COLLAPSE

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• COLLAPSE
• How Societies Chooseto Fail or SucceedJARED
  DIAMOND
• author of the Pulitzer Prize-winningGUNS, GERMS,
  and STEEL
• Jim DeLeo
• NIH BCIG Book Club
• June 22, 2005

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Collapse

• a drastic decrease in
• human population size
• and/or
• political/economic/social complexity,
• over a considerable area,
• for an extended time.

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Signs of Collapse

• Floods
• Glacier Melt Downs
• Heavy Deforestation
• Grossly Corrupted Leadership
• Totalitarianism
• Slaughtering Neighbors
• Cannibalism

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What about U.S.?

• More likely than a doomsday scenario or an
  apocalyptic collapse of industrial civilization
  would be a future of significantly lower living
  standards.
• Jared Diamond Collapse
• Either we go into a depression which will
  help save the ecology or we go into a boom which
  will momentarily makes us happy but will
  eventually ruin the ecology.
• David Bohm Thought as A System
• We have a 10 year window to do something about
  global warming.
• Al Gore An Inconvenient Truth

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What about U.S.?

• More likely than a doomsday scenario or an
  apocalyptic collapse of industrial civilization
  would be a future of significantly lower living
  standards.
• Jared Diamond Collapse
• Either we go into a depression which will
  help save the ecology or we go into a boom which
  will momentarily makes us happy but will
  eventually ruin the ecology.
• David Bohm Thought as A System
• We have a 10 year window to do something about
  global warming.
• Al Gore An Inconvenient Truth

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What about U.S.?

• More likely than a doomsday scenario or an
  apocalyptic collapse of industrial civilization
  would be a future of significantly lower living
  standards.
• Jared Diamond Collapse
• Either we go into a depression which will
  help save the ecology or we go into a boom which
  will momentarily makes us happy but will
  eventually ruin the ecology.
• David Bohm Thought as A System
• We have a 10 year window to do something about
  global warming.
• Al Gore An Inconvenient Truth

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Who is Jared Diamond?

• Jared Diamond is a professor of geography at
• the University of California, L.A.  He began his
• scientific career in physiology and expanded
• into evolutionary biology and biography. He
• has published at least four books and
• more than two hundred articles in
• Discovery, Natural History, Nature, and
• Geo magazines. 

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Evolution of Man
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Evolution of Jared Diamond
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Evolution of Jared Diamond
Me like write books.
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2005
1997
1992
1997
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Who is Jared Diamond?

• He does write well.
• He credits his mother, a teacher and musician for
  the clear language that has made his books so
  popular.

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Who is Jared Diamond?

• He does write well.
• He credits his mother, a teacher and musician for
  the clear language that has made his books so
  popular.
• (If it ain't one thing its a mother.)

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Who is Jared Diamond?

• trained as a physiologist
• former world's foremost expert on salt
  re-absorption by the gall bladder
• a working conservationist
• an authority on the birds of New Guinea
• ability to write about geopolitical and
  environmental systems in ways that educate,
  provoke, and entertain

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December 2005
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Hi, Jared. Im your cousin Jim from Philadelphia
and Id like you to come to the NIH to review
your new book at a BCIG meeting.
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Hi, Jared. Im your cousin Jim from Philadelphia
and Id like you to come to the NIH to review
your new book at a BCIG meeting.
Im traveling too much. I need to spend more
time with my family in Los Angeles.
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I have no cousin Jim from Philadelphia. This
guys an imposter!
Hi, Jared. Im your cousin Jim from Philadelphia
and Id like you to come to the NIH to review
your new book at a BCIG meeting.
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Security!
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Collapse How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

• Factors for success or failure of societies
• climate change
• hostile neighbors 
• alternative sources of essential goods
• environmental problems
• response to environmental problems 

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Collapse How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

• Ancient societies examined
• Maya,
• Anasazi
• Norse Greenland
• Easter Island
• Modern societies examined
• Rwanda
• Haiti
• China
• Australia

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Collapse How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

• The following perspectives are challenged
• Technology will solve our problems.
• We can always switch to some other
• resource.
• The First World has no business telling
• the Third World what to do.

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Collapse How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

• Two big Conclusions
• (1) Responses to environmental changes
• has proven  to be most critical
  factor.
•   (2) Globalization has made everyone more
• interdependent and now the First
  World
• and Third World are all a part of the
  
• chain. 

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David Bohm

• Advanced weaponry, ecology and economy are
  sources of problems.
• Either we go into a depression which will help
  save the ecology or we go into a boom which will
  momentarily makes us happy but will eventually
  ruin the ecology.
• The faster we go into prosperity, the faster we
  create other problems.

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You cant have everything where would you put
it? - Steven Wright
Dont you think we are a little too
materialistic? Isnt this an important factor In
what were talking about here?
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David Bohm

• People have been dealing with global problems
  piecemeal treating symptoms.
• But there is something deeper which is not being
  considered that is constantly generating these
  problems.
• We can use the analogy of a stream where people
  are pouring pollution in upstream at the same
  time they are trying to remove it downstream.
  But as they remove it they may be adding more
  pollution of a different kind.

