Collapse by Jared Diamond

In the past 4ooo or so years, many great civilizations rose to fame and crashed down, with only a few managing to survive. Most civilizations seem to peak for about 200 years with a total lifespan of 400-500 years. Back from the days of Mesopotamian, Sumerian, Akkadian, Persian, Indus, Greek, Roman societies into the post-Christiandom period cultures such as Nordic, Maya, Aztec, Inca, Tokukawa, North America, only a few have managed to leave behind some traces (With American empire still living in full vitality). The others have fell apart like castles made on sand washed away by the tides of time.

Jared Diamond, Professor of Geography and Physiology at UCLA, has often been criticized for being a pessimist, a determinist as well as a nihilist. Being a few of these myself, I echo some of his sentiments. I have read two of his books and I sometimes agree, that he tries to oversimplify some complex issues. But he hits the nail on the head in his latest book, Collapse. Addressing the causes of civilizational collapse, he traces the peaks and troughs of societies as varied geographically and culturally as Papa New Guinean, Polynesian, Inca, Meso-american, Nordic, Greenland/Icelandic and the post modern world societies such as Australian, Chinese, Japanese and Rwandan (I wonder why he skipped India). He diligently researched the raise of human life in each of these countries, its current ecological problems and its somewhat bleak future. Humans carelessly rape this planet of its resources, which usually take millions of years to recreate. These diminishing resources include not just the ubiquitous whipping boy, oil, but also fisheries, animal stock and even sunlight for photosynthesis. Why are we so careless? Why are we so full of ourselves that we just don't look around? Why we do fall and not realize that we are falling and do something about it?

Jared's earlier work Guns, Germs & Steel is a logical starting point to Collapse. In GGS, he writes about how white man has come to dominate the modern world with his 'cargo' (goods & services). Sounds funny, but that's exactly why Jared claims he wrote GGS, a Pulitzer Prize winning book no less. I have the excellent National Geographic Documentary and I strongly recommend it to anyone who is interested in history, anthropology and humanity. Jared works a beautiful albeit deterministic theory (some find this irritating) and seemingly simplistic solution to the question on why white societies are more prosperous than others. In Collapse, Jared probes deeper into this question and the related ones such as why some societies survive and why some fail. Can we learn something from these failures as well as successes so we can learn the lessons which will pull us out of the harm's way we are driving ourselves into?

Collapse essentially covers three topics, dead societies, surviving societies and lessons to be learned from both. To even think that we, as humans, made it this far, in terms of technological progress and creating creature comforts for more people than ever before is surely an amazing journey.

This incredible journey begins in the enchanting Polynesia. Jared describes how humans have built sustainable societies without a break for over 40,000 years in Papua New Guinea. Around 100,000 years back, men and women started to walk upright and around 50,000 back cro-magnons evolved into homo sapiens. So you can imagine how rich the history and culture of Papua New Guinea would be. Starting from Africa, humans traveled across the coast (Middle East, India, Indonesia) and arrived at New Guinea all those many years back. And across Australia, they have somehow managed to move into the remotest parts of the world, the Easter Islands. Only discovered recently (two hundred or so years back), these islands have been inhabited for over 2000 years, uninterruptedly. They are about the size of a football ground and to survive in that much area for that long, is really quite amazing. Since Jared moves centuries at a time across a few pages, one can imagine how some chapters can be too succinct or even curt. But we do get a clear picture of the entire Polynesia region. Then we move on to Central America (Anasazi), and learn how native Indians there build a civilization thousands of years back but somehow perished due to climate changes and crop failures. Jared then jumps into Mayan societies in the 7-10 century AD. No two Maya scholars agree how this amazing civilization ended. Internecine tribal wars, weather changes, water problems, your guess is as good as mine.

