Collapse

by Diamond, Jared

  Chapter 14

  Along with questions by my UCLA students, Joseph Tainter’s book The Collapses of Complex Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) provided a starting point for this chapter, by stating clearly why a society’s failure to solve its environmental problems poses a puzzle crying out for explanation. Thomas McGovern et al. “Northern islands, human error, and environmental degradation: a view of social and ecological change in the medieval North Atlantic” (Human Ecology 16:225-270 (1988)) traces a sequence of reasons why the Greenland Norse failed to perceive or solve their own environmental problems. The sequence of reasons that I propose in this chapter overlaps partly with that of McGovern et al., whose model should be consulted by anyone interested in pursuing this puzzle.

  Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues have studied the tragedy of the commons (alias common-pool resources), using both comparative surveys and experimental games to identify the conditions under which consumers are most likely to recognize their common interests and to implement an effective quota system themselves. Ostrom’s books include Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) and Elinor Ostrom, Roy Gardner, and James Walker, Rules, Games, and Common-Pool Resources (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994). Her more recent articles include Elinor Ostrom, “Coping with tragedies of the commons” Annual Reviews of Political Science 2: 493-535 (1999); Elinor Ostrom et al., “Revisiting the commons: local lessons, global challenges” Science 284:278-282 (1999); and Thomas Dietz, Elinor Ostrom, and Paul Stern, “The struggle to govern the commons” Science 302:1907-1912 (2003).

  Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam (New York: Ballantine Books, 1984) covers disastrous decisions over exactly the time span that she names in the book’s title, also reflecting en route from Troy to Vietnam on the follies of the Aztec emperor Montezuma, the fall of Christian Spain to the Moslems, England’s provocation of the American Revolution, and other such self-destructive acts. Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1993, reprint of the original 1852 edition) covers an even wider range of follies than does Tuchman, including (just to name a few) the South Sea bubble in 18th-century England, tulip madness in 17th-century Holland, prophecies of the Last Judgment, the Crusades, witch hunting, belief in ghosts and sacred relics, dueling, and kings’ decrees about hair length, beards, and mustaches. Irving Janis, Groupthink (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983, revised 2nd ed.) explores the subtle group dynamics that contributed to the success or failure of deliberations involving recent American presidents and their advisors. Janis’s case studies are of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, the American army’s crossing of the 38th parallel in Korea in 1950, American’s non-preparation for Japan’s 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, America’s escalation of the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1967, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and America’s adoption of the Marshall Plan in 1947.

  Garrett Hardin’s classic and often-cited article “The tragedy of the commons” appeared in Science 162:1243-1248 (1968). Mancur Olson applies the metaphor of stationary bandits and roving bandits to Chinese warlords and other extractive agents in “Dictatorship, democracy, and development” (American Political Science Review 87:567-576 (1993)). Sunk-cost effects are explained by Hal Arkes and Peter Ayton, “The sunk cost and Concorde effects: are humans less rational than lower animals?” (Psychological Bulletin 125:591-600 (1999)), and by Marco Janssen et al., “Sunk-cost effects and vulnerability to collapse in ancient societies” (Current Anthropology 44:722-728 (2003)).

  Chapter 15

  Two books on the oil industry’s history and on scenarios for its future are: Kenneth Deffeyes, Hubbert’s Peak: the Impending World Oil Shortage (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001); and Paul Roberts, The End of Oil (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004). For a perspective within the industry, a place to start would be the websites of the major international oil companies, such as that of ChevronTexaco: www.chevrontexaco.com.