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insert pollutants here
remove pollutants here
insert pollutants here
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David Bohm

• The source of this trouble is basically

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David Bohm

• The source of this trouble is basically
• THOUGHT!
• from
• Thought as a System
• David Bohm

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Tragedy of Commons
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Tragedy of Commons
The Fifth Discipline
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Closer to Home

• At my condo a tree near the swimming pool was
  removed. The following reasons were given by our
  management
• (1) pine needles in the water
• (2) sap on the cars
• (3) structural damage
• to the pool deck

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Closer to Home

• At my condo a tree near the swimming pool was
  removed. The following reasons were given by our
  management
• (1) pine needles in the water
• (2) sap on the cars
• (3) structural damage
• to the pool deck

All total B.S.!
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• It is difficult to get a man to
• understand something
• when his salary depends on
• his not understanding it.
• Upton Sinclair
• 
  as quoted in the Al Gore movie and
• 
  book An Inconvenient Truth.

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Closer to Home

• Pros for the trees ltneeds workgt
• Shade,
• Deforestation of pool
• Benefits/loss
• Global warming
• System (thought
• as a system
• tie together)

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My Appeal to You

• I hope we will take our review and dialogue on
  the this book seriously.
• I hope we will think of instances in our own
  personal lives like I just did to consider
• where some of what Jared says might be
  affecting our lives and therefore the lives of
  all.
• Look for connections with Al Gore's An
  Inconvenient Truth.

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Definition of Collapse

• Collapse a drastic decrease in human
  population size and/or political/economic/ social
  complexity, over a considerable area, for an
  extended time.
• Collapse is an extreme form of several milder
  types of decline.
• It becomes arbitrary to decide how drastic the
  decline of a society must be before it qualifies
  to be labeled as a collapse.

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LINKS

• http//www.climateark.org/articles/reader.asp?link
  id38332
• http//seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/artsentertai
  nment/2002159510_jared25.html
• http//healthandenergy.com/collapse_of_societies.h
  tm
• http//www.newyorker.com/critics/books/?050103crbo
  _books
• http//us.penguingrou
• p.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780670033379,00.htm
• http//www.mediatimesreview.com/blog/2005/08/15/bi
  ology-doesnE28099t-explain-why-societies-collap
  se/

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PROLOGUE

• Diamond visited two farms similar in strengths
  and vulnerabilities.
• Vulnerabilities
• economic marginal districts
• short growing season
• harm by climate change
• far from population centers
• changing affluence and tastes of customers and
  neighbors

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PROLOGUE

• On a larger scale economies of their countries
  rose and fell with the waxing and waning of enemy
  societies.
• Hulls Farm in Montana is prospering today.
• Garder Farm in Greenland collapsed over 500 years
  ago because Greenland Morse society collapsed
  completely.
• Collapse seems incomprehensible in both.

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PROLOGUE

• He is not saying Hulls Farm and American society
  are doomed to decline, but that we face growing
  environmental problems that should not be
  underestimated.

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• 5-point framework of factors for
• success or failure of societies
• climate change
• hostile neighbors 
• alternative sources of essential goods
• environmental problems
• response to environmental problems 

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• 5-point framework of factors for
• success or failure of societies
• climate change
• hostile neighbors 
• alternative sources of essential goods
• environmental problems
• response to environmental problems 

Most important!
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PROLOGUE

• Our problems today are similar to those of past
  societies.
• Five-point framework of factors as working
  definition of collapse.
• How could a mighty society collapse?
• What happened to the individual citizens?
• Might such a fate befall the U.S.?
• Human ecological damage has been a causal agent
  in collapses.

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PROLOGUE

• Eight categories of environmental concerns
• Deforestation and habitat destruction
• Soil problems
• Water management problems
• Over hunting
• Over fishing
• Effects of introduced species on native species
• Human population growth
• Increased per capita impact of people

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PROLOGUE

• The risk of such collapses today is now of
  increasing concer n.
• Collapses have already materialized for Somalia,
  Rwanda and some other third world countries.

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PROLOGUE

• Today there are four more categories of
  environmental concerns
• Human caused climate change
• Buildup of toxic chemicals in the environment
• Energy shortages
• and full human utilization of the earths
  photosynthetic capacity

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PROLOGUE

• Most of these 12 categories of threats will
  become globally critical within the next few
  decades.
• Either we solve the problems by then or they will
  undermine first world societies
• More likely than a doomsday scenario or an
  apocalyptic collapse of industrial civilization
  would be a future of significantly lower living
  standards.
• What we do today can make a difference.

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PROLOGUE

• If we study past collapses it might give us
  insights about the future.
• Early people did not necessarily do bad things.
• They were like us facing similar problems and
  they did the best they could.
• What distinguished those that collapses from
  those that didnt.

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PROLOGUE

• Seriousness of these problems is vigorously
  debated exaggeration or underestimated?
• Is todays world population of 7 billion people
  with potent modern technology causing our
  environment to crumble globally and rapidly?
• Will modern technology solve our problems or is
  it creating new problems faster than it solves
  old ones.
• In the past people have caused local collapses
  because of these factors.

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• 5-point framework of factors for
• success or failure of societies
• climate change
• hostile neighbors 
• alternative sources of essential goods
• environmental problems
• response to environmental problems 

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PROLOGUE

• 5-point framework of factors derived.
• The fifth set of factors always proves
  significant.
• A society's responses always depends on its
  political, economic and social institutions and
  on its cultural values.
• In the book he considers this 5-point framework
  whose collapse or persistence is discussed.

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