I have always believed that we are living at a time which is more advanced than any before. We created more comforts for a larger section of people than ever before. We have controlled weather, providing for the sick, raised more productive crops than any civilization could have done before. We have devices like the iPads (functionality leave aside), that look cool and make life exciting, if you will. For instance, since the invention of the printing press around the 13th century, we have seen a tremendous growth in science and technology. New lands were being discovered and new medicines patented. But whose to say that ancient Greeks, or Romans, or Mayans or Hindus were not advanced for their times? Jared describes various practices of Mayans (who are credited with inventing the script, having an accurate calendar among others) some of which seem amazing. But they all perished. They were advanced for their times and so are we, so can we perish as well? As a society, can we self-destruct and leave nothing behind? Its possible since in history it has happened. Just because its possible does not mean it will happen, but the probability does exist.

Jared covers Nordic societies in Norway, Sweeden, Iceland and Greenland in some detail. I have always been fascinated with Vikings so this knowledge was very endearing. Vikings are credited with being the first people to discover North America (new world), about 500 years before Vasco Da Game sailed in 1492 and changed the course of the planet. But Vikings could not survive there and had to retreat. Their societies in Greenland collapsed while the Inuits survived. Its amazing to think about the dynamics of these problems. For instance, Vikings, after being converted to Christianity, looked down upon the Inuits, never collaborated with them and hence lost a great learning curve and paid the price of extinction.

Australia, Rwanda and China in the present times stand as great examples for sign of the times. Australia has severe population-growth problems, its hovering around 20 million and does not change. For a country that large, the only assets it has are coal and iron. It has serious agriculture worries. Only the Southwest is fertile and the rest of this huge country is barren. Fishing resources are dwindling and alien species such as rabbits, foxes and weeds are destroying local ecosystems. China for all its great growth, pollutes the planet with its massive growth. Urbanization in that country is putting great strains of natural resources. Rwanda is buried in deep ethnic conflicts between hutus and tutsis, which can be seen symbolically as representing the fragmented societies we have all come to live in. Religion separates us, Gods separate us, mores separate us, caste/ethnicity separates us, language separates us, even cuisines separate us. This fragmentation runs from Rwanda to India to LA. When I was walking in downtown LA for the first time I was told to leave the place before sunset, if I cared about myself. Its something like a hutu walking in a tutsi neighborhood in downturn Rwanda. Enough digression, but these are some of the points covered by Jared.

Civilizations fail because of a few factors, or usually by the confluence of one or more of these factors. Humans changing weather patters through pollution/abuse, weather changing by itself due to its capricious nature, friendly or hostile relations with neighbors and finally customs/practices/values. The astounding Angkor Watt in Cambodia perished due to lack of water. If you extrapolate that to current day situations around us, you think of California. There is a serious water shortage in Cali. The Govt. needs to work a sustainable solution to make water available for generations to come. We will be alright, since in our times nothing much might not change, we will have enough oil/water/food/air etc but its our kids who will be denied a few things we have (it could rain forests or dolphins). This is how Collapse ends. We do not take cognizance of the world around us and its problems, we will collapse as well. Waters will be run out of fishes if we fish faster than fishes can breed. Food will run short (like wheat today) if we do not practice sustainable agriculture. Are we not seeing the repercussion already? Food prices around the world have gone up by over 200% over the last few years. Forests will run out of wood if we clear cut trees without planting more.

Finally, what can you and I do about this? If you had the patience to read till here, you can make the change. Most people think that they cant change the world alone but change usually begins with one. Calvin Klein stopped using fur because consumers boycotted CK products. DuPont stopped producing CFC's (as late as 1989 tho), since scientists increased the awareness of its perils and consumers learned that refrigeration can cause skin cancer. We have to cross this Rubicon of indifference through action. If we stop buying SUVs and gas-guzzling Humvees and buy hybrids/electrics instead, the car manufactures will stop making SUVs (GM already doing it). Gulf of Mexico will not be causing some of us sleep less nights. If we stop buying meat of endangered (Shark fin soup? Please boycott, there are very few sharks left in the wild) species, and increase the awareness around our family and friends, some of these beautiful animals and plants will survive into the future. We can change, we have to change and we will not change at our own peril. An attitude to regress is a a recipe for the fall of once-mighty civilizations. Let the white light of this realization collapse into us, before we collapse!