  Fact-filled publications on the state of the mining industry were produced by an initiative termed “Mining, Minerals, and Sustainable Development,” resulting from a partnership supported by major mining companies. Two of these publications are: Breaking New Ground: Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development (London: Earthscan, 2002); and Alistair MacDonald, Industry in Transition: a Profile of the North American Mining Sector (Winnipeg: International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2002). Other fact-filled sources are the publications of the Mineral Policy Center in Washington, D.C., recently renamed Earthworks (Web site www.mineralpolicy.org). Some books on environmental issues raised by mining are: Duane Smith, Mining America: the Industry and the Environment, 1800-1980 (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 1993); Thomas Power, Lost Landscapes and Failed Economies: The Search for a Value of Place (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1996); Jerrold Marcus, ed., Mining Environmental Handbook: Effects of Mining on the Environment and American Environmental Controls on Mining (London: Imperial College Press, 1997); and Al Gedicks, Resource Rebels: Native Challenges to Mining and Oil Corporations (Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press, 2001). Two books describing the collapse of copper mining on the island of Bougainville, triggered in part by environmental impacts, are: M. O’Callaghan, Enemies Within: Papua New Guinea, Australia, and the Sandline Crisis: The Inside Story (Sydney: Doubleday, 1999); and Donald Denoon, Getting Under the Skin: The Bougainville Copper Agreement and Creation of the Panguna Mine (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000).

  Information about forest certification may be obtained from the website of the Forest Stewardship Council: www.fscus.org. For a comparison of forest certification by the FSC with other forest certification schemes, see Saskia Ozinga, Behind the Logs: An Environmental and Social Assessment of Forest Certification Schemes (Moreton-in-Marsh, UK: Fern, 2001). Two books on the history of deforestation are John Perlin, A Forest Journey: The Role of Wood in the Development of Civilization (New York: Norton, 1989); and Michael Williams, Deforesting the Earth: From Prehistory to Global Crisis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).

  Information about fisheries certification may be obtained from the Web site of the Marine Stewardschip Council: www.msc.org. Howard M. Johnson (Web site www.hmj.com) produces a series called Annual Report on the United States Seafood Industry (Jacksonville, Ore.: Howard Johnson, annually). Aquaculture of shrimp and salmon is treated in two chapters of Jason Clay, World Agriculture and the Environment: A Commodity-by-Commodity Guide to Impacts and Practices (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2004). Four books on overfishing of fish in general or of specific fish species are: Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (New York: Walker, 1997); Suzanne Ludicello, Michael Weber, and Robert Wreland, Fish, Markets, and Fishermen: The Economics of Overfishing (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1999); David Montgomery, King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon (New York: Westview, 2003 ); and Daniel Pauly and Jay Maclean, In a Perfect Ocean (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2003). An example of an article on overfishing is: Jeremy Jackson et al., “Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems” (Science 293:629-638 (2001)). The discovery that aquacultured salmon contain higher concentrations of toxic contaminates than do wild salmon was reported by Ronald Hits et al., “Global assessment of organic contaminates in farmed salmon” (Science 303:226-229: 2004).

  It would be impossible to understand environmental practices of big businesses without first understanding the realities of what companies must do to survive in an intensely competitive business world. Three widely read books on this subject are: Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman, Jr., In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America’s Best-Run Companies (New York: Harper Collins, 1982, republished in 2004); Robert Waterman, Jr., The Renewal Factor: How the Best Get and Keep the Competitive Edge (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1987); and Robert Waterman, Jr., Adhocracy: The Power to Change (New York: Norton,
1990).

  Books that discuss the circumstances under which businesses may be environmentally constructive rather than destructive include Tedd Saunders and Loretta McGovern, The Bottom Line of Green Is Black: Strategies for Creating Profitable and Environmentally Sound Businesses (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993); and Jem Bendell, ed., Terms for Endearment: Business NGOs and Sustainable Development (Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf, 2000).

