Pulitzer-winning author Jared Diamond says Dutch society will succeed in the years ahead, but America may fail. Diamond sees America’s will to succeed being sapped by such eco-problems as overpopulation and pollution.
Diamond’s new book, “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed,” cites four societies that he says chose to fail: Easter Island in the Pacific, the Anasazi Indians of the American Southwest, the Mayan Indians of Central America, and the Viking colonies on Greenland.
Diamond, remarkably, fails to tell his readers that three of his four example societies failed primarily because of the natural 1500-year climate cycle.
Easter Island allowed itself to become overpopulated: The tiny, isolated island once had 10,000 people, all cutting trees to build homes, fishing boats and cooking fires. Overpopulation is the bane of every primitive society; many practice infanticide to prevent it.
Primitive societies also typically lack property rights. Nobody owned the Easter Island trees, so no one protected them and planted more. When there were no more trees, no more fishing boats could be built, and the population began to starve.
Diamond’s other three example societies collapsed because their technologies were inadequate to deal with the Earth’s natural 1500-year cycle of two-degree C warmings and coolings.
The Vikings’ lapstrake longships were marvelously strong and light, which is how they got across the North Atlantic to colonize Greenland in the 10th century—at the beginning of the Medieval Warming. But 400 years later, the Little Ice Age set in. Greenland’s marginal pastures produced less and less hay to feed their sheep and cattle through longer and colder winters. Supply ships no longer braved the increasing sea ice and storms to exchange wood, iron and tools for walrus tusks, so the Greenlanders’ own ships were no longer seaworthy. No one is sure whether the iced-in Greenlanders froze or starved. A ship from Iceland, blown off course to Greenland in 1540, found only one Viking skeleton, lying face down on the beach. The knife lying nearby was “bent, much worn and eaten away.”
The Anasazi and the Mayans both had irrigated agricultures in relatively dry regions. Both cultures collapsed during extended droughts. Near the Equator, the 1500-year climate cycle expresses itself in shifting rainfall patterns rather than through temperature change.
The Mayans had stone-lined reservoirs and irrigation canals, but the lake sediments tell us their cities were abandoned during a century of frequent, extended drought between 810 and 910 AD. That was during the cold Dark Ages.
The Anasazi built clever rainwater catchment systems. For a thousand years, their scattered farms supported more people as the catchments were extended. But during the Medieval Warming, there were two different centuries in the Southwest with almost no rain.
Even the mighty Roman Empire, which thrived during a global warming, was overcome by hungry barbarians during the Dark Ages.
Diamond says humans can’t depend on technology, because it may create more problems than it solves. But human populations are stabilizing, and even shrinking, amidst the ample food from high-yield farming. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides have eliminated the need to clear all the forests for crops. High-yield forestry can grow trees and floor joists faster than we need them. Conservation tillage, with herbicides, reduces soil erosion by 65 to 95 percent. Modern industries increase profits by reducing waste and pollution.
The most amazing element of Diamond’s anti-technology book is his example of a successful society: the Netherlands! He says the Netherlands will succeed because it’s the most ecologically-conscious country, recycling and conserving.
However, the Netherlands is also the most technology-dependent country in the world. Without their hydraulic floodgates and giant electric pumps, the Netherlands would quickly disappear under the waters of the North Sea. The Netherlands depends on engineers, not Green Council meetings.
Both the Netherlands and the U.S. will need even better technology, not less, as we cope with the ongoing Modern Warming—and the Modern Little Ice Age that will follow it about 1000 years from now.
