Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed Read Online Free PDF Page A

troubled Third World countries that imposed an oil embargo in 1973. Similar problems arose in the past for the Greenland Norse, Pitcairn Islanders, and other societies.
    The last set of factors in my five-point framework involves the ubiqui tous question of the society's responses to its problems, whether those problems are environmental or not. Different societies respond differently to similar problems. For instance, problems of deforestation arose for many past societies, among which Highland New Guinea, Japan, Tikopia, and Tonga developed successful forest management and continued to prosper, while Easter Island, Mangareva, and Norse Greenland failed to develop suc cessful forest management and collapsed as a result. How can we under stand such differing outcomes? A society's responses depend on its political,
    economic, and social institutions and on its cultural values. Those institu tions and values affect whether the society solves (or even tries to solve) its problems. In this book we shall consider this five-point framework for each past society whose collapse or persistence is discussed.
    I should add, of course, that just as climate change, hostile neighbors, and trade partners may or may not contribute to a particular society's collapse, environmental damage as well may or may not contribute. It would be absurd to claim that environmental damage must be a major factor in all collapses: the collapse of the Soviet Union is a modern counter-example, and the destruction of Carthage by Rome in 146 b.c. is an ancient one. It's obviously true that military or economic factors alone may suffice. Hence a full title for this book would be "Societal collapses involving an environ mental component, and in some cases also contributions of climate change, hostile neighbors, and trade partners, plus questions of societal responses." That restriction still leaves us ample modern and ancient material to consider.
    Issues of human environmental impacts today tend to be controversial, and opinions about them tend to fall on a spectrum between two opposite camps. One camp, usually referred to as "environmentalist" or "pro-environment," holds that our current environmental problems are serious and in urgent need of addressing, and that current rates of economic and population growth cannot be sustained. The other camp holds that environmentalists' concerns are exaggerated and unwarranted, and that continued economic and population growth is both possible and desirable. The latter camp isn't associated with an accepted short label, and so I shall refer to it simply as "non-environmentalist." Its adherents come especially from the world of big business and economics, but the equation "non-environmentalist" = "pro- business" is imperfect; many businesspeople consider themselves environ mentalists, and many people skeptical of environmentalists' claims are not in the world of big business. In writing this book, where do I stand myself with the respect to these two camps?
    On the one hand, I have been a bird-watcher since I was seven years old. I trained professionally as a biologist, and I have been doing research on New Guinea rainforest birds for the past 40 years. I love birds, enjoy watch- mg them, and enjoy being in rainforest. I also like other plants, animals, and habitats and value them for their own sakes. I've been active in many efforts to preserve species and natural environments in New Guinea and elsewhere.
    For the past dozen years I've been a director of the U.S. affiliate of World Wildlife Fund, one of the largest international environmentalist organizations and the one with the most cosmopolitan interests. All of those things have earned me criticism from non-environmentalists, who use phrases such as "fearmonger," "Diamond preaches gloom and doom," "exaggerates risks," and "favors endangered purple louseworts over the needs of people." But while I do love New Guinea birds, I love much more my sons, my wife, my friends,