects of introduced species on native species
7. Human population growth
8. Increased per-capita impact of people”
If his points hold true, we should then be able to find information from Easter Island to support his claim and then it will be worth while to look at our current society and the direction we are heading
Easter Island
.
[1]
When Europeans first began to travel to Easter Island they discovered a barren place that would be incapable of sustaining many people. There was little to no trees, minimal vegetation and hardly any animals. How would a civilization survive? No food? No means of creating housing? It was in credible to think a society once lived there. Apart from the deforestation on the island, it was noted by many navigators who visited the island including Captain James Cook (in his book Blue Latitudes): that the humidity was very high, that there was insufficient means of transporting water (often leaving pools of stagnant water), that there was minimal fresh water and the fresh water that was available had to be obtained from remote sources, there was only a small number of animals on the island, and the surrounding waters on the island contained hardly any fish all of which supports Diamond’s first, second, and third points of actions leading to collapse. On top of these accounts of harsh livings on the islands, the Polynesians brought over lots of live stock which contributed to the deforestation (on an already limited resourced island), which would account for Diamonds’ sixth point. Then according to Diamond if the population rose, which would naturally occur, there would be an increased impact on the environment by the people, including depleting effects on the amount of fish and other animals to consume which would account for Diamond’s fourth and fifth point. Once the Polynesians on the Easter Island touched on all eight of Diamond’s points, the island first began to see an outbreak of wars, then the people began to witness an exhaustion of their food, which lead to cannibalism and then ultimately the final collapse of the people. In the end according to Ronald Wright in his book A Short History of Progress, the society had created more statues (Moai) than there were people left, “the Europeans arrived in the eighteenth century, the worst was over and they only found one or two living souls per statue.”
Easter Island Moai

[www.thelope.com]

This civilization might seem like an extreme case and that we today could never reach that point, but as a civilization we have already touched on Diamond’s eight points. Currently13 million hectares of the world’s forests are lost each year, which accounts for the deforestation (Diamond’s first point). In 1930-1936 we experienced the Dust Bowl, encountering problems with soil fertility, and erosion of the lands (Diamond’s second point). Then in 1996, the National Water Quality Inventory “reported to Congress, that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concluded that approximately 40% of the nation's surveyed lakes, rivers, and estuaries were too polluted for such basic uses as drinking supply, fishing, and swimming” (West, World Water Day) not allowing for proper water management (Diamonds third point). According to the Greenpeace group (ref), “seven out of ten (69%) of the oceans' commercially targeted marine fish stocks are fished beyond ecologically safe limits, being either fully or heavily exploited, overexploited, depleted, or very slowly recovering from collapse after previous overfishing” (Diamond’s fourth point). For Diamond’s fifth sign of collapse, over hunting, it seems like all is well currently, but this is not the case. Currently we are witnessing more and more animals becoming extinct, and although we may not be directly “hunting” these animals, we are driving them to death. For Diamonds sixth, seventh, and eighth point, we are exhausting our globes resources through our (over) population. As a society we are growing at an exponential rate and we are using our nonrenewable resources faster than we can replace them, for example oil. In looking at all of these points of which can further be reinforced, it would seem that we are definitely heading down the path towards a civilization collapse, and or even worse a global collapse.
Interesting sites regarding Easter Island:
General information regarding Easter Island and its origins
[2]
Wikipedia
[3]
Controversies over the Island
[4]
References
-Diamond, J. (2005). “Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed.” London: Vintage.
-Greenpeace International, Biodiversity Campaign, The Netherlands.
-Horowitz, Tony. (2002). “Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone
Before.” NY: Henry Holt and Company.
-West, Larry. "World Water Day: A Billion People Worldwide Lack Safe Drinking
Water", About, March 26, 2006.

Contribution to email group:

Hi Guys,

I found an article on MSN.com on how to actively conserve. While I know a bunch of these articles tend to get redundant, I found it interesting that this article mentioned the simple task of putting air in your car tires. The article said that putting air in your tires more regularly can save around 7 cents per gallon, not too bad considering gas is only going to get more and more expensive. If any of you would like to read the article it is called, “10 Things You Can Do,” By Conservation International, updated: 10/16/2007 at 12:00:00 AM.

Contribution to class blog:

This is my first blog ever, to any sort of site or anything, so we’ll see how this goes. After listening to lectures for the past several weeks, I feel I am becoming more aware of my surroundings. I am on the rowing team where we practice every morning in Ballona Creek, and each practice I am praying that I don’t get hit in the eye with the dirty water because if I do it’s a 50/50 chance of whether or not I am going to get pink eye or some other infection. And although this has been my common concern, this week I found myself being less concerned with myself and more concerned about the marine life that has to live in these dirty waters. I then and there decided that morning that I wanted to do something about the creeks waters. It is thereby my goal to have attempted to have made a contribution to help clean up the waters by my next blog. So until next week, thank you for your time.

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Allison Mitrovich

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