Diamond A Tale of Two Farms

For this blog entry I will be reflecting on some quotes from Jared Diamond's: A Tale of Two Farms. These are my thoughts, beliefs, questions, and/or concerns.

"It has long been suspected that many of those mysterious abandonment's were at least partly triggered by ecological problems: people inadvertently destroying the environmental resources on which their societies depended." - Jared Diamond (Diamond 20)

This statement holds true throughout history we've seen many powerful civilizations fall due destruction of their environment. I was recently in an archaeological class where we learned about many of these civilizations and its always the same story death my war or by their own hands due to deforestation The most popular example of this is the Mayan civilization they were striving for 1200 years with no signs of decline. At their peak they had 2,000 people per square mile comparable to modern Los Angeles County. There large population caused them to deforest and destroy their landscape in efforts to supply for everyone. With the destruction of trees temperatures rose causing a drought. This lead to food shortages, starvation, wars among people for resources, and destruction of their civilization as they knew it. Is the United States headed to this faith like the author implies?

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/06oct_maya/

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8175045/Amazon-deforestation-at-record-low-level.html

"We differ from past societies in some respects that put us at lower risk that them; some of those respects often mentioned include our powerful technology, modern medicine, and greater knowledge of past societies and of distant modern societies." - Jared Diamond (Diamond 23)

These are the reasons why I believe we are not headed down the same path as the Maya for example. The Maya had no way of knowing what they were doing would eventually lead to their demise, and neither would anyone else at the time. As humans we have needs and one of our basic needs is to eat if were not aware of the consequences we will do whatever it takes to eat. In current society despite our current destructive path I do believe we are much more educated. We’re eating organic foods, protesting environmental destruction, and doing things to keep our air clean. This is all a work in progress but we are making efforts all it takes is one tweet or the right news story and everyone is involved in the cause due to technology.

 

http://dgomezh.blogspot.com/2013/05/artificial-connection-to-nature.html

"In, particular, it would be dangerous to generalize from one society, or even just to be confident about interpreting a single collapse." - Jared Diamond (Diamond 37)

I feel like the author says this quote but then says we are headed to a collapse regardless. In the end I agree with this quote, there are just to many factors out there to predict a collapse of the Mayans magnitude today. The author is just too out there in my opinion and I don't think he ever goes into detail on how and what we should be doing to avoid this collapse he speaks of. Instead of looking at all the historical societies and saying were doomed to there faith, look at our current society and help us change and avoid that faith. 

 

http://mass.pakgalaxy.com/the-exponential-principle-in-culture.html