  Chapter 16

  Some books, published since 2001, that provide an overview of current environmental problems and an introduction to the large literature on this subject include: Stuart Pimm, The World According to Pimm: a Scientist Audits the Earth (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001); Lester Brown’s three books Eco-economy: Building an Economy for the Earth (New York: Norton, 2001), Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and Civilization in Trouble (New York, Norton: 2003), and State of the World (New York: Norton, published annually since 1984); Edward Wilson, The Future of Life (New York: Knopf, 2002); Gretchen Daily and Katherine Ellison, The New Economy of Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2002); David Lorey, ed., Global Environmental Challenges of the Twenty-first Century: Resources, Consumption, and Sustainable Solutions (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2003); Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich, One with Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2004); and James Speth, Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004).

  The Further Readings for Chapter 15 provided references for problems of deforestation, overfishing, and oil. Vaclav Smil, Energy at the Crossroads: Global Perspectives and Uncertainties (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003) offers an account not only of oil, coal, and gas but also of other forms of energy production. The biodiversity crisis and habitat destruction are discussed by John Terborgh, Where Have All the Birds Gone? (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989) and Requiem for Nature (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1999); David Quammen, Song of the Dodo (New York: Scribner, 1997); and Marjorie Reaka-Kudla et al., eds., Biodiversity 2: Understanding and Protecting Our Biological Resources (Washington, D.C.: Joseph Henry Press, 1997).

  Some recent papers on coral reef destruction are: T. P. Hughes, “Climate change, human impacts, and the resilience of coral reefs” (Science 301:929-933 (2003)); J. M. Pandolfi et al., “Global trajectories of the long-term decline of coral reef ecosystems” (Science 301:955-958 (2003)); and D. R. Bellwood et al., “Confronting the coral reef crisis” (Nature 429:827-833 (2004)).

  Books on soil problems include the classic Vernon Gill Carter and Tom Dale, Topsoil and Civilization, revised ed. (Norman: University of Okalahoma Press, 1974), and Keith Wiebe, ed., Land Quality, Agricultural Productivity, and Food Security: Biophysical Processes and Economic Choices at Local, Regional, and Global Levels (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2003). Articles offering different perspectives on soil problems are David Pimentel et al., “Environmental and economic costs of soil erosion and conservation benefits” (Science 267:1117-1123 (1995)); Stanley Trimble and Pierre Crosson, “U.S. soil erosion rates—myth and reality” (Science 289:248-250 (2000)); and a set of eight articles by various authors, published in Science 304:1613-1637 (2004).

  For issues concerning the world’s water supplies, see the reports authored by Peter Gleick and published every two years: e.g., Peter Gleick, The World’s Water, 1998-1999: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2000). Vernon Scarborough, The Flow of Power: Ancient Water Systems and Landscapes (Santa Fe: School of American Research, 2003) compares solutions to water problems in ancient societies around the world.

  A global accounting of the fraction of solar energy utilized by plant photosynthesis (termed “net primary production”) was offered by Peter Vitousek et al., “Human domination of Earth’s ecosystems” (Science 277:494-499 (1997)), and updated and broken down by region by Mark Imhoff et al. “Global patterns in human consumption of net primary production” (Nature 429:870-873 (2004)).

  Effects of toxic chemicals on living things, including humans, are summarized by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers, Our Stolen Future (New York: Plume, 1997). One specific example of the high economic costs of toxic and other impacts on an entire ecosystem is an account for Chesapeake Bay: Tom Horton and William Eichbaum, Turning the Tide: Saving the Chesapeake Bay (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1991).

  Among books offering good accounts of global warming and climate change are Steven Schneider, Laboratory Earth: The Planetary Gamble We Can’t Afford to Lose (New York: Basic Books, 1997); Michael Glantz, Currents of Change: Impacts of El Ninõ and La Ninã on Climate and Society, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); and Spencer Weart, The Discovery of Global Warming (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003).

  Three classics in the large literature on human population are Paul Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968); Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich, The Population Explosion (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990); and Joel Cohen, How Many People Can the Earth Support? (New York: Norton, 1995).

  To place my assessment of the environmental and population problems of my city of Los Angeles in a wider context, see a book-length corresponding effort for the whole United States: The Heinz Center, The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems: Measuring the Lands, Waters, and Living Resources of the United States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

  Readers interested in more detailed statements of the dismissals of environmentalists’ concerns that I list as one-liners may consult Bjórn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). For more extended responses to the one-liners, see Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich, Betrayal of Science and Reason (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1996). The Club of Rome study discussed in that section of my chapter is Donella Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth (New York: Universe Books, 1972), updated by Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows, The Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update (White River Junction, Vt.: Chelsea Green, 2004). For the issue of how to decide whether there are too few or too many false alarms, see S. W. Pacala et al., “False alarm over environmental false alarms” (Science 301:1187-188 (2003)).

  Some entries to the literature on the connections between environmental and population problems on the one hand, and political instability on the other hand, include: the website of Population Action International, www.populationaction.org; Richard Cincotta, Robert Engelman, and Daniele Anastasion, The Security Demographic: Population and Civil Conflict after the Cold War (Washington, D.C.: Population Action International, 2004); the annual journal The Environmental Change and Security Project Report, published by the Woodrow Wilson Center (website www.wilson.org/ecsp); and Thomas Homer-Dixon, “Environmental scarcities and violent conflict: evidence from cases” (International Security 19:5-40 (1994)).

  Finally, readers curious about what other garbage besides dozens of Suntory whiskey bottles drifted onto the beaches of remote Oeno and Ducie atolls in the Southeast Pacific Ocean should consult the three tables in T. G. Benton, “From castaways to throwaways: marine litter in the Pitcairn Islands” (Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 56:415-422 (1995)).

  For all of the 12 major sets of environmental problems that I summarized at the beginning of Chapter 16, there already exist many excellent books discussing how governments and organizations could address them. But there still remains the question that many people ask themselves: what can I do, as an individual, that might make a difference? If you are wealthy, you can obviously do a lot: for example, Bill and Melinda Gates have decided to devote billions of dollars to urgent public health problems around the world. If you are in a position of power, you can use that position to advance your agenda: for example, President George W. Bush of the U.S., and President Joaquín Balaguer of the Dominican Republic, used their positions to influence decisively, albeit in different ways, the environmental age
ndas of their respective countries. However, the vast majority of us who lack that wealth and power tend to feel helpless and hopeless in the face of the overwhelming power of governments and big businesses. Is there anything that a poor individual who is neither a CEO nor a political leader can do to make a difference?

  Yes, there are half-a-dozen types of actions that often prove effective. But it needs to be said at the outset that an individual should not expect to make a difference through a single action, or even through a series of actions that will be completed within three weeks. Instead, if you do want to make a difference, plan to commit yourself to a consistent policy of actions over the duration of your life.

  In a democracy, the simplest and cheapest action is to vote. Some elections, contested by candidates with very different environmental agendas, are settled by ridiculously small numbers of votes. An example was the year 2000 U.S. presidential election, decided by a few hundred votes in the state of Florida. Besides voting, find out the addresses of your elected representatives, and take some time each month to let them know your views on specific current environmental issues. If representatives don’t hear from voters, they will conclude that voters aren’t interested in the environment.

  Next, you can reconsider what you, as a consumer, do or don’t buy. Big businesses aim to make money. They are likely to discontinue products that the public doesn’t buy, and to manufacture and promote products that the public does buy. The reason that increasing numbers of logging companies are adopting sustainable logging practices is that consumer demand for wood products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council exceeds supply. Of course, it is easiest to influence companies in your own country, but in today’s globalized world the consumer has increasing ability to influence overseas companies and policy-makers as well. A prime example is the collapse of white-minority government and apartheid policies in South Africa between 1989 and 1994, as the result of the economic boycott of South Africa by individual consumers and investors overseas, leading to an unprecedented economic divestiture by overseas corporations, public pension funds, and governments. During my several visits to South Africa in the 1980s, the South African state seemed to me so irrevocably committed to apartheid that I never imagined it would back down, but it did.